By
Lucie Arricastres
Senior Honors Thesis
Human Development and Family Studies University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
04/22/2020
Approved:
_________________________________ Dr. Mary Bratsch-Hines, Thesis Advisor _________________________________
Acknowledgments
I would like to first thank my incredible family for their constant love, support, and words of encouragement. To my parents, you have nurtured my development and given me the means to succeed in all aspects of life. You have taught me the importance of questioning our society and its systematic failures that are so often accepted as immutable. You have fueled my passion for equity and human development, two things which I know will define my future self and work. Thank you for being the best parents. To my younger sister June, you have challenged me as a role model and taught me so much about love and human relationships. I am so proud of who you have become, where you are going, and the undoubtable impact you will make on this world. Thank you for your unwavering love and support.
I would also like to thank my amazing friends for their never-ending love and support. You have believed in me even when I haven't believed in myself. You have made me laugh when I want to cry. You have given me the gift of lifelong friendships, and for that, I could not be more grateful. Special thanks to Marie-Page Smith and Catherine Bernhardt for being such incredible best friends who are always there. I love you crazy people.
Abstract
Reading proficiency is a skill that is developed and acquired in student's earliest schooling years, but one that has a lifelong impact. The Targeted Reading Intervention is a professional
development program for rural kindergarten and first-grade teachers which provides teachers with training and on-going literacy coaching in evidenced-based practices to support struggling early readers. The TRI has been replicated in a series of Randomized Controlled Trials and has been found to increase students' decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension skills. This study focuses on classroom teacher's implementation of evidence-based phonics,
vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices. The current study uses data from the TRI's teacher questionnaire, in which teachers self-reported their classroom practices, to examine the effects of the professional development program on teacher's classroom literacy practices. Six items from the TRI teacher questionnaire were used as measures of teacher implementation of evidence-based phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices in the classroom. Multiple linear regression analyses were run on these six items to examine the effect of the TRI on classroom teachers' practices. The results of this study found that the TRI professional development program was ineffective at changing classroom teachers' phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices. These results indicate that teachers are more likely to rely on their professional wisdom and experience to inform their classroom practices than evidence-based practices taught in professional development.
Keywords: TRI, professional development, evidence-based, teacher practices, phonics,
The Effects of a Professional Development Program on Teacher Classroom Literacy Practices
Learning to read is a life-changing skill. The ability to read, comprehend, and critically think about printed text is the foundation of all knowledge acquisition and thus, impacts all aspects of life. Illiteracy negatively impacts people's physical lives as it impedes their ability to understand information about their health, such as their hygiene, diet, and safety. Illiteracy additionally contributes to people's economic standing in society, as low literacy proficiency is associated with poor academic performance and career success. According to the 2018 World Literacy Annual Report, an illiterate person makes 35% less than a literate person (World Literacy Foundation, 2018). Given the impact of reading on day-to-day life, one would expect that a developed country like the United States would lead the world in literacy rates. And yet, a study conducted by the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies in 2011-12 and 2013-14 found that 21 percent of U.S. adults, or 42 million people, have low-level literacy skills (Mamedova & Pawlowski, 2019).
wealthier peer. Hernandez additionally found that 88 percent of students who do not graduate from high school have less than proficient reading abilities (Hernandez, 2011).
Illiteracy systematically disadvantages society as a whole by widening the achievement gap and perpetuating the cycle of inequality. High-poverty schools consistently report lower literacy scores compared to low-poverty schools. In 2017, the average reading score for grade students attending high-poverty schools (205) was lower than the average score for 4th-grade students attending low-poverty schools (240) (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2017).
Defining Struggling Early Readers
Students who require additional assistance in early reading fall into two groups: (a) children who struggle with word identification and (b) children who struggle with both word identification and oral language (Foorman & Torgesen, 2001). Children who fall into the first group typically come from middle- and upper-class families, and enter elementary school with adequate oral language skills but have phonological and/or phonemic difficulties with relating oral language to printed text (Torgesen, 1999; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Recent national reading assessments show that children who fall into the second, even larger group,
disproportionally come from families in poverty (NCES, 2017). These children enter
2010-2014 Targeted Reading Intervention study likely fall into the second group of struggling early readers, those who have difficulties with both oral language and word identification.
