Individualizing Preschool Literacy Instruction: Research to Practice

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Individualizing Preschool Literacy Instruction
Research to Practice

• Carol McDonald Connor
• Florida State University and the Florida Center
  for Reading Research
• SW IDA
• February 2008

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Acknowledgements

• ISI team both FSU and UM
• Fred Morrison, Barry Fishman, Lisa Slominski and
  Claire Cameron
• Pathways to Literacy Project students and staff
• Parents, children and teachers who participated
  in the study
• This work was supported by the US Department of
  Education IES, National Institute of Child Health
  and Human Development and the National Science
  Foundation under grant numbers R305H04014, R01
  HD27176 and 0111754, respectively.

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Emergent Literacy

• It is generally agreed that emergent literacy
• involves the skills, knowledge, and attitudes
  that are developmental precursors to conventional
  forms of reading and writing. These skills are
  the basic building blocks for how students learn
  to read and write (p. 1. IRA/ NICHD Conference
  on Early Childhood Literacy Research, February,
  2005).

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• An emergent literacy perspective departs from a
  reading readiness model.
• In the readiness model, learning to read begins
  with formal school-based reading instruction.
• From an emergent literacy perspective there is no
  boundary between what is considered to be the
  conventional reading that students learn in
  school and everything that comes before.
• Rather, the emergent literacy perspective views
  literacy-related behaviors that occur in the
  preschool period as legitimate and important
  features on a developmental continuum of literacy
  (Bowman, Donovan, Burns, 2001 Shonkoff
  Phillips, 2000 Teale Sulzby, 1986).

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Preventing Reading Disabilities

• Building early emergent literacy and language
  skills may help to lessen or prevent severe
  reading disabilities

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What should children learn in preschool?

• Among other important skills
• Vocabulary and oral language skills
• Phonological awareness
• Rhyming, phonological segmentation, blending
• Letters and letter-sound correspondence
• Dickenson et al (2003) Lonigan et al. (1999)
  Nelson et al., (2003) NICHD-ECCRN (numerous)

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Teacher-Child Interactions

• Using open-ended questions
• Wh-questions rather than yes-no questions
• Be warm, caring, and responsive
• Explicitly build childrens self-regulation

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Dialogic Reading

• Highly interactive shared book reading appears to
  build childrens language skills
• Transcript of a highly effective preschool
  teacher reading to her Head Start classroom

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ADU lets do our story and then we-'ll do our
choice-s.
ChI many children talking at once, but quiet
down when the teacher starts asking
questions. ADU what-'is on the front of my
book?
CHI Sydney a chick.
CHI Sydney chicken.
CHI many a chick.
CHI
many a chicken. ADU what-'is on the back of
mybook?
CHI all egg. ADU an egg. ADU the name of
the book says Chicken's are'nt the only ones.
CHI Sydney
it-'is horse-s and cow-s and. ADU Ruth Heller
wrote this book. Lets see what it say-es.
CHI Sydney
upside down ones too. ADU reading text
chicken-s lay the egg-s you buy, the egg-s you
boil or fry or dye.
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ADU reading text most snake-s lay egg-s and
lizard-s too and crocodile-sand turtle-s
too. ADU reading text and dinosaur-swho are
extinct.
CHI all oh .
CHI Maxwell I wanna do dinosaur-s.
CHI
Jessica I do dinosaur!
CHI Thomas look at that
sharp tooth. ADU what do-es it mean when we say
dinosaur-s are extinct? ADU do you know?
CHI Eugene
they-'re dead. ADU have you heard that?
That-'is right. There are no more dinosaurs.
They-'re all gone. They-'re extinct.

