LSHSS

Clinical Forum

Facilitating Language Development for

Inner-City Children: Experimental
Evaluation of a Collaborative,
Classroom-Based Intervention
Pamela A. Hadley
Arizona State University, Tempe1
Alice Simmerman
Michele Long
Osborn School District, Phoenix, AZ
Michael Luna
Arizona State University, Tempe2

T he first goal developed by the National

Education Goals Panel is “By the year 2000,
all children in America will start school ready
to learn” (Copply, 1997). During the last decade, there has
been much discussion about what is encompassed in this
ambitious and optimistic goal, as well as what barriers may
prevent our nation from achieving it. Among the primary

2
Now affiliated with Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.
Now affiliated with San Jose Unified School District, San Jose, CA.

ABSTRACT small-group activity center weekly.

Purpose: This study explores the effectiveness of a collabora-
tive, classroom-based model in enhancing the development
of vocabulary and phonological awareness skills for
kindergarten and first-grade children in an inner-city school
district.
Method: Four regular education teachers from the neighbor-
hood school were randomly selected for participation.
Children were randomly assigned to classrooms following
usual school procedures. Two classrooms served as standard
practice controls. In the other two classrooms, a collabora-
tive service delivery model was implemented. One certified
speech-language pathologist taught in each experimental
classroom 21/2 days per week. The speech-language patholo-
gist and the regular education teachers engaged in joint
curriculum planning on a weekly basis. Vocabulary and
phonological awareness instruction was embedded into
ongoing curricular activities. Additionally, explicit instruction
in phonological awareness was planned for a 25-minute
Results: Following the 6-month intervention, superior gains
were noted in receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary,
beginning sound awareness, and letter-sound associations for
children in the experimental classrooms as compared to
children in the standard practice control classrooms. The
children in the experimental classrooms also showed greater
improvement on a deletion task in comparison to the
children in the standard practice classrooms. Importantly,
this task was never used as an instructional activity, and
thus demonstrated generalization to a novel phonological
awareness task.
Clinical Implications: The results are discussed with regard
to the positive benefits of collaboration in facilitating the
language abilities of inner-city children who are at risk for
academic difficulties in the early elementary grades.
KEY WORDS: language intervention, collaboration, language
delay, limited English speaking

