Article summary

Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 38, No. 4

Octotjer/Novamber/December 2003 O 2003 Intemattonal Reading Association

(pp. 438-440)

THE INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION'S OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD, which has been given yearly since 1964, recognizes exceptional contributions made by doctoral students in reading or related fields. Candidates may be self-nominated or nominated by their dissertation advisors. Each submits a monograph based on the dissertation, which must have been completed during the previous academic year. These monographs imdergo rigor- ous review by the Association's Subcommittee on the Outstanding Disseiiation Award. The winner and other finalists are recognized at IRA's Annual Convention in April or May. The award also carries with it a monetary prize made possible by a donation from Scott Foresman, a U.S. educational publishing house.

The following summary of the 2003 award-winning dissertation has been provided for RRQ by its author.

The efFects of an adapted interactive writing intervention on kindergarten children's phonological awareness, spelling, and early reading development

SHARON A. CRAIG University of Maryland, College Park, USA

he Report of the National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) has focused research attention on the instructional practices to develop phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge in young children. Prior investigations of phonological awareness and phonics techniques have employed embedded and nonembedded approaches with varying degrees of explicitness and instructional integration, ranging from contextualized child- constructed experiences to scripted teacher-directed instruction (e.g., Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneidcr, &: Mehta, 1998). Although some researchers view fmdings from intervention studies as support for a standardized synthetic approach to code instruction, proponents of contextualized approaches argue that phonological awareness and alphabetic instruction must address the development

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The effects of an adapted interactive writing intervention

and progress of each child (Dahl, Scharer, Lawson, &c Grogan, 1999; Richgels, Poremba, & McGec, 1996), They, in turn, suggest that contextualizing ex- plicit instruction entails implementing intensive, de- liberate, and clearly planned phonological awareness and alphabetic skill and strategy instruction {see Strickland, 1998) within the contexts of reading and writing. In a contextualized approach, ongoing as- sessments inform teachers' decision making as well as provide data for differentiating instruction. This in- vestigation examined a form of contextualized in- struction and compared its effectiveness with a field-tested program of metalinguistic games.

Employing a pretest-posttest comparison group design, this study investigated the effects of two instructional approaches, interactive writing- plus and metalinguistic games-plus, on the phono- logical awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and early reading of kindergarten children (Craig, 2001). The interactive writing-plus treatment consisted of three basic components; (a) text experience, (b) response to the text using interactive writing, and (c) supple- mental letter-sound instruction. In addition, two ap- proaches to interactive writing were implemented during the study. Initially, children participated in "sharing the pen" (Pinnell & McCarrier, 1994) to construct a group message. However, once children became familiar with the interactive writing process and could demonstrate semiphonetic spelling (Gentry &C Gillet, 1993), teachers implemented an adaptation that preserved the supportive discourse of the original technique yet maximized student in- volvement in the problem-solving phase of writing. All letter-sound patterns developed for explicit in- struction were selected from children's spellings, with decisions based on the teachers' observations and the researcher's selection guidelines. During interactive writing and word building activities, teachers not only demonstrated phonemic segmentation but also supported children's use of segmentation to complete internal analysis of the words they spelled. In con- trast, the metalinguistic games-plus group followed the step-by-step progression of activities presented in Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum (Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, &: Beeler, 1998). Based on the research of Lundberg, Frost, and Petersen (1988), this curriculum provided teach- ers with an outline of listening, rhyming, synthesis, and analysis games ordered according to task and lin- guistic complexity. Supplemental letter-sound activi- ties for the metalinguistic games-plus group provided a synthetic approach to code instruction. The re- searcher's selection of words and letter-sound se- quences complied with curriculum guide

recommendations and did not involve connected writing.

The elementary school selected for this study served a predominandy white, middle class popula- tion. Eighty-seven children from four half-day kindergarten sessions participated in the investiga- tion. Prior to pretesting, random assignment within classes placed children in one of the two treatment groups. For instructional purposes, the children in each treatment group were divided into small inter- vention classes, with each class of four to five chil- dren grouped together according to common strengths and learning goals. Instructional groups met with knowledgeable, experienced literacy teach- ers outside of the regular classroom for 20-minute sessions, four times per week, for 16 weeks.

