Facilitating preschool language skills through educator professional development in dialogic book reading

Children from minoritized and economically marginalized communities face disparities in language and literacy development. Across three preschool classrooms, we evaluated the impact of a multiple modality dialogic reading (DR) professional development on preschool teachers’ implementation of DR strategies and the subsequent effects on children’s language skills. A single-case multiple baseline design across DR behaviors was replicated across three preschool classrooms. Teachers completed asynchronous online modules and received in-person coaching. The primary dependent variable was the teachers’ use of DR strategies while secondary variables included the number of vocalizations and conversational turns by teachers and children. Across the three classrooms, an increase in use of the prompt strategy was observed, with teachers also showing increased vocalizations. There was high variability in teachers’ implementation of the evaluate, expand, and repeat strategies. Children demonstrated increased vocalizations and conversational turns during the intervention phases, with a notable decrease during the generalization phase.