TRI as Improving Teacher Efficacy and Reading Instruction and Student Learning in First Grade

• In Event: A Multifaceted Lens: Perspectives and Impacts of an Effective Elementary Teacher Literacy Professional Development Program

Abstract

Learning to read in early elementary school ensures continued academic success and has long-lasting impacts in adolescence and adulthood (Herrnandez, 2011; Lesnick et al., 2010). However, many children still find learning to read challenging, even when they receive high-quality instruction in their general education classroom. One of the central TRI tenets is that it helps classroom teachers acquire key diagnostic reading instruction strategies differentiated to meet the exact needs of these students (Fuchs et al., 2014; Grimm et al., 2018). This study explored potential TRI effects on teacher efficacy for literacy instruction, teacher literacy instructional practices, and student reading skills.

The study was conducted in six first grade classrooms in rural school districts during 2021–2022. In each classroom, 1 to 2 students were identified as reading below grade level using DIBELS and Woodcock-Johnson (WJ) screening subtests. TRI interactive training and materials were then provided to treatment teachers. Following training, and as in other studies, each TRI teacher offered students with 15-minute daily one-on-one instruction. Over the academic year, the teachers learned through working with identified students how to tailor each lesson to match each student’s specific needs. Also as in other TRI studies, a TRI coach used webcam technology to watch and record one TRI lesson and provide real-time feedback to guide teacher implementation.

Teacher surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the study. Teachers’ literacy instruction and self-efficacy was captured using Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy for Literacy Instruction scale (Tschannen-Moran & Johnson, 2011). Teachers’ instructional practices were evaluated by whether major emphasis was reported to have been placed on each type of reading instructional activity. Descriptive findings in post-pre changes in teachers’ outcomes showed a consistent upward trend was shown in teachers’ efficacy for reading instruction, especially with implementation and modeling of reading strategies, flexible grouping, specific targeted feedback, and ultimately meeting the needs of students not yet reading on grade level. In addition, almost all TRI teachers placed major emphasis on decoding and vocabulary development after receiving TRI training and virtual coaching (see Table 1).

Students’ reading skills were assessed through a collection of early literacy measures before and after the program, including DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency; Woodcock Johnson IV (WJ) Letter-Word Identification, Word Attack, Spelling of Sounds, and Passage Comprehension; TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency, and Clinical Evaluations of Language Fundamentals (CELF) Recalling Sentences. Considering potential natural maturation of student reading skills, we identified 1-2 struggling readers from a non-TRI classroom within each sampled school as a comparison. Differences between treatment and comparison students in the post-pre changes were assessed using t tests. As shown in Table 2, treatment students consistently scored higher on almost all subtests (except for WJ Word Attack), with effect sizes ranging from .20 to .84.

Findings suggest benefits of TRI for both teachers and students. More work, including a randomized controlled trial designed to extend and replicate prior TRI studies, is currently underway to further evaluate the program’s short-term and long-term effectiveness.

Authors

• Yihua Hong, RTI International
  Presenting Author

• Robin Wisniewski, RTI International

• Heather Aiken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida