How to Read the LENA Grow Room Report

Your guide to interpreting the LENA Grow Room Report

Video: Understanding Your Room Report

This video tour of the LENA Grow Room Report is shown to teachers in the first coaching session.

Sample Room Report

Here you can see how to read each part of the Room Report. A printable LENA Grow Annotated Reports PDF is also available.

Page 1 of the report focuses on classroom averages for Conversational Turns and Adult Words in the classroom.

1. Stars Banner. The blue banner shows stars earned for this LENA Day and total stars accumulated during this sequence, including the stars on this report.

2. Daily Turns. This graph shows the average number of conversational turns experienced per hour, per child on each LENA Day completed so far, up to the most recent 5 LENA Days.

   A star is earned if turns exceeded the previous average, or if the room experienced on average at least 25 turns per child, per hour. (Why 25? Check out the Inside Early Talk Report for more on the research behind LENA's benchmarks!)

   The light horizontal bar shows the average range of turns per hour for classrooms of children in this same age range. The dark horizontal bar shows the average turns per hour for children in home environments.

3. Daily Adult Words. This graph shows the average number of adult words heard per hour, per child in this room on each LENA Day completed so far, up to the most recent 5 LENA Days.

   The light horizontal bar shows the average range of words per hour for classrooms of children in this same age range. The dark horizontal bar shows the average words per hour for children in home environments.

   Stars are not earned for word count, but it's often interesting context for the turns graph. For example, if both turns and words are low, you might focus on increasing words first. Making a habit of talking more can be a challenge! If words are high but turns are low, what might that mean, and what sort of goal might you set? Which Talking Tips can help?

4. Hourly Turns. Here we see the shape of interactive talk across the day: how many turns the children experienced each hour, on average, throughout the day. A trophy appears on the hour with the highest turns.

   This graph is extremely useful when thinking about integrating interactive talk into daily routines and activities in the classroom. Which hours and activities had higher turns? Ignoring nap time, which hours had lower turns? Are there Talking Tips that could help add interactive talk into those activities next time?

5. Hourly Adult Words. Here we see how many words children heard from adults each hour, on average, throughout the day. Just like its daily counterpart, the hourly turns graph gives context to the corresponding turns graph.

    

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Pages 2+ focus on Conversational Turns experienced by each individual child. 

1. Benchmarks and equity in interaction. Juicy data alert! Here you can see each child's experience relative to data-backed goals*, and in comparison to other children in the room that day. When all children experience turns at any of the 4 levels, a star is earned. Children are arranged from fewest hourly turns to most so that you can easily see who is having fewer interactions and who is having more. Children who were absent or had less than 2 hours of data are shown as NA at the bottom of the list.
2. Individual turns counts. On the right you'll see each child's average turns per hour for this LENA Day. Expect applause 👏🏼 when you help a child experience a new turns benchmark for the first time!
3. Trends by child. On the left you'll see a miniature graph for each child showing their average turns per hour for each of the recent LENA Days. You can get a sense of whether the child's experience of interactive talk is trending up or down. A gap means the child was not present or had less than 2 hours of data.

*For more on LENA's data-backed benchmarks, read the Inside Early Talk Report.

 

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Quick Guide to Stars

Teachers can earn a total of 5 stars per LENA Day on the Room Report. This is the only LENA Grow report that awards stars. 

 

Room Report FAQs

Why isn't the page displaying my selected reports or language choices?

Scroll down and click Refresh Reports. A refresh is necessary any time you change selected reports, dates, or language.

Why does the report page give a "refused to connect" error?

Your LENA Online connection has timed out in the background. See here.

Why are some children missing data from the latest LENA Day Interaction Chart?

If a child unexpectedly shows N/A on the Interaction Chart, use this guide to track down why the child is missing.

Why does my Room Report start an hour later, or end an hour earlier, than the Child Reports?

We need at least 30 minutes of recording time in order to calculate classroom average turns for any given hour. The hourly turns on the children's reports are actual hourly counts, so we show however many turns occurred for that child. In contrast, the Room Report is showing an average turns rate for the hour - like miles per hour. We don't want to calculate the rate based on too little data, because it could be very skewed.

As an exaggerated example, imagine a teacher and child have 10 turns from 8:59 to 9:00 while she's greeting him and helping him get his vest situated. That's great, and we'll show 10 turns on the child's report, but we wouldn't want to present this as a rate of 600 turns per hour in the 8am hour - that's not what happened! It's reasonable to give a turns rate based on the children's experiences during at least half of the hour. 

Why are Room Report turns in the first (or last) hour higher than any of the Child Reports for that hour?

The Room and Child reports can appear mismatched at the beginning and end of the day because children typically record less than a hour around drop-off and pick-up. For partial hours, turn rates are different from counts, and short durations are excluded.

Count vs. Rate

The Child Report shows the actual count of turns in each hour, while the Room Report reflects the rate of turns in each hour (turns per hour) for any child with at least 30 minutes of data in that hour.

When a child contributes a partial hour, typically at drop-off and pick-up time, the child's turn count and turn rate for that hour are different. Compare it to driving. If you drive 30 miles in 30 minutes and then park, you have traveled 30 miles (count) at a rate of 60 mph.

Examples for recordings that start in 7am hour:

• Child starts recording at 7:20 and has 20 turns before 8:00. Turn count = 20. Turn rate = 30 turns per hr.
• Child starts recording at 7:50 and has 20 turns before 8:00. Turn count = 20. Turn rate = 120 turns per hour.
• Child starts recording at 7:50 and has 1 turn before 8:00. Turn count = 1. Turn rate = 6 turns per hour.

Short Durations Excluded

To avoid skewed data, the Room Report hourly graph ignores the data from any child with fewer than 30 minutes of recording time in a given hour.

In the above examples, the first child’s rate of 30 turns/hr counts toward the 7am hour on the Room Report, but the second child’s blistering rate of 120 turns/hr does not, nor does the third child’s rate of 6.