Camp SMART Speech to Print Summer Literacy Camp

• Purpose/objective:

To determine the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a 6-week literacy summer camp for improving language and literacy outcomes of children with identified language or literacy difficulties.

• Methods:

This intervention will be provided by students in the speech and hearing clinic on SDSU's campus. The summer clinical sessions last for 8 weeks. Week 1 will be used for the pre-testing of each participant's baseline language (morphological awareness, phonological awareness, morphosyntax, vocabulary, and narrative language skills) and reading (letter knowledge, nonword reading, reading fluency and reading comprehension). In weeks 2-7, the intervention will take place. This will consist of 3, 3-hour sessions per week. Finally, in week 8, the investigators will conduct post-testing of children's language and reading skills.

• Subjects:

The investigators will recruit a maximum of 12 students who are in the summer after Kindergarten, first, or second grade. The investigators will be recruiting students from the local community who either a) have IEPs with eligibility of SLI or SLD-reading or b) have documented parent or teacher concern for reading and/or language skills as determined by parent questionnaire.

• Planned analyses:

Planned analyses will include analysis of improvement in each of the language and reading skills from pre-test to post-test. The investigators will also include probes of performance of reading skills to allow for single subject analysis. The investigators will develop fidelity rubrics to explore the fidelity of intervention implementation and will analyze how fidelity relates to individual-child-level improvement.

Inclusion criteria

• Students who are in the summer after Kindergarten, first, or second grade.
• Students from the local community who either a) have IEPs with eligibility of SLI or SLD-reading or b) have documented parent or teacher concern for reading and/or language skills as determined by parent questionnaire.
• Children who fit the above criteria will additionally be determined eligible for the intervention based on language or reading composite skills one or more standard deviations below the mean on the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS).
• Children who are rising 4th, 5th, or 6th graders and who have an IEP with eligibility of SLI or SLD-Reading and who demonstrate composite scores one or more standard deviations below the mean on the TILLS may be considered if space remains after recruitment of 1st-3rd graders.

Exclusion criteria

• Students who do not either a) have an IEP or b) have documented parent or teacher concern based on parent questionnaire.
• Students who score within the typical range on the TILLS.
• Students who are deaf or blind.