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CHI Eugene all the dinosaur-s ltthey gotta gogt
// they-'re in the museum. ADU except in the
museum they have dead one-s. ADU but not live
one-s.
CHI yeah but I went the museum saw the bone-s.
CHI
Ezekiel ltmy auntie saidgt / my auntie said she
saw a dinosaur that got kill-ed.
CHI Eugene I saw
one. ADU they-'re not alive any more.
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• Note use of rare words
• Children actively participated
• The teacher provided definitions in the context
  of the story
• And asked questions

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Invented Spelling

• Letting children pretend to write with
  appropriate feedback
• Builds phonological awareness
• Knowledge of letter-sound association
• Generalizes better than simply teaching letters

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Invented Spelling

• Developmental sequence
• Scribbles
• Random letters
• One consonant per word
• One letter per sound
• Use of vowels
• Conventional spelling

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Preschool emergent literacy instruction
specificity

• Reading with children tends to build language
  skills
• Meaning-focused skills
• Whereas teaching phonological awareness, letters
  and the alphabetic principal tends to build
  emergent literacy skills
• Code focused skills

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Child X Instruction interactions

• How explicit should emergent literacy be?
• It depends!
• The effect of particular types of literacy
  instruction appears to depend on childrens
  language and emergent literacy skills

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Focus of the Study

• Research Questions
• What is the effect of amount and type of
  preschool language/literacy activities on
  preschoolers vocabulary and early or emergent
  reading skill growth
• Whole class
• Small group
• Does the effect of specific types of instruction
  depend on students entering skills?
• What does this mean for classroom practice?

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Conceptualizing Emergent Literacy Instruction

• Dimensions of Instruction
• Teacher versus child managed
• Code focused versus meaning focused
• Context of Instruction
• Whole class or classroom level instruction
• Student level
• Small group
• Individual
• Children in the same classroom are participating
  in substantially different amounts and types of
  activities

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Classroom Level Instruction
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Child Level Instruction
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Classroom Observations

• Morning or afternoon observations at teachers
  convenience video-taped
• Video-coded teacher and child actions recorded by
  type of activity
• 85-95 inter-rater reliability for activities
  lasting at least 15 seconds
• Content areas and non-instructional time coded
• 26 specific language arts types of activities
  identified
• The study utilizes only Language/Literacy-related
  activities

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Coding directly from video
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Participants

• 157 student participants
• 3-4 years of age in fall 2002
• 34 classrooms taught by 24 teachers
• Lead teachers hold Early Childhood Credential
• Head-Start, Title 1 and Fee-for-service licensed
  preschools/daycare
• Full and half day programs
• Housed in 6 elementary schools two lower
  performing
• School District Urban Fringe transitioning

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Child Measures

• Vocabulary WJ-3 Picture Vocabulary
• Letter-Word recognition WJ-3 letter/word
  identification
• Alphabet name lower-case letters on shuffled
  alphabet cards
• Parent/School report
• Age
• Gender
• SES Mothers education
• Hours per week attended preschool

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Results
On average, children made age appropriate
progress on all measures
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Results - Classroom

• On average, teachers spent 13 minutes per day on
  literacy-related activities
• 2 minutes in small groups
• 11 minutes in whole class activities
• Amounts ranged from 0 to 65 minutes per day
• Amounts and types of specific literacy activities
  affected students spring outcomes

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Mean minutes PS activities
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Mean minutes PS Literacy Instruction
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Letter-word Recognition
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TM-code-focused-st
75th percentile fall LW
Spring Letter-Word
25th percentile fall LW
0 3 6 minutes
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Letter-word X Instruction
75th percentile fall Letter-word score
Spring Letter-Word
25th percentile fall Letter-word score
Amount of TM Code Focused Classroom
Amount of TM Meaning Focused Classroom
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Vocabulary

• A2I

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CM-Meaning-focused-cl
75th percentile Vocabulary
Spring Vocabulary
25th percentile Vocabulary
0 2 4 minutes
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Fall Vocabulary X Instruction
75th percentile fall vocabulary score
25th percentile fall vocabulary
Spring Vocabulary
Amount of TM Code Focused Classroom
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Fall Vocabulary by Play
75th percentile Vocabulary
Spring Vocabulary
25th percentile Vocabulary
0 1.5 3 4.5 6 minutes
CM-MF-Play
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Implications

• Both code- and meaning-focused preschool literacy
  activities, including play, contribute to
  emergent literacy and language outcomes
• But their effect appears to depend on childrens
  literacy and vocabulary skills at the beginning
  of the year
• How do we design effective preschool instruction
  that take into account these child X instruction
  interactions?
• Use assessment to guide instruction
• Encourage teacher planning for individualized
  instruction
• Individualizing Student Instruction Project
• http//isi.fcrr.org

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Attending to the instructional needs of all
children
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To teach this way is very complex!

