[Language promotion in kindergartens in Biberach county--an analysis of the state foundation subsidized language intervention project].

The Programme Sprachförderung im Kindergarten was carried out in 83 nursery-schools in the Landkreis Biberach/Germany from fall 2003 till summer 2004. The Programme was offered by the Kreisgesundheitsamt des Landkreises Biberach in cooperation with the Sozial- und Jugendamt and the Hör-Sprachzentrum Ravensburg and contained a language-intervention programme and a training for the nursery-school teachers. Language screenings where conducted at the beginning and the end of the programme including 1479 Children of the age of 4 - 6 years. 23 % of the native German and 62 % of the migrant children showed a need for intervention. These children where fostered with the Ravensburger Modell for 6 months. The increase in performance was highly significant. Nevertheless the fostered children could not achieve the performance level of the native German children without language retardation with the exception of two tasks (word families and understanding of questions). The most significant increase in performance showed the poorest performers of the intervention-group. According to the increase in performance the programme was successful, but also obviously too short for the poorer performers to catch up. Therefore we advise further language-intervention programmes in nursery-schools to be conducted as early as possible. Furthermore analytical observation and supervision must be standard to maintain a high level of effectiveness.