Measures consisted of (a) Snider'sTest of Phonemic Awareness (1997), (b) Hearing Sounds in Words (Clay, 1993), (c) Developmental Spelling Test (Tangel & Blachman, 1992), (d) Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Word Attack subtest (1987), (e) Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Word Identification subtest, (f) Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised Passage Comprehension sub- test, and (g) a word reading development measure based on Ehri's (1995) four phases of word learning.

A 2 (time) X 2 (treatment) repeated measures analysis of variance was employed to analyze phono- logical awareness, spelling, and reading measures for which there were pre- and posttest data. Using a stan- dardized composite of three pretest measures, chil- dren were also evaluated for initial literacy level, resulting in a designation of high-, middle-, or low- initial literacy level for each child. A 3 (initial literacy level) X 2 (treatment) analysis of variance was used to test for the differential effects of treatment and initial iiteracy level on children's spelling and reading perfor- mances. Additionally, effect sizes were calculated to support the interpretation of the statistical analyses conducted on the phonological awareness, spelling, and reading measures. Finally, children's real word and pseudoword reading measures were combined and reanalyzed for word reading development. After calculating the number and percentages of children in each phase of word development, a chi-square was computed to test for between-group differences.

Analyses of the data indicated that the interac- tive writing-plus group matched or exceeded the per- formance of the metalinguistic games-plus group on each measure. Results revealed no significant differ- ences between the two treatments with regard to phonological awareness {F= 2.98, p = .088), spelling {F= 3.17, p ^ .079), or pseudoword reading {F= 3.26, p= .074) performance. In contrast, results from

440 Reading Research Quarterly OCTOBER/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003 38/4

three reading measures showed an advantage for the interactive writing-plus group, revealing statistically significant differences between the two groups on word identification iF= 6.77y p =.011), passage comprehension {F= 12.17,/?= .001), and word read- ing development {%' = 4.61, ^ < .05) measures. Effect sizes measuring bctween-group differences for low-, middle-, and high-initial literacy level children sup- ported these results, as evidenced by small to large ef- fects for word identification {d= .34-low, .50-middle, .77-high) and passage comprehension (4= .49-low, .65-middle, and 1.03-high) measures.

The results suggest that a more contextualized approach that allows teachers to differentiate instruc- tion advances children to new levels of competence in phonological awareness, spelling, and reading. Furthermore, it appears that writing instruction that encourages phonemic segmentation and invented spellings provides a rich context for developing the phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge children require tor early reading. The reading results are particularly interesting because they present evi- dence that interactive writing not only enhances kindergarten children's word reading but also their reading comprehension.

These findings also s u r e s t a broader definition for "explicit, systematic" code instruction. When planning literacy lessons, interactive writing-plus teachers applied their knowledge of early literacy de- velopment as well as their ongoing observations to plan and implement skill and strategy instruction within an interactive writing context. During instruc- tion, teachers provided explicit explanations, demon- strations, and practice of phonological awareness and alphabetic skills in reading, writing, and word build- ing. Moreover, they adapted instruction and scaffold- ing to accommodate task complexity as well as to assist children of varied skill levels, thereby providing the optimal instructional match for each child.

An analysis of the results and limitations of this study suggests several directions for future research. This investigation generated conclusions based on a 16-week intervention. Consequently, the long-term effects of the interactive writing-plus intervention cannot be determined on the basis of current results.

Therefore, the intervention period should be extend- ed to examine relationships among the variables over time. Furthermore, studies in preschool, prior to for- mal literacy instruction, may yield even greater infor- mation about the role of writing in the development of early word reading and comprehension. Finally, the sample and setting selected for this study limit generalizability of findings, thus suggesting the need for further research among more diverse populations.

R E F E R E N C E S ADAMS. M., FOORMAN, B.R., LUNDBERG, I.. & BEELER, T.

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