• Research Portfolio

Effective Strategies for Struggling Readers

Bibliographic Entry:

Vaughn, S., Roberts, G. J., Miciak, J., Taylor, P., & Fletcher, J. M. (2018). Efficacy of a word- and wext-based intervention for students with significant reading difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 52(1), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219418775113

Research Summary:

This study, a collaboration of The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA, tested the effectiveness of word reading and reading comprehension strategies with 280 fourth and fifth graders who have severe reading difficulties. Half were assigned to instruction as usual and half were provided 30-45 minutes of 68 lessons in word reading and comprehension of content area texts. The students were selected from nine schools from three school districts in the southwestern United States. The students were identified as struggling readers based on their score of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension, a brief group administered reading assessment that has strong psychometric properties. A standard score of 85 or below was designated as a struggling reader. 647 students met the criteria as struggling readers This number proved too large a sample size, so 280 students were drawn randomly from this pool to be selected for this study. Each was assessed individually on the nine literacy measures by trained examiners who were not aware of the treatment to which the students were assigned. This data was provided to the instructional tutors. 14 tutors were hired to provide small group instruction. The students who received the tutoring performed significantly higher than the students without the tutoring in word reading and reading fluency. Although not statistically significant, they also scored higher in decoding and reading comprehension. The authors concluded more of this kind of reading support is important as struggling readers move to higher grades where reading has increasing impact on their ability to succeed in content areas .

Evaluation:

While it may seem obvious that the findings would show that such extensive tutoring interventions would have at least some impact on literacy skills, I have sometimes wondered in my prolonged participation in lunch time tutoring and after school program tutoring if there really is an impact on student learning. While the students in this study were extensively assessed and their instruction tailored to exactly what they needed remediation in, we often base our student assignments to after school tutoring on one measure and gauge the effectiveness of that tutoring on state test scores. Look at the nine quality measures that assessed the students participating in the treatment: Woodcock-Johnson III Letter-Word Identification, Experimental Word Reading List, Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension, Test of Word Reading Efficiency: Sight Word Efficiency, AIMSweb Reading, Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test–Fourth Edition, WJ-III Passage Comprehension, WJ-III Spelling. We often only get some of this assessment information after a student has been referred for a special education program. Imagine what I could do with that kind of data at my fingertips on all my struggling readers, or even ALL my students! The expense is cost prohibitive and school psychologists are becoming scarcer in education. An implication that see for myself as an aspiring teacher leader is the quality and extensive training and support the tutors had in implementing the targeted instruction: All of the tutors held at least a bachelor’s degree, and nine held a master’s degree. 13 had teaching certificates in reading or a related area. Tutors received 18 hours of professional development, 10 before intervention and 8 after lesson 40, and participated in biweekly meetings, onsite coaching, and feedback every two to three weeks. Not all of our teachers have that kind of professional expertise and professional development in literacy. Our parent and volunteer tutors have none. That is something a teacher leader might be able to change in the future.

Implications for Planning and Teaching:

I am in a position as an Instructional Coach to not only model quality content lessons that incorporate vocabulary and reading strategies into the instruction, but also to recommend teachers implement additional tutoring for those students who are struggling in reading. I can recommend additional assessment to help teachers better target what students need, especially in reference to students who are on RTI. Because we are short a 4th grade teacher and I am currently teaching 4th grade Social Studies online, I can create lessons that address the reading weaknesses our students show on their assessments and incorporate those compensatory reading strategies into the Social Studies content instruction on a daily basis. In addition, I can provide these instructional components to other teachers at our school and in our district that are facing the same e-learning challenges and provide access online, so students can click on a and review both the reading and the vocabulary-effectively acting as their own tutor. My students are particularly weak in vocabulary necessary for comprehension of Social Studies reading selections as well as word attack and fluency. These are two areas where the study showed that tutoring had been especially effective. In addition, while the study’s school demographics varied greatly with the percent of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch (ranging from 2% to 96.1% and state reading scores from 34% to 99%), my students are almost exclusively receiving free or reduced lunch and have extremely low reading scores. Most of the 4th grade class was been retained in 3rd grade last year. This might look like a daunting task, but perhaps it can be viewed as a strength while we are all e-learning due to COVID-19. Since almost all of my students face similar challenges economically and have similar literacy weaknesses, it means I can be effective in presenting whole group instruction; this remediates everyone in reading skills and advocates for all my students to receive the community support and resources of which they are in such need.