• A2i was designed to make this much easier
• A2i uses mathematical equations (algorithms) from
  our research to compute recommended amounts and
  types of instruction for each child in the
  classroom based on his or her assessed reading
  and vocabulary skills

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Assessment to Instruction A2i

• http//isi.fcrr.org
• Log in
• A2idemo
• Password
• Isi06!

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But does A2i and ISI work?

• We conducted a randomized control field trial to
  find out
• We, as teachers, should demand RFTs
• This is one of the very best ways to see if an
  intervention actually works
• Less bias with a randomly assigned control group
• Control for previous achievement
• Efficient
• Rigorous
• Helps us move away from fads and towards what
  actually makes a difference in student outcomes

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Research design
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Participants 2005-2006

• 10 Schools FARL 24-96
• 47 Teachers no differences between groups for
  years of experience and years of education
• 616 Children
• 59 eligible for free or reduced priced lunch
• 54 African American, 37 White
• A subset of 411 (12 per classroom) were randomly
  selected for the classroom observation protocol

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Schools
24 treatment classrooms, 25 control classrooms,
and 3 pilot classrooms
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Procedures

• Student Assessments
• 3 times during the school year fall, winter,
  and spring
• Woodcock Johnson-III
• Classroom observation
• Video-taped
• 3 times per year fall, winter, and spring
• Compare results of treatment and control groups
• Instruction
• Student outcomes

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The Intervention

• Instruction
• Dedicated and uninterrupted reading and language
  block of at least 60 minutes
• Conceptualize instruction multi-dimensionally
• TM Instruction in small groups or individually
  using homogenous skill based groups
• Attending to the assessed skill levels of the
  group
• Provide A2i algorithm recommended amounts
• Professional Development
• 2 workshops and bi-weekly meetings
• Classroom-based support bi-weekly

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HLM - Treatment versus Control Student Reading
Comprehension Outcomes
Mean scores controlling for fall vocabulary,
passage comprehension, letter-word reading,
curriculum, FARL, and Reading First status. 464
GE 1.8, 468 GE 2.0, n 616 students
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A2i Use and Reading Comprehension
AE 8.2 years
AE 6.0 years
HLM fitted growth curves controlling for fall
vocabulary, letter-word reading, curriculum,
FARL, and Reading First status. 464 GE 1.8, 468
GE 2.0,
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ISI Coding Scheme
Child-managed Pair 4.1. Literacy Codes 4.1.2.
Phoneme Awareness 4.1.3. Syllable
Awareness 4.1.4. Morpheme Awareness 4.1.5.
Onset/Rime Awareness 4.1.6. Word
ID/Decoding 4.1.7. Word ID/Encoding 4.1.8.
Fluency 4.1.9. Print Concepts 4.1.10. Oral
Language 4.1.11. Print Vocabulary 4.1.12.
Reading Comprehension 4.1.13. Text
Reading 4.1.14. Writing 4.1.15.
Library 4.1.16. Assessment
4.1.2. Phoneme Awareness
4.1.2. Phoneme Awareness 4.1.2.2.
Blending 4.1.2.3. Elision/Initial 4.1.2.4.
Elision/Final 4.1.2.5. Elision/Vowel 4.1.2.6.
Elision/Medial 4.1.2.7. Substitution/Initial 4.1
.2.8. Substitution/Final 4.1.2.9.
Substitution/Vowel 4.1.2.10 Substitution/Medial
4.1.2.11 Segmenting/Counting
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TCM Small-group Code-focused
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Teacher-Managed Instruction
Small Group
Whole Class
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Child Managed Instruction
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Actual A2i recommended amounts
Distance From Recommendation Absolute Values

Simple Differences
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Distance From Recommendations (DFR) and Reading
Comprehension
Holding school SES, child initial skills, and
TMCF DFR slope constant at their means. Model
explains 59 of total spring PC variance.
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Implications

• Child X instruction may be causally implicated in
  the wide variability in achievement observed
  within and between classrooms and schools
• Teacher learning
• Implications of childXinstruction interactions
• Conceptualize instruction at the child rather
  than classroom or curriculum level
• Moving beyond balance
• Interaction with vocabulary (and hence language)
• Links between language and literacy
• Medium of instruction

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Teachers Knowledge about Literacy Research and
Instruction

• Are teachers who are more knowledgeable about
  literacy research, language and literacy
  concepts, and pedagogy more effective in
  promoting their students literacy learning?
• Did the teachers in the ISI intervention gain
  important knowledge?

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Teacher Knowledge and ISI

• Scores on the TKA ranged from 9 to 36 out of a
  possible 45 (M 23.45, SD 7.27).
• A2i use and TKS correlations
• Fall TKS and A2i total use did not correlate
• Spring TKS and A2i correlation .58

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Teacher Knowledge Practice
75th
50th
25th
Scores on the TKA ranged from 9 to 36 out of a
possible 45 (M 23.45, SD 7.27).
Piasta Connor (2007).
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Implications

• What teachers know about literacy, including
  emergent literacy, and how to teach literacy
  matters to students learning
• Instruction implemented by unknowledgeable
  teachers may lead to less student literacy
  learning
• But knowledge alone is not enough
• Using knowledge AND providing evidence-based
  instruction led to stronger student outcomes
• How do we prepare our teachers and keep their
  knowledge up to date?

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Questions so far?

• We will next discuss how to actually individual
  instruction in the classroom and will take a more
  detailed look at A2i

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Moving into the classroom and How to
Individualize Instruction

• Using the great ideas of our teachers and
  research partners
• Individualizing Instruction is like a limerick,
  which is a type of poem in English that has a
  very defined structure, or Haiku, which is a form
  of Japanese poetry
• Within the strict structure, the writers are
  allowed the freedom to say what they want

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Elements of ISI

• Conceptualizing instruction multidimensionally
• Planning
• Classroom Organization
• Attending to amounts and types of instruction
• Differentiating content and delivery
• School level strategies

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Understanding the Dimensions of Instruction

• Teacher versus child managed
• Code versus meaning focused
• Any core curriculum or instructional strategy can
  be indexed to the dimensions of instruction
• Method not a curriculum
• Flexibility
• Empower teachers

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Planning
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A Closer Look at A2i

• Isi.fcrr.net
• Log in A2idemo
• Password isi06!

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Return
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Assessment to Instruction (A2i) Software

• http//isi.fcrr.org

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Classroom Organization

• Small homogeneous skill-based groups
• Flexible groupings
• Merging groups
• Moving children as their skills change
• Organizational Charts
• Managing Transitions
• Managing disruptions

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Attending to recommended amounts and types of
instruction

• Precision matters!
• Too much is no better than too little
• Teachers who used A2i more were more precise in
  meeting the recommended amounts for each child in
  their classroom

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Attending to Content and Delivery

• Different content
• Leveled books and materials
• Different parts of the core curriculum or even
  different grade levels
• Different presentation
• Level of scaffolding provided

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Other Strategies

• Change classes for the Literacy block
• May not be appropriate for pre-K
• Rotate and bring other professionals into the
  classroom to help with teacher-managed small
  group instruction

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Future Plans

• Develop algorithms for preschoolers
• Teacher Assessment Module
• Computer-based assessments for vocabulary and
  reading
• Word match game
• DIBELS
• Any valid and reliable assessment that assesses
  vocabulary and reading
• Kindergarten, Second and Third Grade
• Professional development and training
• Response to Instruction Models
• Make A2i and ISI generally available to teachers
  and schools for a reasonable cost

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Contact Information

• cconnor_at_fcrr.org or cconnor_at_fsu.edu
• http//isi.fcrr.org

On your worst day on the job, you are still some
child's best hope. Larry I. Bell
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