Indiana: Why LENA Grow? Why now?
Table of Contents
Charlotte Johnson
Statewide Manager, Indiana
CharlotteJohnson@LENA.org
Meet With Charlotte
Indiana’s child care providers are losing funding and critical supports, and now is the time to act — let’s connect to explore how LENA can help close these gaps and strengthen early learning programs statewide. In just five weeks, LENA Grow delivers transformational impact, pairing proven research with local coaching partners to equip educators and families with the tools they need to thrive.
Why LENA Grow?
More Teacher Interaction for Indiana's Children
LENA Grow is designed to encourage more interaction for children who start out experiencing the least.
Indiana children who started the LENA Grow program experiencing less interaction than the national media of 15 conversational turns per hour had an average increase of +5.3 turns per hour.
That is a 52% increase.*
*Cohen’s d = 1.6. Effect size = large.
Positive Outlooks for Indiana's Teachers
The Need for LENA Grow
Approximately half of all 0-5 year olds in the U.S. attend child care or preschool. Unfortunately, language environments in these settings are neither as responsive nor as robust as they should be. One in five children experiences language isolation, which is even more prevalent among dual- and multi-language learners.*
Child outcomes, tied so closely to language development, suffer as a result.
On top of that, early childhood educators face unprecedented stressors. Focusing on teacher-child interactions, which should be the beating heart of the profession, becomes a challenge.
*A child is considered to be in language isolation when they experience fewer than five conversational turns per hour throughout the day.
What LENA Grow Does
- Draws on LENA’s widely validated technology
- Delivers empowering, data-driven coaching
- Shows beneficial results in just five weeks
- Increases teacher job satisfaction, confidence, and retention
- Increases CLASS®, TS GOLD®, and kindergarten readiness assessment scores
What LENA Grow Does Not Do
- Doesn’t put any extra burdens on teachers.
- Doesn’t presume that teachers are doing anything wrong. Rather, it recognizes their strengths and builds on them.
- Doesn’t expect teachers to sit in front of a screen and learn passively. Rather, it involves them as active participants in their own professional growth.
How LENA Grow Works
Reflective Feedback Cycle
The LENA Grow program uses data from LENA’s wearable device to help educators build more talk into daily classroom activities. Following best principles of adult learning, the LENA Grow feedback cycle provides educators with opportunities to:
- Objectively measure talk in their classroom each week
- Reflect on their own talk data and each child’s experience
- Set individualized goals and learn strategies to help achieve them
- Practice the strategies during their daily routines
1. A LENA Day. One day per week for five weeks, children wear the LENA device to measure their teachers’ interactive talk.
2. Coaching and feedback. Teachers reflect on their talk data with strengths-based guidance from an instructional coach.
3. Practice days. Teachers work towards measurable improvement on their next LENA Day.
Room Report
Each week, the LENA Grow Room Report tells the story of a classroom’s most recent LENA Day. Every story has a hero, and the teachers and children are the heroes of this one. The Room Report is truly the heart of the LENA Grow program.
Teachers will see how many adult words the children heard, as well as how many conversational turns they experienced together.
Teachers will learn to identify patterns. For example, turns may be high during shared reading or indoor play, and they may be lower during outdoor play.
Maybe they’ll see that arrival time wasn’t as interactive as they thought it was. They can make that one of their weekly goals: to talk with each child as they enter the classroom every day.
As the weeks go by, teachers will be able to see just how much growth they are experiencing alongside their children, and how things like attendance or staffing changes can impact engagement day to day.
Child Report
The LENA Grow Child Report tells a detailed story of just one child’s most recent LENA Day. This is where teachers can zoom in on how each individual child is experiencing talk in their classroom with each passing week. This report gives teachers insights into the factors that impact interaction in their classroom. And it helps them personalize that interaction for each and every child in their care.
Program Impact Report
For leaders, the Program Impact Report delivers a bird’s-eye view of your entire LENA Grow implementation. You can zoom in on a single site’s results, or you can zoom out to see aggregate results and reach numbers across all participating sites. The report highlights LENA Grow’s impact both on teachers and children, especially those who started the program experiencing the least teacher-child interactions.
Program Effectiveness
More outcomes, as well as links to white papers and evaluations, are available at lena.org/effectiveness.
Kindergarten Readiness
Finding: Children in LENA Grow classrooms were approximately two times more likely to demonstrate readiness for kindergarten.
Assessments: Kindergarten Readiness Assessment
Evaluation Partner: Cherokee County School District, S.C.