Factors Contributing to Struggling Early Readers
A child's family plays an important role in their earliest developmental years. Young children are dependent upon their families for access to high-quality care and resources. Families with lower incomes do not typically have the means to provide their children with the same resources or quantity of resources that higher-income families do, such as early high-quality child care, books, and technology. Four large consumer expenditure surveys conducted between 1972 and 1973, and 2005 and 2006 found that differences in spending between low income and high-income families were largest for enrichment activities such as music lessons, summer camps, tutoring, and travel (Duncan & Murnane, 2011). As a result, these children have reduced exposure to oral language and early reading experiences which have shown to impede their ability to benefit from whole-class literacy instruction compared to children from wealthier families (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Vernon-Feagans et al., 2013).
All children must receive effective, explicit literacy instruction in school. Reading research, however, indicates that reading instruction may be more important for struggling readers in high-poverty areas where family resources and teacher quality are lower (Provasnik, KewalRamani, Coleman, Gilbertson, Herring & Xie, 2007). Oral language is considered to be the basis of literacy development as it relates sounds to meaning through communication. Because children from low-income families have less access to language and text, they consistently enter kindergarten with lower oral language and literacy abilities. The 2018
literature has identified low-wealth, rural students as a population at-risk for poor literacy development (Provasnik et al., 2007).
Although children's socioeconomic status is a large contributor to school readiness, the United States public education system was created to act as an equalizing force. Deemed as an inherent human right, the public-school system has the responsibility of providing children with high quality education that will prepare them for lifelong success. Unfortunately, our education system has greatly failed. Low-poverty schools consistently outscore high-poverty schools in student achievement. A 2010 National Center for Education Statistics report found that 68% of twelfth-grade students attending high-poverty schools earned their diploma versus 91% of their wealthier counterparts attending low-poverty schools (NCES, 2010).
A factor contributing to the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students is access to high-quality education. Recent empirical evidence has found teacher quality to be one of the most important factors affecting student achievement. Discrepancies in teacher quality is likely the cause of student achievement disparities between low-poverty and high-poverty schools (Goldhaber, Choi & Cramer, 2007; Rockoff, 2004). Rockoff (2004) suggests that raising teacher quality may be the key to increasing student achievement. There are notable differences between teacher qualifications at schools primarily serving minority, low-income students versus schools serving white, high-income students (Goldhaber et al., 2007). Goldhaber et al. (2007) found that the most disadvantaged, high-poverty schools are least likely to hire and retain high-quality teachers recognized by the National Board for Professional Teaching
in literacy disparities, teacher quality and quality of professional development programs must also be considered.
Evidence-based Teacher Literacy Practices
The experiences, qualifications, and performance of classroom teachers have a significant effect on student learning outcomes and academic achievement (Darling-Hammond, 1997). Students reading abilities are often used to measure their academic achievement (Cox, 2010). Today's increasingly diverse classrooms require educators to recognize the need for
accommodation and differentiation of instructional practices to enhance the literacy development of all students (Gambrell & Morrow, 2014). This requires classroom teachers to identify and assess student needs often, through formative assessments. Classroom teachers should provide appropriate whole-class, small-group, and individual literacy instruction based on their on-going assessment of student needs (Gambrell & Morrow, 2014).
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) defines the standard of public education to ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain and profit from a high-quality education (No Child Left Behind [NCLB], 2002). NCLB defines the fundamental components of reading instruction as explicit and systematic instruction in (a) phonemic awareness; (b) phonics; (c) vocabulary development; (d) reading fluency; and (e) reading comprehension strategies (20 U. S. C. § 6368).
