Grant Awards

Donald Fuzer, Early Head Start Principal Investigator

The Ohio State University’s Early Head Start Partnership Program provides high-quality early childhood education for children birth through age four who live in households experiencing poverty. We also provide comprehensive support to families in a two-generational approach that supports families in socio-economic mobility. The funds from this expansion will enable 189 Head Start slots to be added to the program, which currently serves 263 Columbus children and families enrolled in Early Head Start, a more than 70% increase in children served.

More information: https://sfc.osu.edu/2024/08/27/new-grant-expands-access-to-high-quality-early-education-for-more-central-ohio-families/

Shayne Piasta, Professor of Literacies, Literatures, and Language Arts

Reading difficulties continue to be a pervasive public health issue. Many children, particularly those from marginalized populations, experience reading difficulties due to underdeveloped phonological awareness – and, specifically, phonemic awareness. Our long-term goal is to optimize phonological awareness intervention as a means of preventing reading difficulties and disparities. Our short-term goal is to complete two randomized controlled trials that inform such optimization through addressing current scientific controversies around the content, timing, and goals of phonological awareness intervention.

Rebecca Dore, Senior Research Program Director, The Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy (CCEC)

By kindergarten entry, children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds lag behind their peers from higher SES homes in early literacy and other school readiness skills and these gaps persist through high school. The goal of this study is to determine whether an intervention to support caregivers in engaging with their children while co-using educational media can improve children’s early literacy skills, compared to an aligned shared book reading intervention and to no intervention. Given that early literacy skills predict children’s later academic learning, this home intervention, which aims to shape the communication patterns surrounding a common, family-friendly activity, has the potential to positively influence the trajectory of low-income children’s academic success.

Sarah Lang, Assistant Professor, Human Development and Family Science

The Virtual Laboratory School is designed to be a dynamic professional development system that is reflective of the latest research that should inform the care and education of children and youth and is responsive to emerging needs in military child care settings. The objective of this project is to continue the work of the VLS in providing innovative and cost-effective virtual professional development (PD) for child development, school age, and youth program staff and family child care providers by offering a system grounded upon the effectiveness of reflective practice, tailored coaching to support staff members’ use of optimal practices, and evidence-based strategies to support adult learners.