LENA Start: Minnesota’s 2016 Annual Report Released
Dear LENA Start Partners and Friends,
We have completed our first year of implementing LENA Start in Minnesota. Developed by the LENA Research Foundation, LENA Start is a parent education program designed specifically to help parents engage their young children in ways that support positive interactions and promote development of early language. The program leverages innovative technology to track the number of words that a child hears and the number of conversations that they participate in with their caregivers. While this is new to Minnesota, it’s an effort that has a strong historical foundation, broad initial support, and a promising future.
Historically, this work is grounded in over 20 years of research, starting with Betty Hart and Todd Risley’s groundbreaking Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Lives of Young American Children, to better understand and reduce early differences in the language development of young children in our communities. It builds on Minnesota’s 40-year tradition of early childhood family education, where classes and activities are provided to all parents through their local school district. This work also rests on a long and rich arc of collaboration between University of Minnesota faculty, students, and staff, school districts, and nongovernmental organizations whose missions reflect attention to young children and families. Finally, the work reflects shared traditions of local foundations and University leaders to support early-stage work that has promise for both demonstrating effective practices, and for scaling up these practices to the benefit of others.
All this history and early support makes for a very promising future! The work described here fits into, and extends, initiatives across the country, state, and cities. This focus on positive ways to support young children and families animates research at the University, and is sparking efforts to extend to even more children and communities. In short, the work described here is just a beginning — but a strong one at that!
Check out our annual report here.
Sincerely,
Scott McConnell
University of Minnesota