2014). A U.S. Department of Education (2012) report produced research findings that are consistent with NCLB's statues of reading instruction and form the basis of evidenced-based best literacy practices for classroom teachers. The U.S. Department of Education (2012) report produced the following evidence-based findings for teaching practices that promote student reading achievement: instruction should focus on students strengths and needs in the five core components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension; instruction should be systematic and sequenced; instruction should use materials that are
engaging and relevant to student needs; instruction should be consistently monitored and evaluated to ensure effectiveness.
Evidence-based instruction involves teachers making decisions about instructional practices using "professional wisdom integrated with the best available empirical evidence" (Allington, 2005, p. 16). This definition of evidence-based instruction recognizes that classroom practices should be informed by a teacher's professional experience and empirical research. An observational case study of teacher's literacy practices, however, found that teachers did not implement evidence-based best practices more than 50% of the time in whole-class instruction (Suárez, Sánchez, Jiménez & Anguera, 2018). Professional development programs are one way for teachers to expand their knowledge of empirical research and evidence-based best practices. Theories of Teacher Change
2000). The ecological systems perspective emphasizes the importance of 'proximal processes,' or person-to-person interactions, in human development. Taken in a classroom context,
Bronfenbrenner hypothesizes that teacher-child interactions have the largest impact on student learning (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000). The ecological systems perspective implies that well-informed teacher practices and positive teacher-student interactions are crucial for supporting students' successful academic development.
The TRI is also rooted in theories of teacher change. Guskey (1986, 2002) emphasizes the need for professional development programs to focus on improving teacher practices rather than expanding teacher knowledge. Teachers are constantly tweaking their classroom practices as they assess student learning. Successful practices are retained; those that are not are
The ecological systems perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and the theory of teacher change (Guskey, 1986) emphasize the importance of high-quality teacher-student interaction and high-quality teacher professional development programs for promoting student learning. Such that, schools cannot be better than the teachers and administrators who work within the schools, of whom make a direct impact on student achievement. The TRI recognizes that teachers must make informed changes to their classroom practices to make a positive impact on student learning, but that evidence of the effectiveness of the practices must precede change in teachers' beliefs and attitudes. For these reasons, the TRI is structured as a professional development training program providing ongoing literacy coaching for classroom teachers. The TRI provides classroom teachers with training in how to use evidence-based literacy practices as well as opportunities to witness student learning gains by having teachers use the TRI with three
preselected struggling early readers. To ensure that teachers are using the TRI practices correctly and effectively, TRI teachers are paired with a literacy coach who gives teachers real-time feedback as they work with each student.
The Challenge of Reading
they will have the ability to translate text into spoken language, thus gaining meaning (Castles, Rastle & Nation, 2018). If a child simply attempts to memorize distinguishing features of printed text or only single-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences, only a small number of words will be able to be produced and comprehended. The complex nature of written language, the high number of multi-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences in English, and limitations in
children's working memory will likely prevent them from becoming proficient readers (Brysbaert, Stevens, Mandera, & Keuleers, 2016).
Phonics-Based Literacy Instruction
sound. Acquiring the alphabetic principle requires children to develop letter knowledge and phonemic awareness, both of which are associated with skills in decoding (Castles et al., 2018).
Effective phonics instruction is systematic; it teaches students the relationship between graphemes and phonemes in an ordered manner (Castles et al., 2018). The rationale for
systematic phonics instruction is that even a small knowledge of grapheme-phoneme
correspondences allows students to make generalizations about words with similar spelling and sound patterns, giving them the ability to decode most English words. As noted, the English language is composed of many irregular grapheme-phoneme correspondences which leads systematic phonics instruction to focus on the most common correspondences (Castles et al., 2018). When children learn to decode and recognize the most common grapheme-phoneme correspondences they will have the ability to decode more words by making generalizations. Even as children acquire the ability to recognize common correspondences, explicit phonics instruction is required for children to learn how to decode more complex words, containing multi-letter grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Literacy Instruction
comprehend more texts and will, therefore, be more motivated to read compared to students with less extensive vocabulary repertoires.