Effective Strategies for ELLs

Bibliographic Entry:

Boon, B. (2017). Reading interventions for elementary English language learners with learning disabilities: a review. Insights into Learning Disabilities, 14(1), 27–52.

Research Summary:

Boon, an Associate Professor from the University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching in the College of Education and Human Development and Barbetta, a Professor at Florida International University, discussed the steady increase over time in the United States in the numbers of ELLs in our schools and their difficulties in often struggling with reading. They conducted a meta-analysis of nine research studies that looked at very young ELL learners with learning disabilities and found that of the reading strategies they examined, the most promising were computer-based strategies, graphic organizers, peer tutoring, repeated reading with a vocabulary component, and two specific reading programs, Project Plus and Read Well. All of these had a positive impact on student reading. A literature search was conducted through electronic tools and studies selected based on the targeted criteria. A total of 585 students were included in the studies examined and of that 517 were ELLs. Of these, 165 were also classified as learning disabled, one who was learning disabled and a speech and language impairment, one who was learning disabled and was labeled as a student attention deficit, and two with developmental disabilities. The computer-based strategy focused on phonology, the graphic organizers included semantic mapping, semantic feature analysis, and semantic/syntactic feature analysis to teach vocabulary and improve reading comprehension skills. The peer tutoring included paired reading and story retelling. The repeated reading included front loaded vocabulary. Finally, a supplemental reading program called Project PLUS and a curriculum reading program, Read Well showed positive impact. Because reading is required to succeed in so much of classroom instruction, it is critical that we find strategies that impact reading in the early grades and especially with struggling readers and ELLs. The authors conclude that more research is needed in this area.

Evaluation:

Within our school district, there are a number of ELLs and also a number of students with learning disabilities. In addition, there are those struggling learners in RTI who may need more extensive assistance than what RIT may offer them. I have a few ELLs in my classes; of the strategies that were found effective in this meta-analysis, the ones that I have tried and found effective with all learners including those who are ELLs and struggling readers are computer-based strategies, which can endlessly repeat and review sounds and words until a student has mastered them, graphic organizers used both for creating writing plans and sematic mapping, front loading vocabulary, peer tutoring, paired reading and retelling stories for comprehension and pronunciation practice and rereading. Particularly at this time while we are teaching 100% through e-learning, where peer tutoring and paired reading are not easily implemented, I have found it helpful not only to create lessons using some of these strategies, but also to assign students to e-learning tools, like IReady, that have vocabulary features that define words within text and match pictures to vocabulary needed for comprehension. This is very helpful to the ELLs who I teach.

Implications for Planning and Teaching:

One implication reading this research study has had on my thinking, planning, and teaching is awareness that there were also a number of research studies in the meta-analysis that did not prove effective and that did not meet the criteria for what these researchers were addressing. Students do not have time for us to experiment with their learning. Their time to learn is now; some students are on borrowed time to develop the skills they need to move forward. I have to be very careful to select only the most effective strategies with the most likely positive outcomes to meet the specific needs of my learners. It is so easy to read about or see someone implement a strategy that seems like a good idea, but may not be having the necessary impact for my instructional goals. I can have confidence in some of these strategies that are most applicable to my teaching situation. As I plan my content lessons that incorporate reading instruction to remediate our learners, I will be sure to use these strategies to enhance the learning outcomes of my ELLs. I think I can incorporate not only the front loading of vocabulary, but also include clickable links to pictures and audio files which enhance pronunciation and comprehension. After reading this research study, another area that I think will impact my teaching is searching for ways to promote peer to peer interaction through e-learning. Of the strategies found effective with ELLs with learning disabilities in this meta-analysis, three were peer to peer strategies. Because of e-learning, all students are missing their social interactions with their peers and finding a way to incorporate peer to peer interaction in e-learning will enhance learning outcomes for ELLs and struggling readers while helping all students feel more excited about participating in e-learning school during this time of COVID.

