Alief Independent School District is participating in the LENA Start program, which aims to help parents strengthen children’s early language skills and increase school readiness through interactive talk. The program uses a wearable “talk pedometer” to track a child’s language environment, and trained family liaisons guide parents through education sessions that include feedback on recordings, coaching and literacy-building strategies.
Program evaluation
As a research partner, the Kinder Institute is evaluating Alief ISD's implementation of the LENA Start program and its impact on the linguistic and cognitive development of children in the district. An examination of implementation fidelity, home language environments and children’s language development will be conducted through a randomized controlled trial that groups children by language (English or Spanish) and age (9–17 months or 18–35 months), with families randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group.
Alief ISD is a racially and economically diverse district with the capacity to run the program autonomously. By assessing the program outside of a university-led, controlled research environment, the study aims to understand how well the program works in real-world conditions and to generate insights that can guide practical policy and program design.
