Creating Everyday Spaces for Early Language and Literacy Learning: The Role of the Trusted Messenger

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall I thought this was a strong study and an interesting manuscript. The focus on the trusted messengers was interesting and a strong perspective. The methods,  while being simple descriptives for both quant and qual, were executed well. I have only minor comments: 

1) it seems to me that the key findings in this study are around the trusted messengers. The space, while an important tie to previous findings, had limited impact. The conclusions may benefit from focusing less on the role of the space itself, since it seems like the people where much more transformative. 

2) Given that the reading captains were so key to the findings, I think we need to know a little bit more about them. In particular, what is their role in the community? I understand that there are confidentiality issues, but knowing things like approximate age and gender would help identify how the captains may be perceived by those in the community. 

3) this isn't really possible with the data already collected, but future research should include some more in depth research with the trusted messengers/reading captains. How do they perceive their role? When do they decide to approach someone? How do they see themselves as members of the community? This kind of deep rich information is key in qualitative research, and would really give some depth to this area. I don't expect any of this to be in a revision, it's more a suggestion for future work. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I thank the editors of Education Sciences for the opportunity to read this manuscript, “Creating Everyday Spaces for Early Language and Literacy Learning: The Role of the Trusted Messenger.” I appreciated the chance to engage with the authors' work. The paper aims to study the roles of trusted messengers in supporting early language and literacy development in laundromats in low-income communities. The study design is robust. The focus of this manuscript holds promise for the field. However, I believe it needs revisions before it would be ready for publication in Education Sciences. I hope my suggestions below (addressed directly to the authors) are helpful toward that goal.

The study design is robust and findings offer insights that build on previous work in this area. My major recommendations are around revising the literature review, adding more description about the Reading Captains to the research context, more clearly communicating your research design and methods, and, if needed, providing additional nuance to the findings about Reading Captains’ communication/interactions with adults and children. 

Introduction

1.The Role of Neighborhood Institutions as Organizational Brokers 

I appreciate the studies cited in the first paragraph and the importance of recognizing the “histories of structural inequities, economic circumstances, and discriminatory practices in many low-income communities have constrained children’s access to resources and opportunities” (lines 69-70). However, as the first paragraph under this subheading, I wonder if the subheading might be revised or if this paragraph might be revised slightly to better guide the reader? It seems that the point of this paragraph is to bring attention to the connection between access to learning resources and school readiness (lines 82-82).

• The second paragraph (line 84) seems to be where the subsection starts and aligns best with the subheading. I am eager to keep reading. 
• On line 84, please move (Small, 2009; Stack, 1974; Wilson, 1997) later in the sentence to maintain a smoother readability. 
• I appreciate the definition of important terms and examples situated in the research literature: organizational brokers, trusted messengers.
• I appreciate the definition of organizational brokers with the Delgado beauty salon example. 
• Small’s (2009) trusted messengers example is very helpful

2. The Laundromat as an Organizational Broker 

“However, there are other community-based educational spaces that have become beholden to the same standardized and measures of success as their public school counterparts, essentially reproducing the status quo, and continuing to marginalize communities of color (Baldridge, Beck, Medina, & Reeves, 2017)” (lines 136 -140). 

• I am wondering if you are going to name/offer an example of these other “community-based educational spaces that have become beholden to the same standardized and measures of success”?

3. Language and Literacy Learning in Informal Spaces 

In the third paragraph, you write about exchanges between children and adults/trusted messengers and supporting children’s language development in both their native and English language development. The earlier two paragraphs in this section do not specify language/s. Perhaps an overarching clarification or statement about supporting language development in native/home language in one of the earlier paragraphs where you address parent-child talk could help to better transition to this paragraph. (p. 4)

Expanding more on literature on translanguaging in the literature review is important since your analysis and findings address translanguaging. 

By Line 220 when you begin to describe the phases of the study, I was still not sure of your study design. Naming the methodology here would help to contextualize how you focused on these aspects of the study.

The literature review would benefit from addressing other studies of literacy-related space transformations and design feature additions. Currently, the manuscript lacks this and is mainly focused on the organizational brokers and trusted messengers literature—while important—leads the reader to expect that the study is focused on language and literacy development in unaltered informal spaces.  

I would recommend citing Susan Neuman’s work on laundromats for supporting early childhood language and literacy in low-income neighborhoods. 

Positionality - I appreciate your positionality statement. Being as that your study mentions cultural and linguistic diversity and supporting native language literacy, including your linguistic identities would help here. 

What are Kaboom!, Global Citizens, and  “Greater Philadelphia King”?

What are Reading Captains? - please describe their history and role in the community more in-depth.

