Models and programmes for fostering language development and literacy in infancy and early childhood
ability of nursery teachers to stimulate 1–3-year-
way. The intervener introduced into these daily
old children in daycare centres in a purposeful
activities forms of behaviour such as actions
way by means of systematic intervention.
accompanying speech and interactive language; for example, asking open questions, reacting to
In accordance with the interactionist approach to
the child’s experiences, initiating conversations
language acquisition, the project began with the
with the children, inquiring about the opinions
assumption that a targeted increase in language
and intentions of the children and encouraging
interaction between the nursery teacher and the
language exchanges between them. On the one
child and among the children themselves can
hand, these forms of behaviour guaranteed a
increase the verbal and cognitive interaction of
suitable input of richly varied language and,
the child with its social and physical environment
on the other, they stimulated the child’s own
and hence foster language development.
language production. The children’s language utterances were taken up and then modelled
In the intervention, which lasted 20 weeks,
and extended by means of corrective feedback
a trained member of the project served as a
and expansions. The language stimulation
model for the nursery teacher with regard to
was accompanied by a caring and accepting
language stimulation and the practice of a
educational style, which took into account the
democratic educational style. Trained project
children’s needs and guaranteed their autonomy.
members (interveners) undertook targeted interventions in everyday situations such as
The results showed that the language stimu-
changing diapers, free play, meal times and
lation level attained by the nursery teachers in
guided activities during weekly visits. The
the intervention group – i.e. the quantity and
intervener first presented a model of language
quality of their language input – was raised
stimulation and educational style for discussion
significantly by the purposeful and systematic
by the nursery teachers. In order to strengthen
interventions when compared with changes in
and deepen the effects of the intervention and
the control group. As well, in the intervention
to encourage reflection and discussion on the
group the children’s language and cognition
stimulation level each nursery teacher had
developed significantly better than in the
achieved, the intervener and the teacher made
control group over the same period of time.
video recordings of each other’s performance
The sample included both children for whom
in these situations at regular intervals during
German was their first language and children
the course of the 20-week intervention. These
from a migrant background who were learning
5–10-minute video sequences were analyzed
German as a second language. No evidence was
and discussed with the help of the micro-
found for an interaction between the effects of
teaching method. The recorded scenes involving
the intervention on the language development
the intervener were also used to guarantee the
of the children and their language of origin.
quality of the intervention in a continuous
This means that the intervention was as
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