Reading Assessments for K-6 students

Bibliographic Entry:

Shapiro, E. S., Solari, E., & Petscher, Y. (2008). Use of a measure of reading comprehension to enhance prediction on the state high stakes assessment. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(3), 316–328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2008.03.002

Research Summary:

Two researchers from Pennsylvania analyzed reading score data from the 2006-2007 school years for Pennsylvania students in grades 3, 4 and 5 based on samples of 21,500, 21,700, and 22,500 students across the state, through the Success for all Foundation. Because high-stakes testing has meaningful impact on students, teachers and school districts, it is important to identify students who are at risk of not meeting proficiency levels on these tests. Since these tests are given once a year, other measures have to be relied upon to plan instruction to address student needs. RTI teams depend upon quality assessments to inform instructional intervention for at risk students, therefore the ORF has been administered three times a year to help address student learning needs in reading. Because the ORF does not assess all the components of the reading task, the DORF and the Pennsylvania 4Sight Benchmark test were also administered and used to predict student outcomes on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), their state’s high-stakes test. The DORF was administered in the fall, winter, and spring. Scores from the spring were not reviewed since the PSSA is administered statewide in the spring. The 4Sight Benchmark Assessment, a 30 item reading assessment, is given to whole classes to assess the state benchmarks in reading. It is given five times a year-in the fall, mid-fall, winter, late winter, and spring to predict results on the PSSA in order to inform instruction. After evaluating the data, the researchers conclude that while there is a level of error in identifying students as at risk who did not in fact need remediation, it is better to err on the side of identifying those who do not need intervention, providing it rather than risk not identifying students who do need remediation and not providing it. They acknowledge that remediation efforts are expensive and time consuming; this must be taken into consideration. More research needs to be conducted on upper elementary student to better facilitate the RTI process.

Evaluation:

The value of having so much data reported statewide, particularly in reading-an essential life skill, should help us make better system-wide decisions as well as school based and individually student based instructional support. The ORF assesses students’ oral reading fluency, comprised of oral production of text with speed and accuracy. It takes one minute to administer so it is a tool that can be used repeatedly throughout the school year to assess progress in reading with an eye to more specifically targeted needed remediation without imposing an undue burden on students and teachers. The lengthier DORF issued by class schoolwide three times a year is an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and expense. The Pennsylvania 4Sight Benchmark assessment, which assesses the benchmarks of Comprehension and Reading Skills, Interpretation and Analysis of Fictional and Non-Fictional Text, Learning to Read Independently, Reading Critically in All Content Areas, and Reading, Analyzing, and Interpreting Literature, given five times a year, is not only time consuming and also redundant. I have often wished for more specific data about some students, but we also need to take care that we are not wasting all of our instructional time measuring what we no longer have time to teach. We need to gather data; I believe we need to have procedures to report and analyze that data state wide in Mississippi. We also need to advocate for more practical and authentic measures that preserve the instructional time in the classroom.

Implications for Planning and Teaching:

After reading the information in this study, I have become determined to find and implement more targeted and individual assessment for those learners who are struggling. Where data already indicates a group wide deficit, remediation needs to be a priority that is incorporated in as many ways as practically possible. Repeated opportunities to gain a skill over time are necessary for the student to own the skill and be able to reflect it on a high stakes test. There is the factor of test fatigue we need to consider, where students no longer make their best attempt at an assessment because it is tedious and does not reflect back to them the knowledge that they know they have gained. More authentic assessments that derive out of instructional opportunities and classroom experiences help the student both own and celebrate their accomplishments so that they are more invested in the high stakes test outcomes when they finally take it. We need to reserve some assessments solely for those students who have been identified for RTI so we can plan instruction for them accordingly. If we repeatedly give the same assessments class wide multiple times a year, we hamper its reliability. I am impressed with the power of some authentic assessment tasks to motivate learners. I remember allowing a reluctant reader to record himself reading into a short sound file. As soon as he was done, he could not wait to play it back to hear it. No sooner had he heard it he said, “Let me do it again! I know I can do better!” He did. Asking to reread a passage was something he had never done in class. Reading and writing about topics meaningful to students, discussing books with peers, keeping journals, writing letters to historical figures, fictional figures or current celebrities, and other classroom activities give us a chance to assess the skills we have taught while exciting the student to ever better levels of performance.