280 LANGUAGE , SPEECH , AND H EARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS • Vol. 31 • 280–295 • July 2000 © American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
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 areas identified as contributing to children’s success in
formal educational settings are health and physical develop-
ment, emotional well-being and social competence, ap-
proaches to learning, communication skills, and cognition/
general knowledge. Of these major areas, “deficiency in
language” has been overwhelmingly reported by kindergar-
ten teachers as the problem that most restricts children’s
school readiness (Boyer, 1991).
The current study evolved out of local teacher concerns
regarding the limited communication and language skills of
students in their school district. Located near downtown
Phoenix, Arizona, the school district was experiencing the
impact of downtown redevelopment. Rapid changes in
student demographics had occurred. Neighborhoods that had
once been primarily Caucasian, middle-class families had
given way to a multi-cultural mix of low- and moderate-
income families (Osborn School District, 1997). Younger
and larger families occupied the neighborhood homes,
increasing the number of students enrolled in the district by
23.5% between the 1990–1991 and 1996–1997 academic
years. Many of the children in the district lived in homes
with incomes that were below or slightly above the federal
poverty guidelines. That is, 83% of students in the district
were eligible for the free or reduced school lunch program
based on their family incomes. In addition, several refugee
resettlement areas were located near the downtown,
increasing the percentage of non-English-speaking families
in the district. In 1996–1997, 23 languages other than
English were spoken by students in the district, and 28% of
the total student body was considered to have limited
English proficiency (LEP).
Amid the complex issues related to children living in
poverty, the kindergarten teachers did not believe that their
students’ spoken language abilities were sufficiently well
developed to serve as a foundation for formal academic
learning. The teachers had good reason to be concerned
given the well-documented relationship between children’s
early language abilities and subsequent reading and
academic achievement (e.g., Butler, Marsh, Sheppard, &
Sheppard, 1985; Snow & Tabors, 1993). In particular,
research has linked limited language skills to poor reading
and academic outcomes among children from low-income
homes (e.g., Walker, Greenwood, Hart, & Carta, 1994) and
children with identified language impairments (e.g., Aram,
Ekelman, & Nation, 1984; Stothard, Snowling, Bishop,
Chipchase, & Kaplan, 1998). Additionally, children from
minority backgrounds, especially those who have difficulty
speaking English, often face considerable challenges
learning to read and progressing through school (Donohue,
Voekl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999; Federal Interagency
Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 1998; Snow, Burns,
& Griffin, 1998).
To address the district’s concerns, a language enhance-
ment project was initiated to facilitate the language abilities
of these young children who were at risk for academic
difficulties. The school district had hired a full-time
speech-language pathologist through Title VI funds for this
purpose. The project was envisioned as a collaborative
service delivery model involving regular classroom teachers
and the speech-language pathologist (American Speech-
Hadley et al.: Classroom-Based Language Facilitation
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Language-Hearing Association, 1991b). The collaborative
model assumes that no one person or profession has
sufficient expertise to execute all of the functions associ-
ated with providing educational services to students. Rather,
each professional contributes a unique knowledge base and
expertise to the process. For example, the classroom
teachers bring a wealth of experience in curriculum
development, developmentally appropriate activities,
whole-group instruction, and classroom behavior manage-
ment techniques. The speech-language pathologist contrib-
utes her knowledge of typical and atypical language
development and an expertise in implementing naturalistic
language facilitation techniques in special education
classrooms. Thus, in collaborative models, professionals
jointly determine student needs, develop goals, plan
activities to achieve the goals, implement the activities,
and evaluate the progress of the students (see also DiMeo,
Merritt, & Culatta, 1998; Farber & Klein, 1999; Miller,
1989; Russell & Kaderavek, 1993). The district also
wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of this effort system-
atically, but it had few resources available for program
evaluation. Thus, the school district approached research-
ers from the local university for assistance. Over time, the
project evolved into a research-to-practice partnership
between the district and university researchers (see
Wilcox, Hadley, & Bacon, 1998).
Two primary responsibilities were identified for the
teachers and speech-language pathologist. First, more
language learning opportunities were to be embedded
within the meaningful activities of the classroom curricu-
lum. As noted by Cummins (1984), academic success for
minority students depends critically on their ability to
manipulate cognitively demanding decontextualized lan-
guage, but to attain this level of language proficiency,
language use in context-embedded situations must first be
well established. Second, the speech-language pathologist
was to modify the English language input in the class-
rooms, making it more comprehensible for all children with
limited English communication abilities, and to assist
classroom teachers in modifying their own language input
more effectively. Together, these two adjustments were
intended to benefit the children with language delays from
disadvantaged homes, the children with identified special
educational needs, and the children learning English as a
second language. This instructional approach was most
consistent with a “sheltered instruction” approach to
teaching children learning English as a second language.
August and Hakuta (1998) characterized sheltered
instructional programs as those that conduct educational
instruction in English, but modify the language input to
make it comprehensible for nonnative English speakers. The
focus on English language skills was not viewed as ideal
from the perspective of the district. However, it was the
most feasible option given the diversity of native languages
within the district, the lack of personnel with proficiency in
languages other than English, and the financial resources
available to the district for program implementation.
A blueprint for building the language-focused curriculum
of the current project was based on the curriculum ap-
proach of the Language Acquisition Preschool. (See Bunce,
281
 1995a and Rice & Wilcox, 1995 for a complete description
of project staff, curricular planning guidelines, and imple-
mentation guidelines.) This preschool program was de-
signed to meet the early educational needs of three distinct
groups of children within the same classroom setting:
children with typical language abilities, children with
language impairments, and children developing English as a
second language. Importantly, the effectiveness of this
curricular approach had been documented for all three
groups (Bunce, 1995b; Rice & Hadley, 1995). The
preschool’s primary assumptions concerning language
development were adopted by the collaborating profession-
als (see Rice, 1995). First, language development warrants
special emphasis in the curricula. However, this special
attention need not be at the expense of other curricular
activities; language facilitation can be interwoven into all
aspects of the curriculum. Second, specific characteristics
of adult language input are recognized as beneficial. For
example, characteristics stressed included the importance of
providing context-embedded language input focused on
what children are doing, responding to child utterances with
semantically contingent information, expanding sentences
into more adult- like forms, and embedding language
learning opportunities in familiar classroom routines (e.g.,
Bunce & Watkins, 1995; Norris & Hoffman, 1990; Wilcox
& Shannon, 1996). Thus, in the current project, language
and literacy goals for the classroom as a whole were
highlighted across all curricular activities, drawing on the
teachers’ knowledge of whole-group instruction and the
speech-language pathologist’s knowledge of naturalistic
language facilitation techniques. Together, the content
redundancy found throughout the curriculum and the use of
the language facilitation techniques were intended to make
the instructional input comprehensible to children with
diverse levels of English proficiency.
In consultation with a university researcher, the director
of special education, the classroom teachers, and the
speech-language pathologist identified two primary areas to
target as part of the classroom-based intervention: vocabu-
lary and phonological awareness. The teachers viewed
vocabulary skills as a major weakness for many of the
children in their district, particularly for the nonnative
speakers of English. Vocabulary knowledge is strongly
correlated with reading performance during the school years
(Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990; Kamhi, 1989), and in
turn, vocabulary knowledge serves as a primary foundation
for academic achievement. In addition, phonological
awareness abilities, or children’s awareness of the sound
structure of the language, were targeted to address the
teachers’ desire to establish a solid foundation in language-
related abilities (i.e., metalinguistic skills) for subsequent
formal reading instruction (Blachman, 1984, 1994; Catts,
1989; Stanovich, 1986; Torgesen, 1999; Torgesen, Wagner,
& Rashotte, 1994; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). There was
reason to believe that the use of naturalistic language
facilitation techniques would facilitate children’s general
receptive and expressive language skills as well (Rice &
Hadley, 1995); however, the limited resources available
precluded more comprehensive assessments before and after
the intervention.
282 L ANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS • Vol. 31 • 280–295 • July 2000
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This article reports on the effectiveness of a collabora-
tive service delivery model, teaming a speech-language
pathologist with regular educators to facilitate English
language development for inner-city children with limited
communication skills. A language-focused curriculum was
jointly developed and implemented by regular kindergarten
teachers and a speech-language pathologist (experimental
condition) and compared to a standard practice model
supplemented by an additional paraprofessional (control
condition). The primary research questions were:
• Will children enrolled in English-language-enriched
classrooms show greater gains in receptive and
expressive vocabulary development than children in
control classrooms?
• Will children enrolled in English-language-enriched
classrooms show greater gains in phonological
awareness and letter-sound associations than children
in control classrooms?
METHOD
Participants
Participants were drawn from one central Phoenix
elementary school. The elementary school had an enroll-
ment of approximately 950 students in kindergarten through
third grade. The majority (83%) of the students were from
families that met federal income guidelines entitling the
children to receive free or reduced school lunches. The
distribution of ethnic backgrounds was as follows: 48%
Hispanic American, 31% Caucasian, 10% Native American,
8% African American, and 3% Asian American. All
children were assigned to classrooms following typical
school procedures.
Four classrooms were selected randomly for the study
from eight kindergarten teachers volunteering to participate.
This reflected an 89% volunteer rate; only one teacher
declined participation because of expressed concerns about
the process of curriculum development. Two classrooms
included kindergarten students only; two classrooms were
multi-age kindergarten–first-grade (K–1) classrooms. One
kindergarten classroom and one K–1 classroom each were
assigned to the experimental and control conditions. At the
outset, there were 99 children distributed across four
classrooms. The families of 13 children moved out of the
district by the conclusion of the study. Attrition in the
kindergarten control classroom was disproportionately
higher (i.e., 6 of the 13 children) than for the other three
classrooms.
Table 1 identifies the characteristics of the remaining 86
students distributed across the four classrooms. At the time
of initial testing, the children ranged in age from 5:0
(years:months) to 6:9 (mean = 5:9). The sample consisted
of 46 boys and 40 girls. Forty-six children were in the two
experimental classrooms, and 40 children were in the two
control classrooms. The majority of participants (76%) were
kindergartners. The demographic characteristics of the
participants reflected the demographics of the neighborhood
 Table 1. Demographics of children in experimental and III or below, respectively. For three classrooms, these
control groups by classroom. children accounted for 40% to 50% of the students; in
contrast, only 27% of the children in the control K–1
classroom were considered to have LEP. Identification of
Experimental Control children with LEP was conducted by the English as a
K K–1 K K–1 Second Language (ESL) specialist. Although an ESL
specialist was available at the school, her primary responsi-
bilities were to conduct language assessments and serve as
n = 24 11/11 18 11/11 a resource to the classroom teachers as needed. None of the
child participants received any supplementary ESL instruc-
M age (in years) = 5.5 5.6/6.4 5.6 5.6/6.6 tion outside of the classroom.
There were also five children receiving special education
n minority 20 6/8 12 9/7
services for speech-language impairments enrolled in the
African American 1 1 1 participating classrooms. Two children were enrolled in each
of the experimental classrooms, whereas one child was
Asian American 1 1 1 2 enrolled in the control kindergarten classroom. The school
speech-language specialist provided services to these children
Hispanic American 18 10 9 11
for the objectives on their individualized educational
Native American 1 2 1 2 programs. Her direct services took the form of individual
and small-group therapy sessions outside of the classroom.
n nonnative English She also had periodic consultation with classroom teachers
speakers 17 5/8 11 7/4
for carryover of therapy objectives within the classroom
Bulgarian 1 environment. However, the school speech-language specialist
did not provide any direct services for children with speech-
German 1 language impairments in the regular education classrooms.
This specialist was not directly involved in the classroom-
Gujarati 1
based language enhancement project.
Navajo 1

