Teaching Between the Lines: How 3rd–5th Grade Teachers of Diverse Readers Navigate High-Quality Instructional Materials

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Four
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT046 (Saturday)

Abstract

This qualitative study investigates how 3rd-5th English Language Arts teachers understand, perceive, and enact reading High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) when teaching diverse learners in a Southern California charter network. Grounded in Milner’s (2024) Curriculum Punishment framework, the study explores how teachers’ perceptions of curriculum, student needs, and organizational expectations intersect in instructional decision-making. Data from interviews, classroom observations, and a focus group examine how teachers’ choices reflect or resist forms of curriculum punishment—avoidance, scripting, narrowing, distortion, and banning. Anticipated findings highlight tensions among fidelity, responsiveness, and equity, offering implications for professional learning and policy that promote rigorous, culturally responsive literacy instruction for marginalized students.

Author

• Marcie Jones, Claremont Graduate University