Beck and McKeown (1991) posit three important vocabulary instructional practices that contribute to successful reading comprehension. The first emphasizes the importance of explicit instruction of new word meanings. The second considers reading a wide array of texts important as it exposes students to novel vocabulary in different contexts. The final instructional practice suggested by Beck and McKeown (1991) is to teach students how to use a dictionary to uncover the meaning of unknown words. However, the use of dictionaries or vocabulary lists is not recommended practices for early readers because the number of unfamiliar words is too high to make memorization effective in retaining vocabulary. Rather, reading researchers have found that instructional practices such as explicitly teaching vocabulary in context and using pictures, repeated and wide reading, and contextual analysis support vocabulary development and reading comprehension in early readers (Castles et al., 2018; Ilhan, 2017).
As noted, there is a reciprocal relationship between a student's vocabulary and reading comprehension. However, an expansive vocabulary does not guarantee comprehension. Comprehension is gained through the acquisition of many text factors, such as word meaning, grammar rules, temporal knowledge of events, characters, emotions, and more. Students must learn to make inferences about a text to fully comprehend the meaning beyond what is explicitly stated (Castles et al., 2018).
The Targeted Reading Intervention
development and literacy coaching in evidence-based practices to support struggling early readers. Unlike other reading interventions, the TRI trains classroom teachers to provide struggling early readers with evidence-based reading intervention rather than employing a specialized literacy coach. The TRI has four instructional levels, increasing in complexity with each level. TRI teachers work with three pre-selected struggling early readers every day for 15 minutes, focusing on phonics decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills. The TRI is effective at improving struggling early readers literacy skills after treatment teachers received the professional development program for one school year; students scored higher in decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension skills (Feagans et al., 2013; Vernon-Feagans, Bratsch-Hines, Varghese, Cutrer & Garwood, 2018).
Phonics Instruction in the TRI
teaches students to use previously mastered skills to aide in their decoding of more complex words.
Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension Instruction in the TRI
At all instructional levels of the TRI the teacher scaffolds student learning, focusing on decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the context of printed words. Before students are prompted to decode words, teachers check their understanding of the word meaning and asks the student to use the word in a sentence. The TRI uses a picture dictionary to assist students in comprehending unfamiliar words. During the TRI Guided Oral Reading activity, the teacher scaffolds student's ability to summarize and expand upon the text by asking guiding questions and prompting the student to make inferences. The final activity of the TRI, Pocket Phrases, supports sight-word recognition, and reading fluency, both of which are associated with gains in reading comprehension (Castles et al., 2018).
The Current Study
Recognizing the efficacy of the TRI at increasing individual early reader's literacy skills, the current study questions if the TRI is effective at changing teacher's whole-classroom
practices. Using Guskey's model of teacher change (1986), the current study proposes that, because teachers can witness student gains as a result of TRI implementation, they are more likely to change their beliefs and attitudes about the evidence-based literacy practices of the TRI, and therefore more likely to implement them in whole classroom instruction.
because reading research finds that explicit instruction of these evidence-based practices promotes student achievement (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). The research question which the current study seeks to answer is if the TRI is effective at changing classroom teachers' implementation of evidence-based phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices. The current study hypothesizes that the TRI is effective at changing classroom teachers' instructional practices, and expects to see an increase in teacher's implementation of phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices in the classroom following participation in the TRI for two years.
Methods Setting
The current study uses data from a Randomized Control Trial of the 2010-2014 TRI study administered in 10 low-wealth, Title I schools located in three different school districts. The 10 schools involved in the TRI study were composed of approximately 64 to 87% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch.
Sample
The current study is comprised of a subsample of first grade and kindergarten teachers who participated in the TRI for two years and had available pre- and post-intervention
questionnaire data. At each school, teachers were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. Teachers who were randomized to treatment classrooms were given laptops for use during the year, invited to a 3-day intensive TRI training, and provided with periodic
provided with a well-known effective software math program called Building Blocks (Clements & Sarama, 2012). Control teachers used whatever instructional practices they felt appropriate to teach reading, serving as the "business-as-usual" sample. The current study includes treatment and control teachers who remained at the same school teaching the same grade level during the two years of the intervention, and who had fall questionnaire data at the beginning of the two years and spring questionnaire data at the end of the two years. The current study includes 36 kindergarten teachers (18 control, 18 treatment) and 30 first grade teachers (14 control, 16 treatment).