Grouping Configurations

Bibliographic Entry:

Wilkinson, I. A., & Fung, I. Y. (2002). Small-group composition and peer effects. International Journal of Educational Research, 37(5), 425–447. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0883-0355(03)00014-4

Research Summary:

A collaboration between the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University and the School of Education at the University of Auckland in New Zealand resulted in the review of numerous meta-analysis and research studies on both homogenous grouping and heterogeneous group in elementary classrooms and the effects it had on student learning. Grouping or mixing students by ability, ethnicity and gender and by group size were each reviewed and addressed separately. The results of meta-analysis on ability grouping showed a small but meaningful impact on student learning when contrasted to whole group instruction. The impact on student learning varied by the relative ability of the students in the group. Teacher-student interaction established the norm for behavior for small groups over time and either led to harmonious interactions that focused on reading instruction or disharmonious that led to disruption. Teacher led groups were impacted by student norms of behavior through cycles of teacher–student interactions. Peer led heterogeneous grouping of students made gains in higher level thinking skills and other activities that enhance learning. High ability students gained the most from teaching their peers and low ability students gained from the opportunity to learn from their peers. Middle functioning students showed the least gains in learning. In groups of ethnic and gender compositions, the learning effects derived from interactions between students were according to their perceived status and relative influence over the members of the group. In heterogeneous grouping of students, ethnicity and gender stemmed directly from the interactions among their peers. This may serve as a status characteristic where there is no other basis for making judgements about a student’s ability, and thus their relative influence and learning in the group. This was particularly the case where students did not know one another. In research on group size, there is a negative relationship whereas the group grows larger, they change in other ways, generally for the worse with participants less satisfied, participating less often and are less cooperative. The authors conclude that while we know a lot about the positive effects of small groups in Math, we need to do further research on small groups, particularly ability grouping in Reading.

Evaluation:

Other than the research study done in Tennessee that concluded that elementary students and particularly those in the earliest grades suffer negative effects from class sizes that are over 16, I was unaware of the research behind small group reading instruction. I had been informed to be careful to regularly reevaluate student progress in reading and move them to different groups as necessary; I learned that small group instruction in literacy should be flexible and serve many different purposes, but I did not know why. I was so excited by the wealth of information in this study because it caused me to think of so many different uses and possibilities for grouping that had not occurred to me before. Because the meta-analysis and research studies spanned numerous populations and settings and were targeted to many different purposes, it was hard to judge how much application this information might have for the school I am currently serving. I think the information is invaluable to me as a professional and provides me much background information to share with other teachers. The possibility of grouping by gender or ethnicity might have its purposes in other settings or if I were to split a class into two gender groups to discuss an issue and come back as a whole groups to share outcomes. That has potential for a Social Studies lesson. In addition, I learned so much more about teacher-student and student–student interactions that impact learning and how small group cooperative learning can improve so many students learning outcomes. I will not forget that the middle ability students do not make as many gains as everyone else in this situation. The most significant take away for me is how important it is to watch teacher-student interaction and its impact on instruction and the necessity of not depending on any one grouping configuration exclusively but rather to have a variety.

Implications for Planning and Teaching:

It was eye opening to read the summary of research on the impact of guided reading groups. This research highlighted five significant areas to be aware of and I plan to incorporate all of them into my planning and teaching as well as in sharing this information with the teachers for which I model teach. Some teachers allocate less time to low ability groups than to high ability groups. Teachers spend more time on decoding tasks that focus on individual words and parts of words than on tasks that relate to meaning in lower ability groups. The instructional pace is slower in low ability groups, so less material is read by the end of the year than in high ability groups. Teachers tend to interrupt poor readers who make oral reading errors more than when similar errors are made by better readers and the feedback they give is often telling students the correct word, instead of assisting them to correct their own error as is done for better readers. When teachers do give more feedback to low ability grouped readers, they are more likely to give support for the grapheme or phonemic parts of a word instead of focusing more attention on semantics and meaning. Teachers also ask students in low ability groups more factual questions and fewer questions that require higher level thinking skills and after asking a question, give less time for students to answer. Since reading is essentially a task in pursuit of meaning, while it is important to provide phonetic information to all learners, especially those who struggle, it is significant to me that we cannot stop there with our struggling readers. We need to provide as much support for gathering an understanding of a text as we can by teaching reading comprehension strategies to all our students.

