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

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI) is a professional development (PD) program for classroom elementary teachers with weekly virtual coaching to improve reading instruction. TRI teachers provide one-on-one lessons with students not yet reading on grade level for 15 minutes/day, four-five days/week, for a period of six-ten weeks. Each TRI lesson incorporates three activities (Rereading for Fluency, Word Work, Connected Text Reading). TRI has been evaluated through Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and is unique in showing alphabetics and reading comprehension impacts (What Works Clearinghouse, 2017). TRI recently received federal IES funding for replication and innovation/scaling projects. A key feature of past and current TRI work is ongoing improvement to ensure that its evidence of impact and sustained promise are experienced across contexts and investigated using varying methodologies and developmental outcomes.

This symposium highlights four TRI studies derived from three RCTs, analyzed and synthesized from a multi-institution multidisciplinary team (e.g., early childhood education, elementary education, special education, school psychology, quantitative methodology). The contexts, timing, and foci across studies differed, investigating key RCT ingredients of implementation, measurement, and impacts. The first study (rural schools, 2010–2014), showed positive TRI impacts on student fluency, a measure previously untested. The second study (rural/urban schools, 2016–2019), showed TRI’s virtual coaching model supporting teachers’ implementation and instructional decision-making through promotion of teacher relatedness, autonomy, and competence. The third and fourth studies (rural schools, 2020–2021), showed impacts on teacher/student outcomes and highlighted ways to streamline screening of reading challenges for early readers.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida

Individual Presentations

• Impacts of TRI on Early Elementary Students’ Reading Fluency - Presenting Author: Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida; Sarah Pedonti, Western Carolina University; Nancy McIntyre, University of Central Florida; Heather Aiken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• TRI Coaching: Virtual Support for Teacher Implementation and Instructional Decision-Making - Presenting Author: Heather Aiken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Cheryl Varghese, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida; Steve Amendum, University of Delaware

• TRI as Improving Teacher Efficacy and Reading Instruction and Student Learning in First Grade - Presenting Author: Yihua Hong, RTI International; Robin Wisniewski, RTI International; Heather Aiken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida

• Comparing Early Screeners for Accurate Identification of TRI First Grade Students Reading Below Grade Level - Presenting Author: Robin Wisniewski, RTI International; Yihua Hong, RTI International; Mary Bratsch-Hines, University of Florida; Heather Aiken, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill