The Targeted Reading Intervention: A classroom teacher professional development

program to promote effective teaching for struggling readers in kindergarten and first grade

Lynne Vernon-Feagans

Kirsten Kainz Amy Hedrick Marnie Ginsberg Steve Amendum

• Thanks to our partner schools and teachers in Nebraska, New Mexico North Carolina and Texas without whose support this project would never have been successful…and Thanks to the children who made it all worthwhile.

2

The Targeted Reading Intervention

• The Changing Rural Context and risk for early reading problems

• Struggling Readers and Effective Intervention

• The TRI Reading Framework• The TRI Professional Development and

Content• The TRI Implementation via Technology• Results from RCT

The Changing Rural Conttext and Risk for Early Reading Problems

Child Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas: 1990 - 2007

5O’Hare (2009)

Children Living in Rural Poverty

(compared to Urban)

• Deeper Poverty

• Longer periods of Poverty

• African Americans 50% poorer

• Fewer married Parents

Of the 701 counties in the US that have experienced persistent poverty since 1970, 601 (82%) were located in rural America

6

• Of those families in poverty, only 28% of their children could read at this minimum level of proficiency in fourth grade (Lyon, 2001; Vaughn, Wanzek, Linen-

Thompson, & Murray, 2007).

• These low levels of reading proficiency are especially true for rural children from low-wealth communities who come to school with lower readiness skills than other children (Lee & Burkam, 2003). 7

Struggling Readers and Effective Interventions

9

• Children’s early success in reading is critical for their later schooling success (Juel, 1988; Foorman et al., 1998)

• Research shows that for children at risk academic trajectories are fairly stable by the end of first grade, predicting their entire school career (Alexander & Entwisle, 1988)

10

Elements of Successful Interventions(Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; Snow et al, 1998, Connor et al., 2007; 2008)

• 1. Explicit Instruction

• 2. Early Intervention in first few grades

• 3. One on one and small group instruction

• 4. Effective teacher/child relationships

5. Diagnostic or instructional match between the teacher’s instruction and the child’s skill (Connor et. al., 2007;2009; Scanlon et al., 2004, 2008)

11

The TRI Reading Framework

The National Reading PanelReading First

13

Word Identification

Decoding Understanding of Alphabetic Principle Phonemic Awareness Skills Phonics Knowledge

Sight Word Knowledge Strategies for Using Context

14

Vocabulary

15

Fluency

16

Comprehension

17

The TRI Professional Development Content

The RTI Approach to Intervention (Fuchs et al., 2008)

• Tier 2 Intervention: Specific intervention for children who are not profiting from good classroom instruction, using the classroom teacher to implement specialized reading strategies

19

TRI: Classroom Teacher Tier 2 Intervention

One on one 15 minute instructional match sessions between teacher and struggling readers in the regular classroom

Intervention until the child makes rapid progress

The use of technology that allows live coaching by literacy consultants of teachers working a struggling reader in the regular classroom

The TRI Classroom Processes that Promote Rapid Progress in Reading

21

Coaching in instructional match between the teacher and child in one on one 15 minutes sessions

Focus on child’s most pressing need always in the context of the word and text

Create a motivationalContext for each interaction

Teachers learn best through Teaching practicenot through Knowledgeenhancement

TRI Transactional Model: Learning by Teaching (Sameroff & Fiese, 2001; Rutter, 1979; Vellutino et al.,

2006)

22

The TRI Content

24

TRI Diagnostic 15 minutes sessions

Re-Reading for Fluency(~2+ minutes)

Word Work(~8+ minutes)

Guided Oral Reading(~5+ minutes)

TRI Extensions

25

TRI: Primary Word Work Strategies in the Context of word and Text

– Segmenting Words

– Change One Sound

– Read, Write, & Say

– Pocket Phrases

Word Work(~8+ minutes)

TRI components

• Re-Reading for Fluency• Word Work

– Segmenting Words– Change One Sound– Read, Write, & Say– Pocket Phrases

• Guided Oral Reading• TRI Extensions

Using the TRI Diagnostic Map

Change One Sound

Repeat changing with 3-sound words

Begin/Repeat changing with 4-sound words

Repeat sound(s) ___________Move to next sound ________

Able to manipulate phonemes in

Frequent phonics errors

3-sound words

4-sound words

Change one sound

29

30

Integrating Word Work with Guided Oral Reading

TRI Implementation via Technology

32

Web cam consultation in Remote Locations

• Teachers were given laptops with webcams to use in their classroom.