Maybe it is the placement of the positionality statement, but it references many concepts and parts of the study that have not yet been explained at this point in the manuscript. It left me very confused about the research setting and context surrounding the study. 

Research team paragraph (lines 258 - 264) - Please expand on this. 

You mention observations and ties to the community.

How many researchers/graduate students? Graduate students of Color is vague if we are considering postionality and the cultural and linguistic diversity. 

How did you connect with these students if they are from local colleges? 

As I read this section, I found myself hoping these questions would be later described in the research settings. While many of these questions were addressed later in the manuscript, considering where to place the positionality statement and where to include more information about your study design and research context would help with revising.

“Our positionality certainly shaped how we viewed and examined our data” (line 265). Please place this in conversation with your positionalities in a more concrete way. I wonder how your own positionalities influence your collection, analysis, and presentation of the data? 

Methods 

• Who added the design features to the laundromats? Was this an ethnographic study?
• I find myself still unsure about what actually happened in the study because I do not know the methodology or the role of the researchers. As I get to the second paragraph in the methods, I’m inferring that some sort of intervention was implemented by the research team, which changes my perception of the study as observing the natural environment with organizational brokering and trusted messenger interactions that support early childhood language and literacy development in the laundromats. 
• The third paragraph of the methods starts to offer more information about the previous studies (page 7, Line 295). However, more information would help overall. 
• Who placed the literacy materials there? Were they all placed in laundromats? How were the children observed? Did the researchers who were not trusted members observe? Cameras?

Page 7 - first mention of the study design - replicated single-case experiment, and first mention of manipulation of the environment. Please state this much earlier in the manuscript—preferably in the abstract and introduction. 

How much time was there between the baseline and start of the second phase of the research?

Another sentence describing this survey would help to better understand the survey: “At the end of each cycle, we conducted a brief six-item survey of adults in the laundromat on that day to examine their beliefs about talking to their children” (lines 362-363). 

I appreciate the description of the study and the demographics. The table is helpful. 

The procedures are well-described and I enjoyed learning about the activity from the baseline data figures. The community input in designing the literacy-enriched play area is interesting and important for working with communities to support early childhood literacy. I would have liked to learn a bit more about this process. 

Phase 1: How were the two observations planned and scheduled? All on the same day of the week, time of day? 

totally - totaling (line 477)

Phase 2: Were the survey visits during the Reading Captain times? Were the 22 caregivers who responded to the surveys spread out among the three laundromats?

Analysis - We then examined the social communication features in these activity settings using information from the checklist, focusing on labeling (e.g. “I’m sorting by color. This one is green”), open-ended questioning (e.g. “if you were this animal, what would you do?”) and conversational turn-taking (e.g., two or more turns), all of which are known to support gains in language development (Gilkerson et al., 2017; Ricciuti, Thomas, & Ricciuti, 2006; Romeo et al., 2018; Whitehurst et al., 1988)” (lines 531- 535). 

I appreciate this description of the social communication features and think there would be more clarity in the manuscript if this was mentioned earlier in the literature review section 3. Language and Literacy Learning in Informal Spaces 

I have the same feelings about the research explained and cited in (page 13, lines 540 - 557). Mentioning the connection between the informal spaces to the formalized spaces would help to improve the rationale. 

“For example, a Reading Captain’s use of translanguaging was an example of successful interventions that encouraged the use of the native language alongside English (Garcia, 2014)” (lines 572 - 574). Was this not observed in the baseline or phase 1?

Analysis - a table describing and providing examples of the cultural and linguistic features of interactions on a semantic level within the explicit behaviors and actions would be helpful (lines 562 -563)

6.Results

I appreciate the tables and figures to compare the activities across phases.

I am wondering if the social communication was measured during the baseline data collection? 

Were Reading Captains trained in these oral conversation techniques? When the Reading Captains interacted with the adults, was there a transferable way that these techniques were explained to adults? Will Reading Captains continue this activity at the laundromats after the 8 weeks?

“Together, these culturally- and linguistically-responsive features in Reading Captains’ interactions with children and families appeared to create communication patterns that were empathetic, respectful, and practical, adding to their credibility as trusted messengers in their community” (Page 21, Lines 792-795). 

I also wonder if there were outliers or instances where children and families were hesitant or not receptive to the Reading Captains? I find it hard to believe that every child and adult embraced the Reading Captains—a new addition to the laundromat—immediately. If this is the case, then more explanation of the history and role of Reading Captains is necessary earlier in the manuscript to provide more context.

I appreciate the conclusions linking the effectiveness of trusted messengers to work in other fields like public health. 

Please revise your sentence about using ethnographic techniques. While many of the techniques you listed are ethnographic, surveys are not an ethnographic technique.

Author Response

Please see attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf