The Targeted Reading Intervention: How Early Reading Intervention for Rural Kindergarten and First-Grade Students Affects Teachers’

Ratings of Students’ Literacy Skills

Steve AmendumMarnie C. GinsbergUniversity of North Carolina – Chapel HillNational Reading Conference, 2007

Targeting instructional match in every interaction…

Purpose

The purpose of the current research-in-progress study was to evaluate the effects of the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) on struggling rural kindergarten and first-grade students’ reading achievement.

The TRI was designed and is currently being evaluated as part of a multiyear randomized clinical trial.

Research Question

Do struggling rural kindergarten and first-grade students who receive the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) with adequate implementation make greater gains in teachers’ ratings of literacy ability across one year than struggling rural kindergarten and first-grade students who receive TRI with lower implementation or than students who do not receive TRI, when controlling for SES?

Rationale/Theoretical Framework

• Importance of early intervention (e.g., Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998)

• What is less well-established efficient and effective reading interventions

• TRI designed and conceptualized from several key reading theories/current reading research – Focus on the needs of schools

Transactional model of early reading development

Cognition:Share’s Self-

Teaching Hypothesis

Explaining Cumulative

Effects:Stanovich’s

Matthew Effects

Motivation: Guthrie’s

Reading as Engagement

The Relational:Literacy via the teacher-

child relationship

(Pianta)

Child

Teacher

Methods—Design

• One year pre-post two-group randomized experimental design

• Three rural schools • One intervention school, two

control schools– Intervention school: TRI materials,

TRI professional development, and ongoing TRI consultation

– Control schools: “business as usual”

Methods—Teacher Participants

• 10 kindergarten, 10 first-grade• 8 experimental, 12 control• All 20 teachers held state teaching certification

– two held temporary certificates (one experimental, one control)

• All 20 were female• Ethnicities:

– 13 Caucasian of European descent– 3 African-American– 1 Native American

• Ages ranged 24 to 60 years • Prior experience .5 years to 33 years

– average 16.83 years of experience

• 14 undergraduate degree, 6 master’s degree or higher

Methods—Student Participants

• All students likely to struggle with reading identified

• 5 focal students were randomly selected per classroom

• Total of 90 students • 41 intervention, 49 control • 29 females, 61 males • Ethnicities:

– 45.6% African-American– 34.4% European Caucasian– 14.4% Native American– 5.6% other races

• Students in control schools:– mothers with higher levels of education – lower subsidized lunch levels (78.5% vs. 98%)

Targeted Reading Intervention

• The Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI) (Ginsberg, Amendum, & Vernon-Feagans):– Dual-level intervention– Targets both K-1 teachers and their struggling

readers

• The TRI helps teachers: a)acquire essential knowledge of early reading

development and efficient instructional strategies b)develop skills in matching instruction to informal

assessmentc)apply these knowledge sources and skills

particularly for the benefit of struggling readers

Targeted Reading Intervention

• Daily• One-on-one small groups • Efficient, evidence-based reading

strategies • Reading strategies integrate multiple

essential early reading abilities– Context of real words and books– Diagnostic thinking

• TRI materials are low-cost, commonly available

Data Sources• Modified version of the Academic

Rating Scale (ARS) for Language and Literacy (Academic Rating Scale, 2001) – Completed fall and spring– Example items– rxx = .87 and .91 for fall and spring,

respectively

• TRI intervention fidelity rating scale – Rated the duration and quality of the TRI

instruction for each student– Completed spring

Variables• Teacher’s Rating of Literacy Ability Gain.

– From modified ARS– difference scores were computed between spring and fall

ARS scores

• TRI Implementation Status– From TRI intervention fidelity rating scale– First, computed Total Fidelity score (the mean of the

duration and quality of TRI instruction)– Second, Total Fidelity scores divided into two groups

• Adequate fidelity (Total Fidelity > 3) • Inadequate fidelity (Total Fidelity ≤ 3)

– Third, students’ scores categorized into three levels of TRI Implementation Status

• TRI with adequate implementation (n = 14)• TRI with inadequate implementation (n = 17)• No TRI (n = 43)

Analyses/Results

• An analysis of covariance – DV = Teacher’s Rating of Literacy Ability

Gain – IV = TRI Implementation Status – Cov = maternal education in years

• Planned contrasts for TRI Implementation Status

• Participants with missing ARS scores (n = 16) excluded from analyses

Analyses/Results

• Main effect for TRI Implementation Status – F(2, 67) = 5.836, p < .006, η2 =

0.142

• Indicated significant differences among the three groups.

Results of Planned Contrasts

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Control Inadeq Adequate

13

7.6

17.98

Teac

her's

Rat

ing

of L

itera

cy A

biili

ty

Gai

n

*

Main Conclusion

• Struggling K-1 students who received TRI instruction with adequate implementation made greater teacher’s rating of literacy ability gains than students who received the TRI with inadequate implementation or did not receive the TRI.– Preliminary findings revealed positive

effects of the TRI, when implemented with adequate implementation, for students’ gains on Teacher’s Rating of Literacy Ability

Limits

• Teachers’ ratings vs. student assessments

• Short intervention period

• Analyses

Discussion/Implications

• Effective reading intervention for struggling readers– Effect of TRI on students’ gains on reading

assessments (Ginsberg, 2006; Vernon-Feagans, 2007).

• Importance of implementation– Support for the dynamic interplay between internal

(child) and external (teacher instruction) factors

• Additional research – impact on other student populations – teacher-student interactions– additional outcomes at teacher and student levels – long term effects of the TRI