• UNC Consultants (using free interface) can see and hear the teacher working with target children in real time so teachers get feedback immediately. Teachers can also see and hear the consultant in real time.

• Consultants can attend grade level meetings via web cams. Teachers can see the consultant and the consultant can see the teachers.

• Teachers can download information and training videos from our website targetedreadingintervention.org

33

34

Word Work at Green Level

35

TRI Website: targetedreadingintervention.org

36

Randomized Clinical Trial of the TRI

38

Research Design

• Pair matched schools within district on free and reduced lunch, % minority, school size, and Reading First. (15 schools…one withdrew)

• Randomly assigned one school to the intervention condition and the other to the business as usual condition.

• All kindergarten and first grade classrooms were involved (75 classrooms)

Selection of Children in the Experimental and Control Schools

• After 6 weeks into the school year each kindergarten and first grade teacher used assessment data and consultation from our reading consultant to rate each child in the class as to whether they were below, on, or above grade level in early reading.

39

Kindergarten and 1st Grade Classrooms

(648 children)

Focal Children

• From those children rated as below grade level 5 children were randomly selected as focal children (struggling readers)

Non-Focal Children

• From those children rated as on or above grade level, 5 children were randomly selected as non-focal children (non-struggling readers)

40

Total Sample: pre/post test data WJ (four subtests)

194

206

116 132

41

E

C

Focal Non-Focal

Race N %

Black/African American 153 23.6

American Indian 5 .8

White/European American 321 49.5

Other 169 26.1

Gender

Female 299 46.1

Male 349 53.9

Grade

Kindergarten 306 47.2

1st Grade 342 52.8

Child Demographics (N = 648)

Mother’s Education

Less than high school 80 12.3

High school and some college 400 64.8

Bachelors degree and beyond 148 22.9

Variable N

Race (1 missing)

Black/African American 10

White/European American 60

Other 4

Gender

Female (1 missing) 74

Age

20-29 14

30-39 19

40-49 20

50-59 18

60+ 4

Certification Level

Elementary Ed. Certified 68

Master’s Degree or Higher 32

43

T eacher Demographics (N = 75)

Experience M SD

Total years teaching 15.47 10.45

44

Fidelity (80%)

• Teacher report of weekly use of the TRI by child (now done on the web)

• Literacy consultant biweekly rating of fidelity quality from watching videos

• teacher/children working together

(fidelity checklist)

Intent to Treat Analysis

ANCOVArace

gender

mother’s education

grade

Growth in PPVT

46

PP

VT

Sta

ndar

d S

core

Time Point

Growth in Word Attack

47

Fall Spring400

410

420

430

440

450

460

470

480

Focal Experimental

Focal Control

Non-Focal Experimental

Non-Focal Control

Wor

d A

ttac

k W

-Sco

re

Time Point

.38

Growth in Letter Word ID

48

Fall Spring340

360

380

400

420

440

460

Focal Experimental

Focal Control

Non-Focal Experimental

Non-Focal Control

Lett

er W

ord

ID W

-Sco

re

Time Point

.61

Growth in Passage Comprehension

49

Fall Spring390

400

410

420

430

440

450

460

470

Focal Experimental

Focal Control

Non-Focal Experimental

Non-Focal Control

Pas

sage

Com

preh

ensi

on W

-Sco

re

Time Point

.58

Growth in Spelling of Sounds

50

Fall Spring440

450

460

470

480

490

500

Focal Experimental

Focal Control

Non-Focal Experimental

Non-Focal Control

Spe

lling

of

Sou

nds

W-S

core

Time Point

.42

Future Directions

• There was evidence that the TRI children were gaining more than the control children and some evidence that they were catching up with their non-struggling peers but there were some children who were less responsive to the intervention

• This year we are intervening with the children for a second year to see if we can accelerate the growth of struggling readers to make them indistinguishable from their non-struggling peers.

51

Thank You

Targeting instructional match in every interaction…