Russian 2 Classroom Curricula

Spanish 16 8 8 8 All teachers in the current study followed curricular
guidelines that were developed by the local school district.
Turkish 1 These guidelines were based on the Arizona state standards
in language arts, mathematics, reading, science, and social
Vietnamese 1 1 2
studies. Although students are expected to achieve clearly
Serbo-Croatian 1 delineated skill objectives, teachers have a reasonable
amount of freedom in planning their instructional activities.
n Limited English Given the large number of children with LEP in the
Proficiency 12 4/5 8 3/3 district, most classroom teachers obtained an ESL endorse-
n Speech-Language ment for providing appropriate instruction to these children
Services 2 2/0 1 0/0 within their regular educational classrooms. To receive ESL
endorsement, teachers were required to complete 27 hours
of university coursework in teaching ESL. Thus, sheltered
Note. K = Full-day kindergarten-only classrooms; K-1 = multi-age English instruction was the primary approach used through-
kindergarten–first-grade classrooms. Two numbers separated by a out the district. All four teachers selected for participation
slash indicates the number of kindergartners/first graders in the in the current study had ESL endorsement, but none of the
multi-age classrooms, respectively.
teachers was bilingual.
Participants in the study were enrolled in either a full-
in both ethnic and linguistic diversity. The participants’ day kindergarten classroom or a multi-age K–1 classroom.
ethnicities included Hispanic American (55.9%), Caucasian The rationale for the K–1 classrooms was to allow children
(27.9%), African American (3.3%), Native American to work at their own pace through the kindergarten and
(7.0%), and Asian American (5.9%). The participants’ first-grade curricula and to allow a teacher to stay with a
native languages were primarily English (39.6%) and group of children for a longer period of time. At the
Spanish (46.5%), with the remaining 15% speaking one of beginning of the school year, parents were able to choose
the following languages: Bulgarian, German, Gujarati, placement in a full-day kindergarten classroom or a K–1
Navajo, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, and Vietnamese. classroom. At the end of kindergarten, parents could opt to
Of the 86 participants, 35 (41%) were identified as have their child placed in a regular first-grade classroom or
having LEP based on the Individual Proficiency Test remain in the K–1 class for first grade.
(Dalton, 1991). Kindergartners and first graders identified The classrooms followed similar schedules and included
as limited or non-English speakers scored at Levels II and the same types of instructional activities (see Table 2). The

