School-Home Early Language and Literacy assessment

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Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 mixed) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description

A language and literacy assessment that measures young children's English narrative production and related expressive-language skills through tasks such as the Bear Story picture-prompt narrative.

Components

• Combined narrative measure (Bear Story) assessing coherent English narrative production: The study's primary outcome was a combined narrative measure taken from the School-Home Early Language and Literacy assessment, in which children were asked to tell a "Bear Story" in English using three pictures of a family of teddy bears as story prompts. "Five dimensions are assessed: story structure coding, events coding, evaluation coding, temporality and reference, and storybook language." Children's narratives were transcribed by trained assessors and read back to them to ensure accurate recording. Two supplementary measures were total number of words (story length) and mean clause length (a proxy for clause complexity). (Arthur (WWC Intervention Report) (2006))

Claims

• Watching Arthur improves English narrative skill development in kindergarten English language learners more than an alternative educational program (potentially positive effects) [+W]
• The average improvement index for Arthur in English language development is +11 percentile points, ranging from –5 to +17 across findings [+W]
• Mean clause length showed a small negative difference favoring the comparison group, not statistically significant [~W]
• The supporting evidence is a randomized controlled trial in which 108 kindergarten English learners watched 54 episodes of Arthur or Between the Lions over one school year [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• Arthur (WWC Intervention Report). (2006). What Works Clearinghouse, U.S. Department of Education. http://pbskids.org/arthur/index.html

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	school-home-early-language-and-literacy-assessment
title	School-Home Early Language and Literacy assessment
description	A language and literacy assessment that measures young children's English narrative production and related expressive-language skills through tasks such as the Bear Story picture-prompt narrative.
status	review
moved_from	element/bear-story-combined-narrative-measure
product_kind	assessment
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — arthur-wwc-intervention-report-2006

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