Assessing the Impacts of a Collaborative Teaching Model on Students' Early Literacy Skills

• In Event: Better Together: Opportunities, Challenges, and Outcomes of Formal and Informal Educator Collaborations

Abstract

Objectives and theoretical framework
In 2014, four large community-based organizations in New York City, with support from the Brooke Astor Fund for New York City Education through The New York Community Trust, launched a Collaborative to identify evidence-based approaches to support the literacy development of early elementary school students through afterschool programming. The organizations elected to focus on three skill areas: vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and critical thinking

In the planning phase, the organizations identified recommendations for strengthening afterschool programming to support higher-order reading skills. They sought to align afterschool program activities with school day content by incorporating school day instructional strategies in afterschool and by having afterschool staff communicate more often with day school staff. In the fall of 2015, they launched Ready Readers, a pilot a model for developing higher-order reading skills based on the strategies identified by the Collaborative. In the program, certified day school teachers are paired with each afterschool program to assist community educators in aligning their lessons to the Department of Education’s ELA scope and sequence. Each week, the certified teachers either observe or co-facilitate lessons in the afterschool program and provide coaching and feedback to their CBO counterparts. The program targets low-income and immigrant students, including ELLs, in grades 1-3 enrolled in 15 New York City public schools.

External evaluation of the model seeks to address its impact on both student and educators. Assessments focus on youth literacy skills as well as the effect of professional development trainings on educators’ feelings of competence delivering literacy instruction and the overall degree of program quality.

Methods and Data Sources:
To date, the project has been evaluated via a mixed-methods approach consisting of activity observations of program quality, staff surveys, fidelity rubrics, and standardized assessments of youth literacy (including the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension [TOSREC], the CORE Reading Comprehension Assessment, and the CORE Vocabulary Assessment) linked to student attendance.

Results:
Evaluation of the multi-year initiative just completed its second year and analyses are well underway. Preliminary findings from the first year of implementation point to a number of positive impacts of collaborative teaching of literacy among an early elementary population, including:
83% of educators displayed improved classroom practice delivering literacy instruction via objective classroom observation assessments
86% of community educators reported increased confidence delivering literacy instruction
Students served by the program displayed statistically significant growth in literacy skills on standardized assessments of literacy.

Significance of Work
Based on the positive initial findings, the Ready Readers model has been approved for expansion in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years to reach approximately 2,200 students in 34 elementary schools. Findings from the formative evaluation will address how collaboration between in-school and afterschool educators can most effectively reinforce literacy concepts introduced in the school day for an elementary school population.

Authors

• Joel Nunez, ExpandED Schools

• Kathryn Brohawn, ExpandED Schools, Inc.