The LENA Grow Progress Report
The Progress Report draws from each child's experience with Conversational Turns to show changes in room performance over time and in relation to program goals.
The Progress Report can be accessed for a single classroom, a whole center, or a multi-center organization.
The Progress Report is designed to be used at the midpoint of your LENA Grow sequence and again at the end, but you can check it any time after at least one child within the context and date range selected has at least 4 LENA Days in a single room.
What information is on the Progress Report?
Notes on the image above explain the elements of the report. Click below to read more about different ways to look at the data.
The report shows three levels of conversational engagement that a teacher may achieve with each individual child who is eligible to contribute to the report.
Starting from the bottom, these engagement levels are:
- Above Minimum - 5 or more conversational turns per hour
- Accomplished - 15 or more conversational turns per hour
- Advanced - 25 or more conversational turns per hour
At the far left of each bar, a number indicates how many children were engaged at that level in their first two LENA Days and their most recent two LENA Days. If the Total Children included in the report is at least 5, the percentage of the Total Children for that level is displayed at the far right edge of each bar.
Looking at the last two LENA Days in the example:
- 44 children were engaged at or above the minimum
- 29 of those 44 children were actually engaged in at least 15 hourly turns, so they also show up in the Accomplished level.
- 22 of those 29 children were engaged in 25+ hourly turns, and so also show up in the Advanced engagement level.
By comparing the Total Children (47) to the Above Minimum level (44 children), we can see that 6 children aren't on the graph at all. They were engaged in fewer than 5 turns per hour for their first two LENA Days. Those children are important goal targets!
By comparing the Above Minimum (44) to the Accomplished level (29), we see then that 15 children were engaged in at least 5 hourly turns, but fewer than 15. Those children might be good goal targets for teachers to try to increase the number of children she is engaging at the Accomplished or Advanced level.
The levels build on each other. That is, if a child has been engaged in 17 turns per hour on average, that child is counted in both the Above Minimum and the Accomplished levels.
The graph indicates how many of the children were engaged at or above each level on their first two LENA Days in a light shaded bar. Each eligible child's hourly turn counts are averaged for his or her first two LENA Days.
Engagement on the most recent two, or Last 2 LENA Days, is shown in a darker shaded bar. As with the lighter bar, each eligible child's hourly turn counts are averaged for his or her most recent two LENA Days.
In the example shown, the teacher increased engagement over time. The report shows that the teacher engaged 55% of children at the Accomplished level on their first two LENA Days (light shade), and 62% on their last two LENA Days (dark shade). The number of children engaged at the Advanced level also increased.
The "big picture" goal is to increase classroom language engagement. You want the darker, current bars to be bigger than the lighter, past bars.
Here are a few of ways to think about this:
- Get the children onto the graph!
- Whatever the Total Children number is, try to get those children into the Above Minimum level. Look back at your Room Summary and Room Detail reports. Which children are experiencing fewer turns? How can teachers use the Talking Tips and techniques to try to engage those children?
- Level up!
- Increase the number of children who have been engaged at the Accomplished or Advanced turn-taking level. These are challenge levels, for sure. Teachers will need to use the Talking Tips and techniques covered in coaching to engage the children in more turns. (Remember, those children count in the Above Minimum level, too.)
- The report also displays some preset goals that are indicators of a high-quality language environment. These goals are located in the lower left of the report, and are also indicated by tick marks on each of the engagement levels. We've highlighted them in yellow in the example image. Aim for engaging:
- almost all of the children at the Above Minimum level
- 2/3 of the children at the Accomplished level
- 1/3 of the children at the Advanced level
Inclusion criteria - who counts, and who doesn't?
The Progress Report includes all children within your configuration criteria who have at least 4 valid LENA Days of 2+ hours duration each in a given classroom.
- It does not matter whether the child was present or absent on a specific classroom's first LENA Day. For example, if a child joins a classroom on LENA Day 4 and is present for the remaining days, then her first two LENA Days occur on the classrooms 4th and 5th LENA Days.
- If a child has four or more LENA Days in more than one classroom, he or she will have more than one set of "first two and last two" data. For example:
- If the child contributes to the first four LENA Days in the Toddler 1 classroom but ages up to Toddler 2, his first 4 LENA days will continue to be included in the room-level Progress Report for Toddler 1.
- Once he has also made 4 LENA Days in Toddler 2, those new days will be included in the room-level report for Toddler 2 to reflect changes in his engagement in his new room.
- At the center or larger org level, he still only counts as one child, so all of his "First 2" data will be averaged (4 days) and all of his "Last 2" will be averaged.
- If a child joins a room too late in the sequence to make 4 LENA Days in that room, her data from that room will not be included. Similarly, if a child leaves a room before making 4 LENA Days, her data for that room will not be included.
- The child's current enrollment status (enrolled, completed, or dropped) does not matter.
If you pull the Progress Report throughout the sequence and see puzzling changes in the Total Children number or the "First 2 LENA Days" bars, it comes down to who had 4 LENA Days in a given room each time you pulled the report.
Configuration: Apply filters to show the data that matter to you
When accessing the Progress Report at the organization level, use the context menu, date filter, and room status filter in combination to report on certain centers, partners, or implementation waves.
Start by setting the context, before you open the Progress Report.
- Start from the dashboard for a specific partner organization or center (or use the context menu to select the org/center, if accessing the report from the menu).
- Select the top-level Grow organization to see aggregated data for rooms in all nested partners/centers.
Then use the Configuration tool on the report. (This section will not appear on the printed report.)
- Set the date range.
- The report will include children whose first LENA Day occurred between the selected dates, regardless of the date of the first LENA Day for the room or rooms meeting your context and status selections.
- The date range filters on first LENA Day only. In other words, if you input a date range of a single week in September, all children whose first LENA Day occurred within that week are included, regardless of the dates of their remaining LENA Days.
- The date range shown on the top of the resulting report extends to the last LENA Day that is included in the report. Using the same example, filtering on rooms with a LENA Day #1 in the first week of September can generate a report with a date range that extends into November.
- Select room status.
- Specify Active or Completed rooms, or all rooms.
- Select the language you'd like the report to display in.
- Click the purple refresh button to see the updated report.