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 Table 2. Instructional schedule and integration of vocabulary and phonological awareness enhancement into the classroom
curriculum.
Time Activity Instructional activities
8:30–8:45 Opening Teachers took attendance, facili-
tated calendar math, weather
discussion, pledge, letter/sound and
number reviews, and oral counting;
the speech-language pathologist
asked questions or made comments
to enhance or expand on the
teacher’s primary instruction.
8:45–9:10 Music, story The speech-language pathologist led
AND these activities when present;
11:30 –12:00 teachers learned songs and gestures
as well as how to incorporate drama
and phonological awareness into
stories; teachers led these activities
on days when the speech-language
pathologist was not present.
9:10–10:00 Small group The teachers, speech-language
activity centers pathologist, and an instructional
assistant typically led 25-minute
small group (n = 7) activities 1, 2,
and 3, respectively (see Appendix).
Students rotated through two activity
centers each day.
10:00–10:25 Student choice The speech-language pathologist
activity centers modeled the use of indirect language
facilitation techniques (e.g.,
modeling, recasting); teachers
observed and gradually became
comfortable using these techniques
as well.
10:25–10:30 Transition to The speech-language pathologist
AND lunch/recess facilitated the use of songs and
12:55 - 1:00 chants to structure transition times;
teachers took over these responsi-
bilities as the year progressed.
12:00–12:55 Language arts, Whole or small group activities;
AND math, or teacher typically led the activity with
1:30–2:10 science activity the speech-language pathologist
using indirect language facilitation
techniques and visual supports (e.g.,
charts, graphs) to supplement
teacher’s instruction.
Note. Kindergartners were dismissed at 1:30 following afternoon recess; therefore, only first graders received the afternoon small-group
instruction time, providing additional instruction on language arts (e.g., reading) and higher level math skills.
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Integration of
vocabulary instruction
Teachers might incorporate
target vocabulary into their
directions during routine
activities (e.g., hop to the
weather chart; if it is sunny
today, wiggle your fingers).
Instrumental songs were
used in which students gave/
followed directions requiring
target words (e.g., swing
your arms beside your
body); pre-reading discussion
of target words; dramatiza-
tion of target words in
songs/stories.
As teachers and assistants
led their small-group
activities, they emphasized
target words. For example,
teachers emphasized target
prepositions on an outdoor
walk as they went across the
field and around a tree.
A dramatic play area was
often facilitated by the
speech-language pathologist.
For example, during “bread”
week, a bakery was set up
and target words, such as
long, short, slice, spread,
between, and top, were
emphasized.
Directions for lining up
often incorporated key
vocabulary (e.g., “If you are
a boy and you’re wearing
long pants, go line up for
lunch, go line up for
lunch”...sung to the tune of
“Little Bunny Foo Foo”).
Vocabulary was specifically
incorporated into this
instruction. During an
“apple” theme, students
made and tasted various
apple products at different
stations (e.g., sauce, juice,
and caramel apples), then
engaged in a whole-group
graphing activity of their
favorite product. This
provided multiple opportuni-
ties for targeting adjectives
such as crunchy and wet.
Integration of phonological
awareness instruction
Opportunities for phonological
awareness instruction were created
by asking students to bring items
from home beginning with target
sounds or by engaging in sound
play while taking attendance.
Rhythm sticks and clapping were
used to emphasize the rhythm of
words/syllables in songs; song
charts were used to increase
awareness of written language (e.g.,
initially, different words were
written in alternating colors; later,
the beginning letters in words were
made distinct).
The speech-language pathologist
provided explicit skill instruction in
phonological awareness. Students
might be engaged in a grab bag
activity where they pulled out
objects, named them, and sorted the
objects into the correct pile based
on their beginning sound (e.g., /g/
vs. /s/).
Incidental opportunities for
highlighting letter-sound correspon-
dences would arise in dramatic play
such as when pointing out written
words on props like menus or signs.
Similar transition songs were used
to target phonological awareness
(e.g., “If your name begins with /p/,
line up”...sung to the tune of “If
You’re Happy and You Know It”).
During whole-group activities, the
teachers and the speech-language
pathologist often modeled the use of
using letter-sound associations to
spell words with target sounds as
part of whole-class graphing
activities or summarization
activities.
 school day was 5 hours in length for kindergarten children
and 5 hours and 45 minutes for first-grade children.
Kindergarten children in the multi-age classrooms were
dismissed at the same time as children in the full-day
kindergarten classrooms. Thus, all kindergartners received
approximately 3 hours and 40 minutes of classroom
instruction; first-grade children received approximately 4
hours and 15 minutes.
The primary difference between the kindergarten and K–
1 classrooms was the way in which whole-group activities
were facilitated. The K–1 teachers individualized their
questioning techniques to allow students to participate at
their own level, yet whole-group activities tended to be
conducted at a more advanced level than in the kindergar-
ten-only classrooms. Kindergartners in the K–1 classrooms
were sometimes encouraged to listen to and learn from the
first-grade students. Additionally, the K–1 classroom
teachers typically focused on more formal reading instruc-
tion and higher level math skills with first graders after the
kindergartners were dismissed.
Procedures
Pretest/post-test. Two standardized tests of vocabulary
abilities, three measures of phonological awareness, and a
letter-sound association task were administered at pretest
and post-test. All testing was conducted by two certified
speech-language pathologists. Pretesting began in mid-
September and post-testing began in mid-April, following
the 6-month intervention. Both testing periods required
approximately 1 month to complete.
The assessment battery was divided into two sessions. In
session one, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III
(PPVT-III, Dunn & Dunn, 1996) and the Expressive
Vocabulary Test (EVT, Williams, 1997) were administered
to obtain standardized measures of receptive and expressive
vocabulary abilities, respectively. Testing typically occurred
in isolated rooms on the school grounds. The PPVT-III was
administered first, followed by the EVT. Both tests were
administered to all children in English, regardless of
language background and proficiency.
Session two typically occurred within 2 days of the
vocabulary testing. During this session, the phonological
awareness and letter-sound association tasks were adminis-
tered to those children with some English abilities. Initially,
some children did not have the levels of English language
proficiency needed to understand the instructions or
respond to the tasks. Therefore, 12 kindergarten children
who did not obtain a basal score on one (or both) of the
vocabulary tests were not subjected to further testing. A
score of 0 was entered for all session two measures in
order to retain these children in the data analysis. Impor-
tantly, during post-testing, all 86 children attained basal
scores on both vocabulary tests and completed the phono-
logical awareness testing.
Three phonological awareness measures were obtained at
each grade level. Tasks used with the kindergartners
included rhyme awareness and beginning sound awareness
from the Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening
(PALS, Swank, Invernizzi, & Juel, 1997) and syllable
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deletion (Swank, 1995). Tasks used with the first graders
included the beginning sound awareness and syllable
deletion measures as well as a measure of phoneme
deletion (Swank, 1995). In addition, knowledge of letter-
sound associations (i.e., letter b says /b/) was examined for
both grades (Swank, 1995). Different measures were used
across the two grades because different tasks at different
ages have been shown to relate to success in later reading
abilities (cf. Goswami & Bryant, 1990).
For the PALS awareness tasks, children had to match
words that rhymed or began with the same sound from a
set of four pictures. These tasks were modified from the
original instructions in three ways. First, the tasks were
administered individually instead of in groups. Second,
children did not receive any systematic classroom instruc-
tion on these skills prior to pretesting given the experimen-
tal nature of the study. And finally, items in the PALS
response booklet were presented as individual picture cards
for hands-on manipulation because prior experience with
paper and pencil activities could not be assumed for many
of the children. These modifications were viewed as
necessary to facilitate optimal child performance. The
deletion tasks required children to manipulate the sound
structure of words (e.g., say monkey without mon; say sit
without s).
Treatment program. The collaborative model consisted
of three primary components: (a) professional education,
(b) joint curriculum planning, and (c) the use of naturalistic
language facilitation techniques to implement the language-
enhanced curriculum. Professional education was not a
distinct component but was woven into the conversational
exchanges that transpired during curriculum planning and
implementation. The professionals had a wealth of personal
experience to draw on, yet at the same time, they were
embarking on an unfamiliar collaborative venture. The
kindergarten teachers both had more than 20 years of
teaching experience. However, they had never formally
collaborated with a speech-language pathologist.
The speech-language pathologist had worked in the
public schools for more than 17 years and had previous
experience in curriculum development and consultation. She
had previously worked on the Navajo reservation, helping
to establish a K–3 bilingual speech and language program,
and was instrumental in revamping the ESL curriculum for
the primary grades. However, she had never had major
instructional responsibilities within regular education
classrooms. Throughout the intervention, the classroom
teachers had primary responsibility for planning activities
to meet the children’s curricular goals and the speech-
language pathologist had primary responsibility for using
the curriculum to meet the students’ communication goals.
However, as the teachers and the speech-language patholo-
gist educated each other, worked together, and supported
one another, they became more comfortable performing
functions that were usually reserved for the other disci-
pline. In other words, toward the end of the year, their
functioning began to resemble a transdisciplinary team
(Woodruff & McGonigel, 1988).
The two teachers in the experimental condition and the
speech-language pathologist engaged in joint curriculum
285
 planning on a weekly basis (Bunce, 1995a). Planning
meetings typically lasted 1 hour. In addition, the university
researcher (also a certified speech-language pathologist)
attended the planning meetings on a biweekly basis during
the fall semester (first 10 weeks of the intervention) and on
two occasions during the spring semester. The primary role
of the university researcher was to facilitate the collabora-
tive process of infusing a language focus into the existing
curriculum and to foster joint problem solving when
needed. Initially, the university researcher also provided
some general resources for curriculum enhancement (i.e.,
Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1998; Bunce, 1995a;
Rice & Wilcox, 1995; Tabors, 1997) and assisted the
professionals with strategies for joint curriculum planning.
At the initial meetings, considerable information was
exchanged as the joint curriculum began to take shape. For
example, the kindergarten teachers shared their rationale for
the structure of their classroom schedules, the way in
which their individual approaches to instruction had
developed over the years, and their instructional goals for
the year. The speech-language pathologist and university
researcher shared information regarding the use of music/
rhythm and dramatic play activities to enhance language
development, the beneficial aspects of naturalistic language
facilitation techniques, and the relationship between
phonological awareness and initial reading and spelling
skills. Written summaries of this information were also
available within the curriculum resources provided.
During an initial planning meeting, it was decided that
the teachers and the speech-language pathologist would
identify 20 target vocabulary words to embed within each
week’s thematic unit (see Appendix). To build the
children’s vocabularies beyond names for things, target
vocabulary for each week included verbs, adjectives, and
prepositions, as well as nouns. The rationale for emphasiz-
ing a diversity of word classes was as follows: (a) Verbs
were emphasized because of their centrality to grammatical
development (see Rice, 1991), (b) prepositions (e.g., on,
over, through) were emphasized because of their overlap
