Changes and Interruptions to the Sequence Schedule

How to work around absences, special events, closures, and other scheduling challenges.

Can a room do two LENA Days in one week?

Doing two LENA Days in a week can be a good choice when scheduling conflicts arise, like upcoming closures or holidays.

The second LENA Day in a calendar week is automatically hidden. The account owner must manually unhide it prior to the coaching session.

The requirements for fidelity are:

Must conduct a coaching session between the two LENA Days, to maintain the integrity of the feedback cycle. Why? LENA Days are data points. The learning occurs between LENA Days, during reflection, goal setting, and identification of strategies and techniques... in the coaching session!
Account owner must unhide the second day in time to prep the reports. Account owners can unhide those recordings by clicking on the group, opening Children tab, clicking the child's name, opening the Recordings tab, and then using the hide/display toggle for that day.

Why does LENA hide the second LENA Day in a week?

Usually a second recording is accidental or a misguided attempt to "make up" a missed LENA Day with a single child (see below). These mistakes, if not hidden, would throw off the LENA Day count, load the wrong Session Prep information, and create confusing reports.

In contrast, doubling up for scheduling reasons is purposeful and planned, so you can also plan for unhiding the data.

My site needs to skip a week due to closure. Can we extend the sequence past 5 weeks?

Yes, from a LENA fidelity standpoint it is fine to skip a week and extend the LENA Grow sequence out one more calendar week.

Check with your program manager about any program- or site-specific requirements to consider, such as deadlines for completion related to funding, incentives, material availability, etc.

Should an absent child make up a LENA Day?

No! The LENA Day is a snapshot of the classroom language environment on the LENA Day. If a child was absent, he was not part of the language environment that day. That's ok!

It's impossible to add make-up data into a LENA Day report on a different date. Even if it were technically possible, it wouldn't make sense. Adding a child's data to the room's LENA Report would be like photoshopping her into a picture of that day's circle time and then evaluating whether she had access to the activity based on the altered photo.

The room was unable to record for the full day. What should we do?

First, know you are not alone. LENA Days have been cut short by illnesses, inclement weather, overflowing plumbing, and a variety of other occurrences. (Got a good story? Share it.) What to do depends on the specific situation, but here is some guidance:

If all the devices captured less than 2 hours of LENA time, it's not enough to make a report. You can either process the devices now or simply use them again on the next LENA Day and process then.
If, in the frenzy and flurry, the devices were left running after the children left, you can process them to see whether the reports are "coachable" or should be removed. If the data extends beyond when the children left, it would be best to hide those recordings and re-do the LENA Day.
If the devices captured more than 2 hours but not a full or normal day, work with the teacher and the center director to decide whether to use the report, because it represents what happened on that day, or hide it because it does not or because the circumstances prevented the teachers from attending to their LENA Grow goals and strategies.