Procedures
After the 10 school sites were identified and classrooms randomized, TRI was implemented. TRI uses a professional development and literacy coaching model that helps kindergarten and first-grade teachers implement evidence-based reading practices with
struggling early readers. Treatment teachers received training and supervised practice in how to implement TRI and use evidence-based reading practices with struggling readers before and throughout the school year. Teachers were asked to work one-on-one with three pre-selected struggling early readers daily for 6-8 weeks. TRI treatment teachers received webcam coaching in their daily sessions with all three students in which literacy coaches could hear and see everything the teacher did with the student. The literacy coach provided TRI teachers with real-time feedback and problem-solving strategies.
determine when the child is ready to move on to words with more complex sounds. At all four levels, the teacher provides the student with instructional scaffolding focused on decoding, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The lowest TRI instructional level, Pink, introduces children to two- and three-sound words that contain short vowels and digraphs. Students are taught to first define the word and then segment and blend the sounds. When the TRI teacher and literacy coach decide that the student is ready to move on to the next instructional level, Blue, the teacher introduces four- to six-sound words. The third level, Green, introduces the student to different spelling patterns of long-vowel sounds, diphthongs, and r-controlled words. The fourth and highest TRI level, Purple, asks students to segment and blend multi-syllable words.
Each TRI session is 15 minutes and composed of four instructional activities: Re-Reading for Fluency, Word Work, Guided Oral Reading, and Pocket Phrases. Re-Reading for Fluency (2 minutes) is the first TRI activity in which teachers have the student re-read a brief section of text that was previously read during Guided Oral Reading. Re-reading a text that students are already familiar with supports reading fluency.
letter-sound tile. Word work activities differ at each TRI instructional level. At the lowest instructional level, Pink, the Word Work activity is "Change one sound," in which the teacher asks the student to change one word to another word with a similar spelling pattern, ex /hat/ to /hot/. The teacher exaggerates the vowel sounds to contrast the two words and then instructs the student to choose the new sound in /hot/ from the letter-sound titles.
The third TRI activity is Guided Oral Reading (6 minutes). During Guided Oral Reading the teacher reads a few pages of an appropriate instructional-level text to the student. Teachers point to each word as they say them. The Guided Oral Reading is aligned with the skills taught in the Word Work activity and typically feature words with similar phonemic and orthographic patterns. The teacher asks guiding questions to scaffold the student's ability to make inferences, summarize, and expand upon the text.
The final TRI activity is Pocket Phrases (1 minute). The teacher selects a phrase from the Guided Oral Reading and writes it on a notecard. The student is instructed to read the phrase to as many adults as possible and have them sign the back of their notecard. Pocket Phrases support students reading fluency and sight word recognition by providing students with repeated
exposure. Pocket Phrases also increases the motivation of students by prompting them to read throughout the day.
Measures
of teacher participation in the TRI study, teachers had between 1 and 5 time points of questionnaire data. The teacher questionnaire consisted of 31 questions regarding teacher attitudes and classroom practices. The questions featured in the TRI teacher questionnaire were adapted from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort which has a
reliability range of 0.84 to 0.96 (Vernon-Feagans et al., 2018). Teachers were asked to self-report their teaching practices in the questionnaire.
Independent Variable. Experimental condition regarding TRI participation is the
independent variable of the current study. A binary dummy variable was used to represent condition (0 = control, 1 = treatment). Randomization was done at the classroom level, such that kindergarten and first-grade classrooms were randomly assigned to control or treatment
conditions. The current study is comprised of a subsample of the total number of randomized classrooms and included 32 control classrooms and 34 treatment classrooms.
Dependent Variable. Teacher's post-intervention questionnaire scores were used as the
dependent variable in the current study. Post-intervention scores were taken from the teacher's final questionnaire time point, following the completion of the TRI.