with “basic concepts” and their importance to the language
of instruction (Boehm, 1986), and (c) adjectives were
targeted primarily to increase children’s lexical diversity.
Target words were selected after the week’s curriculum
was completed, based on key concepts in the stories and
songs. Words at different levels of complexity were also
selected to address the differing ability levels represented
by students in the classroom. For example, some targets
might emphasize parts of objects rather than the whole
object (e.g., wheel versus tractor); category labels at the
superordinate, basic, or subordinate level (e.g., bird,
chicken, rooster/hen); or the specific manner of motion
rather than general motion (e.g., skip versus go).
Teachers incorporated exposure to these words and
letter-sound associations in the context of stories, songs,
small- and large-group activities, math activities, art
projects, and so forth. For example, in the repetitive story
“We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” students performed key
motions. When the line “we’re going to catch a big one”
was read, students gestured “big” with their arms and
hands and opened their eyes wide to make “big” eyes.
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During music, familiar songs were often adapted to add
verses containing target vocabulary. The weekly center
activities were also analyzed to determine which vocabulary
words could be emphasized by each center facilitator. If a
classroom assistant was helping students make a spotted
frog with large and small spots for the art activity, she
would be asked to contrast the “big” and “small” spots
frequently in her comments and questions to the students.
Teachers would also incorporate target vocabulary into their
math activities, commenting on the “salty” peanuts or the
“sweet” chocolate chips as they ate or subtracted chicken
feed. The target words were posted in the classroom each
week on backgrounds relating to the weekly themes (e.g.,
ghost background for “Halloween”). Initially, the posters
were intended to remind the adults in the classroom of the
weekly targets; however, the children were also observed to
make comments about the posters from time to time.
Phonological awareness activities were targeted in three
primary ways, incorporating the successful components of
other programmatic efforts (Lundberg, Frost, & Peterson,
1988; van Kleeck, Gillam, & McFadden, 1998). First, the
teachers already provided weekly instruction on individual
letters. Therefore, two pairs of letter-sound associations
were highlighted weekly and also posted with the vocabu-
lary words. The emphasis on sound-symbol correspondences
was viewed as an important aspect of the classroom-based
enhancement insofar as phonological awareness instruction
appears to be of greater benefit when the connections
between the sounds of speech and the signs of print are
made explicit (Blachman, 1994). The kindergarten-only
teacher introduced individual letters following the
Lippincott method (Rowland, 1971). This approach intro-
duced letters based on similarities in the way letters are
formed. The K–1 teacher introduced letters and their
sounds following the general approach of Spalding (1990).
Thus, the choices for letter of the week were in large part
dictated by the order in which these programs introduced
letters during the first part of the year.
Second, the speech-language pathologist led a 25-minute
phonological awareness activity weekly in one small-group
center. All children rotated through this center once during
each week. Activities were based on the suggestions of
Adams and her colleagues (Adams et al., 1998), but the
program was not followed in a strict sense. Activities
focused on identifying and generating rhyming words,
categorizing words by their beginning sounds, blending
syllables and sounds together to form words, and segment-
ing words into syllables and sounds. Categorization
activities often focused on words that included the letters
of the week. The emphasis during the first 10 weeks (mid
October–December) was on rhyme awareness, beginning
sound awareness, and syllable blending and segmentation.
During the last 13 weeks of the intervention (January to
mid-April), activities often focused on phoneme blending
and segmentation, which incorporated opportunities for
practice on letter-sound associations as well. Explicit
instruction was provided on these skills, in addition to
contextually embedded instruction, because of their
importance to initial reading and spelling. The synthetic
skill of blending is used to decode unknown words as part
 of the initial reading process. The analytic skill of segmen-
tation is called on when spelling new, less familiar words.
Further, the explicit instruction was assumed to make these
basic skills more automatic for the children, thereby freeing
more cognitive resources for higher order skills in the
future (e.g., comprehension, writing). In general, the
teachers left this aspect of curricular planning and imple-
mentation to the speech-language pathologist.
Finally, strategies designed to heighten children’s
phonological awareness were also incorporated into a
variety of classroom routines and incidental teaching
opportunities (Murphy, 1997; Watkins & Bunce, 1996). For
example, during opening circle time, one teacher used
“sound tubs” for sorting objects brought from home that
began with the target sounds of the week. During the
opening circle time, students put objects like a stuffed
monkey, a magnet, and a marble in the /m/ tub. The other
teacher and her students enjoyed sound play games during
roll call, such as rhyming each student’s name with the
week’s target sound (e.g., Jeffrey-Meffrey). Songs with
adapted lyrics were also used during transition times to
provide directions to students for choosing free choice
centers or lining up for lunch or recess (i.e., “If your name
begins with /t/ stand up” to the tune of “If You’re Happy
and You Know It”). Although the speech-language patholo-
gist led transition songs at the beginning of the year, as the
semester progressed, the teachers gained confidence leading
these songs. They also began providing more incidental
opportunities for practicing rhyming, identifying beginning
sounds, segmenting, and blending in other curricular
activities throughout the day.
The speech-language pathologist taught with the teachers
from mid-October, after all pretesting was completed,
through mid-April, when post-testing began. The speech-
language pathologist was in each experimental classroom
21/2 days per week—Mondays and Tuesdays and Friday
mornings in one classroom, Wednesdays and Thursdays and
Friday afternoons in the other classroom. Together, the
teachers and the speech-language pathologist shared
responsibilities for direct instruction in vocabulary and
letter-sound association throughout the curricular activities.
The teachers had primary responsibility for providing the
weekly thematic units and the whole-class and small-group
activities for achieving their language arts, math, and
science curricular goals. They also introduced target
vocabulary using story books and incorporated this vocabu-
lary in their instructional lessons as well. The speech-
language pathologist’s responsibilities included modeling
naturalistic language facilitation techniques during instruc-
tional activities and free-play activities with the children.
The speech-language pathologist often led the morning
story and whole-group music activities intended to empha-
size target vocabulary as well as some small- and whole-
group activities (e.g., making salad, dramatizing stories,
etc.). In addition, she had primary responsibility for
planning the small group activities focusing on phonologi-
cal awareness and implementing this instruction. The
teachers coached the speech-language pathologist on
curriculum development as well as classroom management
and behavior management strategies, particularly when
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conducting whole-class instruction or transitioning between
activities (Gersten, Morvant, & Brengelman, 1995). The
speech-language pathologist coached the teachers on their
use of naturalistic language facilitation techniques and ways
to contextualize their instructional language or make it
more concrete for the children. Typically, informal discus-
sions took place at the end of the teaching day; however,
the professionals occasionally stepped in during classroom
lessons to demonstrate the use of particular techniques for
one another.
The kindergarten teachers in the standard practice
control condition followed their existing curricular plans.
An extra paraprofessional was assigned to each control
classroom for 21/2 days per week to maintain the same
adult-to-student ratio as in the experimental condition.
Control teachers were free to use the paraprofessional in
any way they desired (e.g., small group, tutoring, etc.). In
general, the control teachers used a whole language
approach for integrating language and literacy objectives
into their classrooms. In a manner not unlike the experi-
mental teachers, they emphasized the sounds, vocabulary,
and syntactic structures that were relevant to the stories
chosen for their thematic units. However, the primary
differences between the two classroom conditions were the
extent to which (a) the adults shared and supported each
others’ roles, (b) all adults in the classrooms were explic-
itly aware of target sounds and vocabulary, and (c) the
children received explicit skills instruction in phonological
awareness.
RESULTS
The results are presented in three sections: (a) pretest
comparisons for the experimental and standard practice
classrooms, (b) comparisons of improvement in vocabulary,
and (c) comparisons of improvement in phonological
awareness. All scores for the vocabulary measures are
reported as standard scores; all scores on the non-standard-
ized phonological awareness tasks are reported as raw
scores. Although letter-sound association was not viewed as
a measure of phonological awareness, it was grouped with
these measures for purposes of convenience.
All pretest comparisons were made using two-tailed
independent sample t tests. To assess the effectiveness of
the collaborative service delivery model in increasing
student performance, analyses of covariance (ANCOVA)
were used. Differences between the mean post-test scores
of students in the control classrooms and the experimental
classrooms were examined. In addition to classroom
condition, language background (native English vs. nonna-
tive English) was included as a between-subject factor. This
factor revealed whether differences between the classroom
conditions were systematically related to children with
native or nonnative English language backgrounds. Pretest
scores and grade were used as covariates for measures
administered to both kindergartners and first graders. The
covariates adjusted the post-test scores to account for the
variation in the children’s pretest scores. Only pretest
287
 scores were used as a covariate for the analyses regarding
rhyme and phoneme deletion because these measures were
administered to only kindergartners and first graders,
respectively.
Pretest Comparisons
The pretest scores for the experimental and control
groups are presented in Table 3. No significant difference
was found between the experimental and control group for
children’s chronological age at pretest, nor were any
significant differences found for any of the dependent
measures at pretest: PPVT-III, EVT, rhyme, beginning
sound awareness, letter-sound association, syllable deletion,
or phoneme deletion.
Vocabulary Gains
Improvement in children’s comprehension and expressive
use of words was examined by comparing the vocabulary
post-test scores for the experimental and control groups.
The standard scores obtained from the PPVT-III and EVT
are reported in Table 3. There was a significant main effect
for classroom condition for both the PPVT-III, F(1, 85) =
11.06, p = .001, and the EVT, F(1, 85) = 11.63, p = .001.
Students in the experimental classrooms scored significantly
higher than the students in the control classrooms after
adjusting for pretest scores and grade. Another way to
characterize this difference was to examine the estimated
marginal means generated for each condition when the
covariates were set to their mean values. In this case, the
estimated marginal means indicated that the experimental
group scored 7.36 and 8.17 standard score points higher
than the control group on the PPVT-III and EVT, respec-
tively. There were no differences between the nonnative
English speakers and the native English speakers, PPVT-III
F(1, 85) = 2.59, p = .11; EVT, F(1, 85) = 2.77, p = .10,
nor were there any interactions between classroom condi-
tion and language background, PPVT-III F(1, 85) = .10, p
= .75; EVT, F(1, 85) = .02, p = .89.
As can be seen in Table 4, both the native and nonna-
tive speakers in the experimental classrooms demonstrated
vocabulary gains. The pre- and post-test means for the
subset of nonnative children with LEP (n = 35) as well as
for the five children receiving speech-language services are
also provided in Table 4. Although these subsets were not
analyzed statistically, visual inspection of the means
suggests that children with varying levels of language
ability benefitted from the language enhancement program
in the experimental classrooms.
Phonological Awareness Gains
The measures of rhyme, beginning sound awareness, and
letter-sound association evaluated aspects of sound aware-
ness that were explicitly targeted in the experimental

