IGDILab Reader
Welcome to the IGDILab Reader, a quarterly newsletter devoted to all things IGDILab. Housed by the University of Minnesota's Department of Educational Psychology and with offices located in the University of Minnesota's Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC), IGDILab is comprised of a team of researchers, graduate students, and educators devoted to improving our understanding of early childhood literacy and language development.
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Our Minnesota team started off our 2018-2019 year strong. From cultivating positive relationships with our research partners to increasing our own capacity, we're taking the implementation of our research to the next level. Now with over 20 highly skilled staffers traveling to early childhood centers and school sites across the state, we've been able to administer IGDIs efficiently and compassionately.
Since launching this round of data collection in September, we've been able to fine-tune our practices, considering more carefully what classroom teachers want and need to help us to better understand the language and literacy development of young children.
So far, our milestones include:
- Assessing over 1,000 children, across seven states
- Partnering with 60 + early childhood centers and school sites
- Presenting our research at more than 10 conferences nationally and internationally
- Holding community focus group sessions for the development of Hmong IGDIs
- Publishing new research - see below!
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From top left to right: Lead Graduate students Kristin Schuster and Alyssa Schardt present on Age 3 measures, IGDILab Co-Director Alisha Wackerle-Hollman presented " Early Literacy and Language Development and Complementary Assessment models" to Chinese delegation visiting the U of M, Lead Graduate student Kelsey Will presented research on early childhood assessments in Brighton, UK, IGDILab partnered with Saint Paul Public Schools to host a series of community focus groups to inform the development of Hmong language IGDIs.
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On October 23, IGDILab Co-Director, Scott McConnell participated in panel on
parent engagement during the Innovation in Early Childhood Development
and K-12 Education Conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Click on the above video to watch the panel discussion in its entirety
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IGDILab Profile
Meet the IGDILab team!
Qinjun Wang joined our team in 2014 as a Quantitative Methods in Education Research Assistant. Get to know Qinjun and his work with IGDILab.
Keep Reading
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Developing a Measure of Spanish Phonological Awareness for Preschool Age Children: Spanish Individual Growth and Development Measures
"The 'Educational Assessment'" academic journal published new research by Alisha K. Wackerle-Hollman, Lillian Duran, Sephanie Brunner, Jose Palma, Theresa Kohlmeier, and Michael C. Rodriguez on November 23, 2018.
"Spanish speakers in the United States are a steadily increasing population, up by 233% since 1980. Given the growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, addressing the educational needs of preschool-aged DLLs has become a national imperative. Specifically, the intersection of this growing population and the dearth of appropriate assessment tools to evaluate DLLs early language and literacy skills creates a need for assessments that accurately measure preschool performance..." Keep Reading
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In 2019 we're looking forward to the next wave of seasonal assessments. Starting in January we plan to conduct additional assessments with some of the participating children.
Additionally, we'll meet with schools to share the data we've collected so far and engage with teachers during Professional Development days, to assist in their use of the data to support instructional decisions in the classroom. At the end of this school year, we'll have more information to support teacher's use of data-based decision making in early childhood classrooms.
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