Efficacy of Let's Know! First Grade

Efficacy of Let's Know! for Improving Oral Language in First Grade Students

Oral language skills are vital for reading comprehension. Some children, however, are at increased risk for reading comprehension difficulties due to underlying oral language deficits. School-based interventions that target children's abilities to understand and produce spoken language have shown positive effects for improving language and reading comprehension of children with typical development and those at-risk for language disorders, so it is likely that they will benefit children with low oral language skills.

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a small-group intervention for improve language skills in first grade students with low oral language skills.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Developmental Language Disorder and Language Impairment
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Let's Know!

Detailed Description

Oral language skills, which consist of both lower-level (vocabulary and grammar) and higher-level skills (inferencing, comprehension monitoring, and text structure knowledge) are crucial for reading comprehension. Children with low oral language skills are at increased risk for negative academic outcomes due to their deficits in understanding and producing language. Multi-component interventions have shown positive effects for improving language comprehension and reading comprehension outcomes of children with typical development and at-risk for language and literacy disorders, and thus may benefit children with low oral language skills.

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of Let's Know!, a small group multi-component intervention, for improving language comprehension skills in first-grade students with low oral language skills. A randomized controlled trial will be employed to compare the language comprehension outcomes for a treatment group compared to a business-as-usual control group.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 22
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Arizona
    • Tempe, Arizona, United States, 85282
      • Arizona State University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• enrolled in first-grade;
• receive a score of below than 5 on two items on the Student Language Scale (Nelson et al., 2018) or be receiving school speech-language services for language impairment;
• be proficient in English, per caregiver report;
• have no other neurological impairments (e.g., intellectual disability, autism) per parent report;
• have corrected vision;
• no hearing impairment.

Exclusion Criteria:

• cannot be enrolled in English-Language Learner services in the school.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention; 2 units of a multicomponent intervention to improve vocabulary, text structure knowledge, inferencing, and comprehension monitoring within narrative and expository texts.	Behavioral: Let's Know!; This intervention is modified from a whole-classroom intervention by LARRC, 2018 and modified by Hogan et al. used in a larger NIH R01 investigation. We are examining the efficacy of the first two units used by Hogan et al.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Curriculum-Aligned Vocabulary Measure	Vocabulary measure to assess participants' knowledge of 16 vocabulary words taught during the intervention.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 10 weeks of intervention.
Curriculum-Aligned Inferencing Measure	This measure will examine students' knowledge of making inferences through narrative texts. There are 16 total questions for this measure.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 10 weeks of intervention.
Curriculum-Aligned Comprehension Monitoring Measure	This is a curriculum-aligned measure of comprehension monitoring strategies taught during intervention. There are 4 total questions for this measure.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 10 weeks of intervention.
Curriculum-Aligned Text Structure Knowledge Measure	This is a curriculum-aligned measure of text structure knowledge taught during the intervention. The participant is read a story, is asked to retell the story, and then is asked 3 questions about main events. This occurs twice for a total of 2 retells and 6 comprehension questions.	From enrollment to the end of treatment at 10 weeks of intervention.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Arizona State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 1, 2024
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 30, 2025
• Study Completion (Actual): August 31, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 12, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 18, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): April 25, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 5, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 3, 2026
• Last Verified: February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: developmental language disorder; language intervention
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Communication Disorders; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Signs and Symptoms; Language Disorders; Language Development Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00020398

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: In our parent consent form, we did not specify that individual participant data would be shared.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No