Table 3. Means (and standard deviations) for dependent measures.

Test time
Classroom
Variable Condition n Pretest Post-test F-value

Vocabulary measures
PPVT-III a E 46 74.11 (22.15) 86.98 (17.15)
C 40 80.23 (24.70) 83.68 (18.44) 11.06***
EVTa E 46 76.67 (23.09) 91.70 (18.81)
C 40 79.50 (22.40) 85.75 (19.94) 11.63***

Phonological awareness: Targeted

Rhymeb E 35 5.06 (3.56) 7.74 (2.76)
C 29 5.66 (3.76) 7.79 (2.53) 0.32
Beginning sound awarenessb E 46 5.85 (3.43) 9.00 (1.80)
C 40 5.83 (3.62) 8.20 (1.83) 4.23*
Letter-sound association b E 46 2.30 (3.22) 7.74 (3.49)
C 40 2.35 (3.36) 5.15 (4.19) 13.48***

Phonological awareness: Not targeted

Syllable deletionb E 46 1.70 (2.70) 5.41 (3.72)
C 40 2.73 (3.47) 4.10 (3.93) 9.53**
Phoneme deletionb E 11 2.27 (2.87) 6.18 (2.86)
C 11 3.18 (2.40) 3.91 (2.70) 4.21†

Note. E = experimental, C = control, PPVT-III = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (Dunn & Dunn, 1996), EVT = Expressive Vocabulary
Test (Williams, 1997).
a
Standard scores reported; b Raw scores reported.
* p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001
†
p = .056

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 Table 4. Pretest and post-test means by classroom condition and language level.

Native Nonnative Children with Children receiving

English speakers English speakers limited English proficiency speech-language services
Classroom
Variable Condition Pretest Post-test Pretest Post-test Pretest Post-test Pretest Post-test

PPVT-III a E 93.81 102.00 63.60 78.97 58.52 74.62 57.33 88.33

C 100.61 97.39 63.55 72.45 55.79 66.79 69.00 78.00

EVTa E 92.69 105.19 68.13 84.50 61.86 78.10 62.67 81.67

C 95.50 98.89 66.41 75.00 55.21 66.21 79.00 85.00

Beginning soundsb E 7.00 9.25 5.23 8.87 4.05 6.90 0.75 8.75
C 7.72 8.78 4.27 7.73 3.21 3.29 4.00 10.00

Letter-sound association b E 2.56 8.19 2.17 7.50 1.48 6.90 0.75 7.50
C 4.28 6.78 0.77 3.82 0.50 3.29 0.00 0.00

Syllable deletionb E 2.38 6.19 1.33 5.00 0.71 4.14 0.50 2.00
C 4.89 6.39 0.95 2.23 0.00 1.07 0.00 3.00

Phoneme deletionb E 1.00 4.33 2.75 6.88 2.20 7.00 na na

C 4.43 5.43 1.00 1.25 0.00 1.67 na na

Note. E = experimental, C = control, na = not applicable, PPVT-III = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test -III (Dunn & Dunn, 1996), EVT =
Expressive Vocabulary Test (Williams, 1997).
a
Standard scores reported; b Raw scores reported.

classroom condition. In contrast, the children’s ability to
“delete” sounds or syllables from words was never targeted
in the intervention. Thus, the deletion of syllables and
phonemes from words measured generalization to a novel
task, a more stringent test of the intervention effects.
As shown in Table 3, mixed findings were obtained
across this set of measures. No difference was apparent
between the two classroom conditions on the measure of
rhyme, F(1, 63) = .32, p = .58. However, significant
differences were noted for the measures of beginning sound
awareness and letter-sound association, F(1, 85) = 4.23, p =
.04 and F(1, 85) = 13.48, p = .000, respectively. The
estimated marginal means for beginning sound awareness
and letter-sound association indicated that the experimental
group scored .79 and 2.69 points higher than the control
group, respectively, after adjusting for Grade and pretest
scores. For the three tasks explicitly targeted in the
intervention, there were no differences between the
nonnative speakers and the native English speakers (all F <
1.23, all p > .27), nor were there any interactions between
classroom condition and language background (all (F <
0.13, all p > .72). On the deletion tasks, which measured
generalization to a novel task, the main effect for class-
room condition was significant for syllable deletion (F(1,
85) = 9.53, p = .003), but of marginal significance for
phoneme deletion, F(1, 21) = 4.21, p = .056. On the
syllable deletion task, the estimated marginal means for the
experimental group were 2.05 points higher than for the
control group. Although differences were not apparent on
either measure for language background (all F(1, 21) < .51,
all p > .48), a significant interaction effect was found for
phoneme deletion, F(1, 21) = 6.94, p = .017. Interpretation
of this result is complicated by the small sample and the
unequal number of children per cell for this analysis. That
is, only first graders completed the phoneme deletion task,
and there was a disproportionate number of nonnative
English speakers in the experimental condition as compared
to the control condition (73% vs 36%; see Table 1).
Table 4 displays the pre- and post-test means for
beginning sound awareness, letter-sound association,
syllable deletion, and phoneme deletion, respectively. As
with the vocabulary measures, both the native and nonna-
tive speakers demonstrated gains in the experimental
classrooms. The overall experimental effect was not
artificially created by a single group of students. Rather,
students with a diverse range of language competencies
appeared to benefit from the English language enhancement
in the experimental classrooms. Finally, to ensure that the
experimental effects on the phonological awareness tasks
were not confounded by ceiling effects, children performing
at or near mastery levels on these measures at the begin-
ning of the study were excluded (i.e., pretest scores of 9 or
10 out of 10) and the analyses were repeated. The number
of children at or near mastery levels on each measure was
nearly equivalent across the two classroom conditions.
Importantly, there were no differences in the pattern of
results obtained following this adjustment.
DISCUSSION
This study explored the effectiveness of a collaborative
model for enhancing the language abilities of kindergarten

