The College of Education and Health Professions' Early Care and Education Projects was awarded $408,000 from the Walton Family Foundation to support the expansion of tech-based "talk" technology, LENA.

LENA (language environment analysis) was first implemented as part of a previous ECEP grant that helped establish the AR LENA Grow Project in 2023. 

With LENA, children in schools wear "talk pedometers" that track conversational interactions. These interactions support brain structure and function, reading and vocabulary skills, IQ scores and social-emotional and language development.

This new funding will grow the existing data on LENA's effectiveness in improving classroom outcomes, particularly in the context of Arkansas' new CLASS evaluation system.

"By expanding LENA's use, the grant seeks to enhance teacher-child interactions, improve CLASS scores, and increase teacher satisfaction and self-efficacy," said Robin Jones, program manager of the AR LENA Grow Project. "The ultimate goal is to improve teacher effectiveness and child outcomes by enhancing teacher-child interactions, which we hope will contribute to better educational experiences for young learners."

At The Learning Center of Northwest Arkansas, Green Forest campus, teacher Kenna Harp has seen LENA help both her and her students grow in the classroom.

"Getting to see the children's development is amazing," Harp said. "It may be one word at a time, but the progress is there and it shows with every passing week."

This grant will extend LENA's use in Arkansas to 400 new classrooms across south, east and central Arkansas. AR LENA Grow will engage an independent evaluator to measure LENA's effectiveness in improving CLASS assessment scores and analyze how the program affects teacher satisfaction, confidence and self-efficacy.

Teacher Tessa Badley, who also works at The Learning Center of Northwest Arkansas, Green Forest facility, has enjoyed having hard data to assess children's progress.

"One of the things I really enjoy about this program is getting to see how much the children in my room actually interact with one another and myself," she said. "It's not something you really think about because toddlers talk a lot as it is, but seeing it in charts with numbers can really amaze you!"

ECEP and LENA are also joined on the project by Excel by Eight, a network of individuals and organizations focused on increasing Arkansas children's health and education outcomes. The network will support the expansion through local leadership, evaluation of implementation processes and engagement of state partners to scale LENA in Arkansas.

LENA and Excel by Eight will primarily oversee data collection and evaluation on the project, while ECEP will provide strength-based coaching to Pre-K teachers across the state. Full funding for the project across all three partners totals nearly $1.9 million.

As the grant work gets underway, Jones and program partners will begin recruiting new classrooms and coaches for the AR LENA Grow Project expansion before rolling out the talk pedometers for children.

AR LENA Grow will select new sites through a competitive application process, giving childcare providers the opportunity to demonstrate their interest in adopting LENA and outline their plans for implementation.