Locating longitudinal study participants 10 years after last contact: Contemporary approaches to sample retention.

Aims: Despite their advantages, longitudinal studies often face high rates of attrition. This study documents the extensive efforts associated with retaining a longitudinal cohort last contacted 10 years earlier.

Method: We examine the processes and outcomes of attempts to reach 1736 individuals who have been part of a multiwave study about growing up in Ontario, Canada.

Children's understanding of Aesop's fables: relations to reading comprehension and theory of mind.

Two studies examined children's developing understanding of Aesop's fables in relation to reading comprehension and to theory of mind. Study 1 included 172 children from Junior Kindergarten through Grade 6 in a school-wide examination of the relation between reading comprehension skills and understanding of Aesop's fables told orally. Study 2 examined the relation between theory of mind and fables understanding among 186 Junior (4-year-old) and Senior (5-year-old) Kindergarten children.

Improving Preschool Educators' Interactive Shared Book Reading: Effects of Coaching in Professional Development.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the effects of coaching by speech-language pathologists on educators' interactive shared book reading, children's participation in shared reading, and children's language development.

Method: Thirty-two educators and small groups of preschoolers were randomly assigned to experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group (n = 15) received 4 in-service workshops plus 5 individualized coaching sessions.

Oral narratives in monolingual and bilingual preschoolers with SLI.

Background: The body of literature on narratives of bilingual children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) is growing. However, little is known about the narrative abilities of bilingual preschool children with SLI and their patterns of growth.

Aims: To determine the similarities and differences in narrative abilities between preschoolers with and without SLI who are either monolingual or bilingual at two time points.

Effects of coaching on educators' and preschoolers' use of references to print and phonological awareness during a small-group craft/writing activity.

Purpose: The current study investigated the effects of coaching as part of an emergent literacy professional development program to increase early childhood educators' use of verbal references to print and phonological awareness during interactions with children.

Method: Thirty-one educators and 4 children from each of their classrooms (N = 121) were randomly assigned to an experimental group (21 hr of in-service workshops plus 5 coaching sessions) and a comparison group (workshops alone). The in-service workshops included instruction on how to talk about print and phonological awareness during a post-story craft/writing activity.

Effects of coaching on educators' vocabulary-teaching strategies during shared reading.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether an emergent literacy professional development program enhanced educators' use of vocabulary-teaching strategies during shared reading with small groups of pre-schoolers.

Method: Thirty-two pre-school educators and small groups of pre-schoolers from their classrooms were randomly assigned to experimental or comparison groups. The 15 educators in the experimental group received four in-service workshops as well as five individualized classroom coaching sessions.