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 and first-grade children in an inner-city school district. The
results indicate that classroom-based collaboration between
regular education teachers and a certified speech-language
pathologist holds promise as a highly effective means of
facilitating development of both vocabulary and phonologi-
cal awareness skills. Of particular importance was the
finding that this model benefitted children who spoke
English as a native language as well as children from
nonnative English language backgrounds. Each of these
findings is addressed, followed by a general discussion of
the positive benefits of establishing and maintaining
collaborative partnerships.
Enhanced Language Abilities
The receptive and expressive vocabulary abilities of the
inner-city children in both classroom conditions improved
relative to normative expectations during the course of the
study. Whereas standard scores placed the groups’ perfor-
mance below average at pretest, the groups’ post-test scores
were generally within one standard deviation of the mean.
The gains observed in both classroom conditions are all the
more impressive when considering that children must
accelerate their rates of vocabulary learning beyond typical
developmental rates in order to demonstrate standard score
gains (see Rice & Hadley, 1995, for discussion). At the
same time, the children in the experimental classrooms
demonstrated greater gains relative to children in the
standard practice control classrooms. Specifically, children
in the standard practice control classrooms demonstrated
average adjusted gains of approximately 5 and 7 standard
score points for the receptive and expressive vocabulary
measures, respectively. In contrast, children in the experi-
mental classrooms demonstrated average adjusted gains of
approximately 12 and 15 standard score points. The
absence of interaction effects indicated that the gains in
vocabulary noted were not systematically affected by the
children’s language background.
The benefits of the phonological awareness activities
embedded in the existing classroom curricula were mixed.
Equivalent gains were noted between the children in the
experimental and control classrooms on the measure of
rhyme. This suggests that rhyming activities were plentiful
in the standard practice classrooms as well. In contrast,
differences between the classroom conditions were observed
on the measures of beginning sound awareness and letter-
sound association that were specifically targeted in class-
room activities. These skills were targeted in both the
small-group phonological awareness activities, and specific
letter-sound pairs were targeted weekly. Moreover, a
primary principle guiding instruction in the experimental
condition was for teachers to make the associations
between the sounds of speech and the signs of speech
explicit to the children. Thus, as the speech-language
pathologist modeled and coached the teachers on the use of
techniques to do this (e.g., What letter makes my mouth
say /m/?), the teachers reported that they were more
comfortable embedding these techniques into whole-class
and small-group activities (see Table 2 for more examples
of how phonological awareness instruction was integrated
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across classroom activities). The teachers also reported their
use of these techniques during independent journal writing
time, an activity that teachers used with increasing fre-
quency over the spring semester.
As with the vocabulary findings, both students from
nonnative language backgrounds, as well as native English
speakers, benefitted from the phonological awareness
instruction. This finding was of considerable importance
given the uncertainty at the outset of this study about
whether this training would benefit children with LEP. At
the initial planning meetings, the professionals discussed
whether or not explicit phonological awareness instruction
should be provided only to those children with functional
English abilities. This would have required grouping
children by their ability levels for the small-group activity
centers. Because none of the professionals favored this
option, it was decided to include all students in the explicit
English phonological awareness training.
In addition, the phonological awareness training ap-
peared to have generalized beyond the skills specifically
taught. The group differences found for the deletion tasks
indicated that phonological awareness training had indeed
heightened children’s sensitivity to the syllable and sound
structure of words. Children in the experimental classrooms
did not receive any direct instruction on this specific skill,
yet the associated training on phoneme identification,
categorization, and segmentation allowed children in the
experimental classrooms to complete a novel phonological
awareness task more successfully than children in the
control classrooms. The ultimate importance of this finding
for the children in this study is yet to be determined. Of
primary interest is the extent to which the experimental
group’s heightened phonological awareness translates into
subsequent advantages in early reading skills and academic
achievement. Swank and Catts (1994) found that deletion
skills were the best predictor of children’s subsequent
ability to decode written words at the end of first grade.
Thus, the longer term benefits of the intervention in this
regard will be evaluated as the children in this study make
their way through the early elementary grades.
This study provides additional support for implementing
a language-focused curriculum in a collaborative fashion in
early childhood settings. This curricular approach includes
the facilitation of explicit skills as well as the incorporation
of those skills into meaningful communicative and literate
activities across the entire curriculum. Rice and Hadley
(1995) and Bunce (1995b) reported on the effectiveness of
this approach for native speakers of English with and
without language impairments and for children learning
English as a second language in a preschool setting. The
current study demonstrates that this approach is also
effective with older children from disadvantaged homes,
many of whom are learning English as a second language,
whose general language abilities are “below average.” It
may not be particularly surprising that the approach
benefitted both native and nonnative speakers of English
given that the strategies recommended to facilitate first
language acquisition for children with language delays and
disorders are the same techniques identified as beneficial
for promoting second language acquisition (Burns, Griffin,
 & Snow, 1999; Tabors, 1997). At the same time, collabora-
tive service delivery involving speech-language pathologists
in regular education programs is simply one component that
could be added to existing educational models in an effort
to improve the outcomes of children who are at risk for
academic failure. This component should be viewed as
independent of the general approach adopted for educating
children with LEP. As August and Hakuta (1998) argued,
“The key to program improvement is not finding a program
that works for all children in all localities, but rather
finding a set of program components that work for the
children in the community of interest” (p. 61). For this
district, the collaborative model described here allowed the
district to address their primary challenge of educating a
large number of children from a diverse number of
language backgrounds.
Collaborative Partnerships
From a research perspective, this study adds to the
growing literature on the successful implementation of
collaborative service delivery models in school-based
settings as well as the use of research-practice partnerships
in supporting this process (Christensen & Luckett, 1990;
Ellis, Schlaudecker, & Regimbal, 1995; Farber, Denenberg,
Klyman, & Lachman, 1992; Farber & Klein, 1999;
Ferguson, 1992). For example, Ellis et al. (1995) recently
reported on the success of an 8-week collaborative consul-
tation effort between a kindergarten teacher, a physical
education teacher, a speech-language pathologist, and a
university researcher that was designed to facilitate
kindergarten children’s knowledge of basic concepts in
comparison to children in a standard practice control
classroom. Similarly, Farber and Klein (1999) recently
described a comprehensive collaborative intervention
program for classroom teachers and speech-language
pathologists that was developed by university researchers
that boosted the listening comprehension of kindergarten
and first-grade students relative to children who were not
enrolled in the program. This emerging database indicates
that collaborative programs between regular educators and
speech-language pathologists can indeed facilitate language
abilities in academic settings.
Despite the general benefits of collaborative partnerships,
many specific clinical practice questions have yet to be
addressed. Further practice-based research is needed to
address fundamental practitioner concerns, such as the
intensity and duration of intervention or the most optimal
time to initiate services (Wilcox et al., 1998). For example,
how intense must co-teaching efforts be in order to obtain
educationally significant and lasting gains? The children in
the current study demonstrated dramatic improvement across
several target areas, yet they also benefitted from an
intensive co-teaching model. The speech-language pathologist
was in each experimental classroom for approximately 9–10
hours per week for 23 weeks. This program was consider-
ably more intense than the program that was implemented by
Ellis and colleagues (Ellis et al., 1995), which consisted of 1
hour of coordinated instruction for an 8-week period, or the
comprehensive program of Farber and Klein (1999), which
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was implemented for 21/4 hours per week throughout the
academic year. Ongoing participation-research partnerships
offer one means of evaluating the effects of the timing,
intensity, and duration of intervention services.
From a clinical practice perspective, teachers and
speech-language pathologists may wonder how collaborative
programs can be established and maintained amid the time
constraints faced by most educators. In fact, in a recent
survey of 54 teachers and 21 speech-language pathologists,
both groups of educators noted problems in finding the
time needed for consultation (Beck & Dennis, 1997). Yet,
both groups believed that team teaching was the most
appropriate model of classroom-based intervention. In other
words, team teaching is viewed most positively, but it
requires joint planning time to implement successfully.
Because joint planning time is not often available, team
teaching may not often be used. To break this vicious
cycle, garnering administrative support for adequate and
appropriate planning time is a critical first step to imple-
menting these types of services (American Speech-Lan-
guage-Hearing Association, 1991b).
Certainly, the use of a full-time speech-language
pathologist to serve two classrooms as in the current study
is a luxury that many school districts cannot afford.
Moreover, if the speech-language pathologist had her own
caseload, she could not have dedicated so much time to
these two classrooms. However, it was never the intention
of the participating district to maintain this level of speech-
language pathologist support over time. Rather, the district
hoped to develop an effective classroom-based collaborative
model that could be scaled back in its intensity once the
approach was in place and validated.
Specifically, during the second academic year of the
project, the speech-language pathologist has been teaching
with one kindergarten teacher from the initial project year
and three new kindergarten teachers (two teachers share
the responsibilities for one classroom). She teaches in
each of the three classrooms 1 day per week. One joint
planning session is held weekly for all four teachers and
the speech-language pathologist. This minimizes planning
time for the speech-language pathologist and has allowed
the teachers to benefit from their interactions with one
another. In addition, the enthusiasm of the veteran teacher
has shaped the attitudes of the new teachers. After having
observed the positive effects of the intervention in her
classroom during the previous year, she is solidly invested
in the program. During the weekly planning sessions, she
recounts methods and activities that were particularly
meaningful to her during the first year of the project. She
also began asking the speech-language pathologist to
explain and demonstrate the weekly phonological aware-
ness activities in detail so that she (and the new teachers)
could continue the activity in subsequent weeks. This
dynamic was not apparent in the planning meetings during
the first project year. Thus, as teachers become more
comfortable with enhancement activities and language
facilitation techniques, and as more teachers acquire
“veteran” status, it may be possible to reduce the amount
of time the speech-language pathologist spends in each
classroom even further. However, the intensive speech-
291
 language pathologist support at the outset of this project
seemed to be key to gaining initial teacher support.
Another administrative concern may focus on how to
provide financial support for such a program. Although the
current project was supported initially by external funding,
it has been possible to maintain the program by using Title
I funding into 1999–2000 and beyond. Because the current
district is eligible for “school-wide project status” based on
their federal poverty data (i.e., more than 50% of students
are eligible for free/reduced lunch), all students in the
school are eligible for Title I services. Given the linkages
between language abilities and academic achievement,
speech-language pathologists can be hired to facilitate the
language abilities of students and to work with classroom
teachers under the mandates to raise student achievement
and to provide staff development. Thus, in this funding
scenario, a speech-language pathologists’s responsibility is
not to provide services to children with identified disabili-
ties, but rather to enhance the language abilities of children
who are at risk for academic failure.
Finally, systematic evaluations of collaborative models
that promote English language and literacy development
through children’s native languages are needed. For example,
Durgunoglu, Nagy, and Hancin-Bhatt (1993) documented the
cross-language transfer of phonological awareness abilities in
Spanish-speaking first graders to the spelling of unfamiliar
English words. Ideally, collaborating teachers and speech-
language pathologists would have some proficiency in the
native language of the majority of non-English speakers and
ESL or bilingual educators would be part of the collabora-
tive team. When bilingual professionals are not available, the
use of bilingual support personnel could be explored. For
example, the feasibility and effectiveness of training bilin-
gual support personnel to enhance the vocabulary and
phonological awareness skills of children in their native
languages should be explored, particularly as these skills
relate to subsequent English language and literacy acquisi-
tion. Although these questions were beyond the scope of the
current study, systematic program evaluation of these
additional variables is warranted.
CONCLUSIONS
Although most speech-language pathologists working in
school-based settings provide services to children with
identified communication disabilities, speech-language
pathologists also have a wealth of information to share
with regular educators. This information can enhance the
communication abilities of all children in regular education
classrooms. In fact, interprofessional collaboration is an
expected role and responsibility of practicing speech-
language pathologists (American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association, 1991a). In collaborative teaching opportunities,
speech-language pathologists and teachers can identify ways
in which language can be infused across the curriculum and
they can work together to use naturalistic language facilita-
tion techniques. In school districts with high percentages of
children from disadvantaged homes and children with LEP,
292 L ANGUAGE, SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS • Vol. 31 • 280–295 • July 2000
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it may be particularly important for administrators to tap
into this unique expertise. Through successful collaborative
efforts aimed at fostering children’s communication and
language skills in early childhood, speech-language
pathologists can play a vital role in getting America’s
children ready to learn.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported primarily by a grant from Title VI B
98FESCBG 07-04-08, awarded to Alice Simmerman. Supplemental
support was provided by the Graduate College Support Program at
Arizona State University. We are grateful to Dr. Beverly Ihinger,
school principal, for her support of this project and the teachers,
parents, and children of Encanto School, Phoenix, Arizona for their
participation. In addition, we would like to thank Nancy Antis for
her administrative assistance with the database, Roberta Figueroa
for her assistance with the non-English-speaking families, and Dr.
Mark Roosa and Dr. Jenn Yun-Tien of Arizona State University’s
Prevention Intervention Research Center and the Osborn-ASU
Council for design and statistical consultation.
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 APPENDIX
Week of: November 17–21 Theme: Farms and Farm Animals Week #: 6

