Program Announcement: Reading, Writing, and Language Development CFDA 84.324A

Program Officer:
Dr. Kristen Lauer
Kristen.Lauer@ed.gov
(202) 219-0377

Purpose

Through its Reading, Writing, and Language Development (Reading/Language) special education research program, the Institute intends to contribute to the improvement of reading, writing, and language skills for students with identified disabilities and to prevent the development of disabilities among students at risk for disabilities by (1) exploring malleable factors¹ (e.g., children's skills, instructional practices, curricula) that are associated with better reading, writing, or language outcomes for students with disabilities or students at risk for disabilities, as well as mediators or moderators of the relations between these factors and student outcomes, for the purpose of identifying potential targets of intervention; (2) developing innovative curricula, instructional approaches, or strategies for teaching reading, writing, or language skills to students with identified disabilities or students at risk for disabilities; (3) evaluating the efficacy of fully developed curricula, instructional approaches, or strategies for teaching reading, writing, or language skills to students with identified disabilities or students at risk for disabilities; (4) evaluating the effectiveness of curricula, instructional approaches, or strategies for teaching reading, writing, or language skills for students with disabilities or at risk for disabilities when implemented at scale; and (5) developing and validating reading, writing, or language assessments for students with disabilities or at risk for disabilities that are intended for use by practitioners in instructional settings.

The long-term outcome of this program will be an array of tools and strategies (e.g., assessments, instructional approaches) that have been documented to be effective for improving reading, writing, or language outcomes for students with identified disabilities and students at risk for disabilities from kindergarten through Grade 12.

Background

Students with disabilities do not attain the same performance thresholds as their peers on a range of language, reading, and writing outcome measures. For example, the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates that 64 percent of fourth graders with disabilities and 65 percent of eighth graders with disabilities who participated in the assessment scored below the basic level in reading achievement in contrast to 30 percent of fourth graders and 22 percent of eighth graders without disabilities. Reading below the basic level means that when reading grade-appropriate text, these students cannot extract the general meaning of text, make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences, or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, approximately two-thirds of fourth graders and eighth graders with disabilities who take the NAEP do not understand what they have read. In writing, a similar picture emerges. The 2007 NAEP writing assessment indicated that, in eighth grade, 45 percent of students with disabilities who participated in the assessment scored below the basic level in contrast to 8 percent of students without disabilities. The NAEP results make clear the substantial gap in reading and writing skills between students with and without disabilities.

The Institute intends for its Reading/Language special education research program to support research on the development and evaluation of curricula and instructional approaches that are intended to improve reading, writing, and language outcomes for students with disabilities, or at risk for disabilities, from kindergarten through Grade 12. Through this program, the Institute supports research to develop and validate assessments of reading, writing, or language for use by practitioners for purposes such as, screening, progress monitoring, or evaluating outcomes for students with disabilities or at risk for disabilities. Finally, the Institute supports research that examines the relations between malleable factors (e.g., child skills or instructional practices) and reading, writing, or language outcomes for students with disabilities or at risk for disabilities for the purpose of identifying potential targets of intervention. The types of projects that are appropriate for this program are illustrated by, but not limited to, the examples provided below.

Interventions appropriate for research under this program are interventions for students with high- or low- incidence disabilities that are delivered to the student by teachers, related service providers, or other school personnel. For example, an applicant might propose to adapt an existing comprehensive reading curriculum for students with hearing impairments or to develop instructional strategies for improving language/communication skills of students with significant intellectual disabilities. As another example, applicants could consider developing instructional approaches or strategies for improving reading comprehension that could be incorporated into instruction in content courses (e.g., history, science) for middle- or high-school students with learning disabilities.

Under the Reading/Language research program, the Institute also accepts applications to develop or evaluate interventions that could be used as a tier in a Response to Intervention model. For example, an applicant might propose to evaluate a secondary-tier intervention intended to improve vocabulary, which in turn could enhance writing skills of students with or at risk for learning disabilities.

The Institute encourages the development and validation of assessments of reading, writing, or language that are intended to be used by practitioners for purposes such as identifying, progress monitoring, or evaluating outcomes in reading, writing, or language. For example, applicants could compare the relative predictive validity of short-term dynamic assessments versus progress monitoring instruments.

The Institute encourages researchers to explore malleable factors (e.g., instructional practices, curricula, children's behaviors or skills) that are associated with better reading, writing, or language outcomes for students with disabilities or at risk for disabilities, as well as mediators or moderators of the relations between these factors and student outcomes, for the purpose of identifying potential targets of intervention. This is translational research intended to inform development of innovative interventions to improve reading, writing, or language outcomes for children with disabilities or at risk for disabilities. One approach to the identification of malleable factors is for researchers to conduct detailed, quantifiable observational measures of reading, writing, or language instruction (e.g., types of instruction, frequency, duration, under what circumstances), and then use the instructional data in conjunction with child characteristics to predict subsequent reading, writing, or language performance. The goal here is to identify what type or combination of instructional activities is associated with better student outcomes and for which students. Researchers following this strategy who can successfully predict student performance could use this information as the basis for developing an intervention. Another approach is to conduct multivariate analyses of district or state databases in order to identify existing programs and practices that may be associated with better reading, writing, or language outcomes and to examine factors and conditions that may mediate or moderate the relations between the student outcomes and these programs and practices.