Question 1 was as follows: How often do children in this class do each of the following reading and language arts activities? This study included the following items: (a) Discuss new or difficult vocabulary, (b) Work on phonics, and (c) Retell stories. Question 1 had six possible, ordinal answer choices: never (1), once a month or less (2), two or three times a month (3), once or twice a week (4), three or four times a week (5), or daily (6). Question 10 was recoded to represent four intervals: If a teacher answered 1, 2, or 3 it was recoded as 0, or not weekly. If a teacher answered 4, it was recoded as 1.5, or an average of 1.5 times a week. If a teacher answered 5, it was recoded as 3.5, or an average of 3.5 times a week. If a teacher answered 6, it was recoded as 5, or daily.
After the above six items were identified as indicators of teachers' application of TRI practices in the classroom, they were sorted into the three instructional content areas in which this study focuses on phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Interrelated items that reflect teacher's application of phonics instruction are: work on phonics (b) and matching letters to sounds (d). Interrelated questions that reflect teacher's application of vocabulary instruction are: discuss new or difficult vocabulary (a) and explicit vocabulary instruction (f). Interrelated questions which reflect teacher's instruction of reading comprehension are: retell stories (c) and identifying the main idea and parts of a story (e).
Covariates. The grade level taught by the participating teachers were included as a
control, represented by a binary dummy variable (0 = Kindergarten, 1 = 1st grade). intervention questionnaire scores were also used as a control variable in this study.
Pre-intervention scores were taken from teachers first questionnaire time point, before beginning the TRI. The teacher questionnaire did not change between pre and post-intervention time points, therefore the pre-intervention questionnaire scores were recoded in the same way as post-intervention questionnaire scores, as described above.
Methods of Analysis
After the six items were appropriately categorized, analyses were run. For findings to support the hypothesis of this study, significance must be found for both interrelated items within each instructional content area.
(e)) and diverse items (phonics (b) and vocabulary (a); phonics (b) and vocabulary (f); and so on) (Table 2).
Multiple linear regression was used to test if pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade significantly predicted post-intervention phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension scores (Table 3). When there is more than one predictor or IV, standardized Beta coefficients must be used because the predictors are measured using different scales. Beta's are standardized versions of b's, which are necessary for multiple regression. As noted above, items (b) and (d) relate to the teacher's phonics instructional practices. Items (a) and (f) relate to the teacher's vocabulary instructional practices. Items (c) and (e) relate to the teacher's reading comprehension instructional practices.
Results Descriptive Statistics
compared to the control sample (M=3.08, SD=1.98) and the total sample (M=3.65, SD=1.80). For reading comprehension item (c) Retell stories, it was found that the treatment sample did not have a higher mean compared to the control sample and total sample. For reading comprehension item (e) Identifying the main idea and parts of a story, it was found that the treatment sample did not have a higher mean compared to the control sample and total sample.
Correlation of post-intervention scores were found for interrelated and diverse items (Table 2). A positive linear relationship was found between interrelated items for phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. A weak positive linear relationship (r=.346) was found between phonics items (b, d). A moderate positive linear relationship (r=.515) was found
between vocabulary items (a, f). A strong positive linear relationship (r=.703) was found between reading comprehension items (c, e). A weak negative linear relationship (r=-.098) was found between distinct items Matching letters to sounds (phonics item: d) and Explicit
vocabulary instruction (vocabulary item: f). Inferential Statistics
Multiple linear regression was used to test if pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade significantly predicted post-intervention scores for phonics items: (b) Work on phonics and (d) Matching letters to sounds (Table 3). For item (b) Work on phonics, it was found that pre-intervention phonics scores, condition, and grade, did not significantly predict post-pre-intervention phonics scores. For item (d) Matching letters to sounds, it was found that pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade, did not significantly predict post-intervention scores.
vocabulary and (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction (Table 3). For item (a) Discuss new or difficult vocabulary, it was found that pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade did not significantly predict post-intervention scores. Multiple linear regression results for item (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction, indicate that the predictors explained 36.2% of the variance in post-intervention scores, R2=.362, F3,43=8.146, p<.05. It was found that condition, with the largest Beta, did significantly predict post-intervention scores of item (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction, β= .277, p< .05, and pre-intervention scores, with the next largest Beta, did
significantly predict post-intervention scores of item (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction, β= .482, p< .05. It was found that grade, with the smallest Beta, did not significantly predict
post-intervention scores for item (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction. Condition is a stronger predictor than pre-intervention scores and grade for item (f) Explicit vocabulary instruction because its Beta value is larger.