Target
Activity Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Sounds:
/b/ & /f/
Morning story I Went Walking Rosie’s Walk I Went Walking Rosie’s Walk Big Red Barn
Nouns: barn,
(dramatize) (dramatize) (clap hands on
chicken, fence,
rhyming words)
tractor, farmer
Small Group 1 Walk outside; Make Rosie’s Walk outside; Make Rosie’s Farm animal
Verbs: milk,
Language arts observe sights Walk books observe sights Walk books concentration
feed, peck,
skip, jump
Small Group 2 Sequence pictures/words in rhyme; Sequence pictures/words in rhyme; Vocab activity:
Phonological identify beginning sounds; judge identify beginning sounds; judge Milking the cow
Adjectives:
awareness beginning sounds as same/different beginning sounds as same/different (see below)
crunchy,
sweet, salty,
Small Group 3 Draw farm Farm animal Draw farm Farm animal Farm animal mural
round, wet
Art activity animals; make puppets animals; make puppets
story floor map story floor map
Prepositions:
through,
Small Group 4 Sorting farm Manipulating Sorting farm Manipulating Manipulating farmer,
across, over,
Manipulatives animals farmer, animals, animals farmer, animals, animals, tractor,
around, under
tractor, fence, etc. tractor, fence, etc. fence, etc.
Materials
Music “Old McDonald” “Old McDonald” “Old McDonald” “Old McDonald” Notes: (to milk the Needed: (for
“Shoo Fly” “Shoo Fly” “Shoo Fly” “Shoo Fly” cow) put broomstick chicken feed)
between chairs; peanuts,
Afternoon story “Skip to my Lou” “Cock-a-Doodle- “Skip to my Lou” “Cock-a-Doodle- poke holes in raisins,
(skip and jump) Doo” (skip and jump) Doo” fingers of rubber chocolate
glove; fill with chips, cheerios
Math/science Observe and Chicken feed Observe and Chicken feed white paint; tie to
discuss real math; make, do discuss real math; make, do stick; pull on
hens and roosters math, and eat hens and roosters math, and eat fingers to milk.

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