Treatment Group: 121 children in LENA Grow classrooms
Control Group: 204 children in non-LENA Grow classrooms
Year of Evaluation: 2024
Literacy Skills
Finding: Children in LENA Grow classrooms saw significant increases in early literacy scores.
Assessment: Teaching Strategies GOLD®
Evaluation Partner: SproutFive, a child development center in Ohio
Treatment Group: 40 children in LENA Grow classrooms
Control Group: 40 children in non-LENA Grow classrooms
Year of Evaluation: 2022
Emotional Intelligence
Finding: LENA Grow children showed accelerated gains in social skills and emotional development.
Assessment: Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA)
Evaluation Partners:
- Educare and AppleTree, networks of child development centers based in Washington, D.C.
Sample: 103 children in LENA Grow classrooms
Year of Evaluation: 2022
Classroom Quality (Infant and Toddler)
Finding: LENA Grow classrooms saw significant increases in the Responsive Caregiving and Engaged Support for Learning domains of CLASS®.
Assessment: CLASS®
Evaluation Partner: Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County, Florida
Sample: 8 infant classrooms and 5 toddler classrooms
Year of Evaluation: 2017
Classroom Quality (Preschool)
Finding: LENA Grow preschool classrooms saw significant increases in all three CLASS® domains, especially Instructional Support.
Assessment: CLASS®
Evaluation Partner: Fort Worth Independent School District, Texas
Treatment Group: 4 LENA Grow classrooms
Control Group: 7 non-LENA Grow classrooms
Year of Evaluation: 2019
Teacher Job Satisfaction
Finding: Teachers who participated in LENA Grow reported feeling significantly more valued as early childhood professionals.
Assessment: Teacher Perception Survey
Evaluation Partner: AppleTree Institute, a research institute and child care network in Washington, D.C.
Treatment Group: 17 LENA Grow teachers
Control Group: 10 non-LENA Grow teachers
Year of Evaluation: 2023
Teacher Job Confidence
Finding: Teachers who participated in LENA Grow reported feeling significantly more confident that their expertise and experience “have put [them] on the cutting edge of the workforce.”
Assessment: Teacher Perception Survey
Evaluation Partner: SproutFive, a child development center in Ohio
Treatment Group: 9 LENA Grow teachers
Control Group: 11 non-LENA Grow teachers
Year of Evaluation: 2022
Positive Changes in Challenging Behaviors
Finding: We surveyed 67 LENA Grow teachers, and 26 (39%) indicated they saw decreases in challenging behaviors in their classroom. The graphs below show the percent of those teachers who reported the relevant reductions or increases in child behaviors.
Assessment: Post-Program Survey
Evaluation Partner: Early Learning Indiana
Year of Evaluation: 2025
Reductions in:
Increases in:
Increases in:
Increases in:
Teachers believe these changes came about because ...
Sole Source Letter
August 1, 2025
To Whom It May Concern:
As of this date, the LENA System™ is the only validated tool for automatically measuring adult word counts, conversational turn counts (a proxy for serve and return interaction), child vocalization counts, and other metrics associated with the child’s natural language environment. It is used in a wide variety of research studies around the world and has been integrated into programs focused on improving interactive talk between parents/caregivers/teachers and children. More information on the core technology is provided here: https://www.lena.org/technology/.
The patented and proprietary LENA System comprises: the specially-designed recording device; acoustically-designed clothing to properly hold the recorder; LENA software that offloads, uploads, and/or processes the audio data; and LENA Online™, the cloud-based data and reporting system. Information on LENA’s patents can be found here: https://www.lena.org/patents/. The LENA System has been integrated into the proprietary LENA Start® (https://www.lena.org/lena-start/) and LENA Grow® (https://www.lena.org/lena-grow/) adult learning (professional development) programs delivering objective feedback on the natural language environment and coaching tips to parents/caregivers and teachers. This feedback has unique advantages: comprising a sequence of full day of objective data versus short-duration snippets and is specific to each child (because the child wears their device). LENA SP™ (https://www.lena.org/lena-sp/) is a proprietary configuration of LENA Online designed to meet the needs of researchers and other language professionals.
The LENA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity based in Colorado and is the sole source provider of the LENA System, LENA Start, LENA Grow, and LENA SP. LENA Foundation sells and distributes all LENA products as reflected on the then internally-published price list. All products are sold at the same price level under the Foundation’s standard or other comparable terms and conditions to all educational institutions, not-for-profit, and for-profit organizations. Volume discounts are offered to all customers.
Sincerely,
Stephen M. Hannon, President and CEO