Multiple linear regression was used to test if pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade significantly predicted post-intervention scores for reading comprehension items: (c) Retell stories and (e) Identifying the main idea and parts of a story (Table 3). For item (c) Retell stories, it was found that pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade did not significantly predict post-intervention scores. Finally, for item (e) Identifying the main idea and parts of a story, it was found that pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade, did not significantly predict post-intervention scores.
Discussion
and reading comprehension. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems perspective (1979, 2000) and Guskey's theory of teacher change (1986, 2002), the current study hypothesized that the TRI is effective at changing classroom teachers' implementation of evidence-based phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension practices in the classroom. To test the hypotheses of the current study multiple linear regression was used to examine whether pre-intervention scores, condition, and grade had a significant effect on post-intervention questionnaire scores. The analyses suggest that the TRI was ineffective at changing teacher's classroom practices because condition was not found to have a significant effect on post-intervention questionnaire scores for both interrelated phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension items. These results fail to reject the null hypothesis of this study.
al.'s (2018) findings that teachers did not consistently teach all five components of literacy instruction recommended by empirical reading research in their classes.
There are two major implications of this study. First, it cannot be guaranteed that classroom teachers will effectively transfer professional development practices that target individualized student instruction to whole-class instruction. And second, teachers rely heavily upon their professional wisdom and experience to inform their classroom practices. Future studies should investigate whether professional development programs are more effective for teachers with less teaching experience as these teachers may be more likely to implement evidence-based practices in whole-class instruction because they do not have as much professional experience to rely on.
Limitations
There are a few limitations of this study that question the above results and implications. First and foremost, data used from the TRI teacher questionnaire was self-reported, which is limited by the fact that it cannot be independently verified. It cannot be guaranteed that teachers accurately and honestly reported their teaching practices which impedes the current study's ability to reliably examine the effects of the TRI on teacher's whole-class practices.
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Table 1
Mean and Standard Deviation of Post-Intervention Items by Condition
Total Sample Control Sample Treatment Sample
Work on phonics 4.64 (1.03) 4.50 (1.28) 4.77 (.72)
Matching letters to sounds 3.49 (2.11) 3.90 (1.93) 3.10 (2.23)
Discuss new or difficult vocabulary
Explicit vocabulary
instruction 3.65 (1.80) 3.08 (1.98) 4.19 (1.44)
Retell stories 3.61 (1.45) 3.98 (1.28) 3.27 (1.53)
Identifying the main idea and parts of a story
Table 2
Correlation between post-intervention items
Work on phonics Matching letters to sounds Discuss new or difficult vocabulary Explicit vocabulary instruction
Retell stories Identifying the main idea and parts of a
story Work on phonics Matching letters to sounds .346
Discuss new or difficult vocabulary .365 .126 Explicit vocabulary instruction
.124 -.098 .515
Retell stories .056 .022 .154 .277
Identifying the main idea and parts of a story
Table 3
Multiple Regression Model
Phonics Vocabulary Comprehension
Work on phonics
Matching letters to sounds
Discuss new or difficult vocabulary
Explicit vocabulary instruction
Retell stories Identifying the main idea and parts of a story
(SE) (SE) (SE) (SE) (SE) (SE)
Pre-Interventio n Scores
.146(.169) .473(.148) .278(.114) .277(.443)* .253(.115) .540(.160)
Condition .195(.267) .569(.880) .021(.403) .482(.160)* -.141(.416) -.110(.454)
Grade -.038(.264) .191(.742) .551(.402) -.035(.446) -.034(.420) -.108(.437)