The Efficacy of Specific Teaching Strategies for Writing Instruction

Bibliographic Entry:

Bouwer, R., Koster, M., & Bergh, H. V. D. (2018). Effects of a strategy-focused instructional program on the writing quality of upper elementary students in the Netherlands. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(1), 58–71. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000206

Research Summary:

Three researchers from Utrecht University reviewed the research on writing instruction and its impact on Elementary students in the Netherlands. It was noted that many students score poorly on writing assessments and their writing ability does not significantly improve after third grade. The method developed to address this issue was to provide teacher training that led to 16 teachers developing a writing program based on Bandura’s observational learning theory and using a scaffolding approach based on Vygotsky. Teacher modeling, peer modeling, and a gradual release of writing responsibility supported by mnemonic devices were key components of the writing program developed. This program was then tested using a switching replication design with three measurement data collections.

The focal point of instruction was the writing strategy that students learned to help guide them through the steps of the writing process. Three types of writing were tested in each of three groups, including the control group. They were descriptive, narrative, and persuasive writing. Whole classes of fourth, fifth and sixth graders were included in the study. Seventy-six upper-elementary teachers, representing 60 classrooms participated and all held professional certification. The study included 27 schools. Based on the data yielded from the study, the authors conclude that because of using the switching replication design, the results are applicable not just to the participants, but are more widely predictable of success in other similar settings. The results indicate that regardless of the type of writing task, a program such as this one would be effective in improving student writing.

Evaluation:

The researchers point out that part of the struggle in learning to write well is the cognitive overload that is required of struggling writers for completing the resource demanding activity of writing. This includes the need for writers to simultaneously active prior knowledge, generate content, plan their writing, formulate and then revise their writing while maintaining a goal of communicating to their audience and solving the required goal of the writing. In addition, spelling, sentence structure, paragraph construction, grammar, and punctuation have to be integrated into the process of writing, so developing writers often resort to writing whatever comes to mind. While this study was conducted in the Netherlands, in their native language, it is noteworthy that all of these tasks are required of writers regardless of language. Teacher modeling and especially modeling our thinking and talking through making errors and modeling correcting them can help build writing habits that will lead writers to success. Intriguing is the idea of peer modeling. In this study, struggling writers and their more exemplary peers both made gains in their writing are indicative of the power of this instructional step. A mnemonic device was used to help students remember and apply the writing sequence with the first letter of each strategy step creating an acronym that spelled the name of an animal. These instructional measures make sense in terms of helping students cope with the mental burden of writing until it becomes a more automated task.

Implications for Planning and Teaching:

This instructional writing process, including the use of mnemonics but without peer modeling of writing, is similar to the one I use currently and have found success with in the past. These students seem very similar to my own and I feel confident that while it is not necessary to purchase a formalized program, the research supports using this generalized strategy in my classroom. I frequently use graphical organizers and teach single writing steps incorporated into content lessons to assist students in practicing writing as a part of another lesson. The more we reinforce these strategies, the more automaticity the students develop. Having a specific learning disability myself, I have implemented mnemonic devices and graphical organizers as a part of my own writing process and these strategies were taught to me in school. For many learners they work because it helps reduce the cognitive load required of the writing task. We know that one of the best ways to process and understand what you have read is to write about it. The writing does not have to be lengthy but rather can vary based on the needs of the instructional situation. Something mentioned by the authors in only a cursory way is the end result of writing should not just be to communicate what you know with the teacher, but to celebrate your new knowledge, point of view, or creative endeavor with an authentic audience. I want to promote more of this kind of celebration of student writing once it has reached a published state. It is hard to find instructional time to let every student share their creation with their peers, but writing and reading your writing to younger students in another class would reduce the instructional time used by having it occur in pairs simultaneously. Posting student work around the room, with a “read the room” type literacy center as well as incorporating technology to capture and post electronically student work or allowing students to read their writing into an audio file to be heard by friends and family are some ways I am thinking about creating these opportunities to celebrate student writing. During this time of COVID, technology may be our best bet for now.