LENA Home: Tools for Home Visitors

Self-paced program implementation course for LENA Home visitors

Course Outline

9. Home Reports: Interpretation (20 min)

Understanding, interpreting, and explaining reports is a crucial part of the home visitor experience. Although each home visit is an individual experience, there is a sequence we recommend following as you discuss each LENA report. As you become more comfortable with the process, please personalize as you feel best.

  1. “What do you notice?”
    Ask this when parents and caregivers are first viewing their report to help generate observational and self-reflection skills.
  2. “Tell me about your LENA Day.”
    Start discussion around daily totals.
    Observe and discuss overall trends for daily totals of adult words, conversational turns, and TV/electronic sounds. Again, what do you notice about these totals?
  3. Identify “best” and “most challenging” times of day.
    While observing trends in hourly totals, when was talk at its highest? Lowest?
  4. Identify “wins”.
    Encourage families to find positives in their report. What can be celebrated? What hard work can be acknowledged?
  5. Identify and set goals.
    After observing trends on the report, what are some areas in which families would like to improve? Choose one or two goals to work on during the following week.

We selected a few reports to share with you. Each report features common challenges LENA families (and home visitors) face when implementing the program. Watch each video for guided tips on how to support families while sharing reports. To better follow along, click here for a larger image of the report.

Now that you have an overall idea of how report interpretation works, try a few on your own! View the sample report image first and write down some of your own observations, ideas, and comments. Think about:

  • What would you say to guide parents and caregivers through this report?
  • What are some “wins” and what are some challenges?
  • What Talking Tips would you suggest they try?
  • What might be a quality goal to work towards? 

Then, when you are ready, watch the video for guided steps on how to interpret each report.

Example 1: Hector (larger image)

Example 2: Marta (larger image)

Example 3: Jared (larger image)

Want more practice? Being confident in your report interpretation skills is a key part of your role as a home visitor. If you would like even MORE practice interpreting example reports, click on the image and video links below!

Check your understanding:

 

  Course conclusion