Identifying essential instructional components of literacy tutoring for struggling beginning readers.
Lane, H. B., Pullen, P. C., Hudson, R. F., & Konold, T. R. (2009). Literacy Research and Instruction, 48(4), 277–297. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ856831
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examining100Students, grade1
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: February 2023
- Practice Guide (findings for University of Florida Literacy Initiative)
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Phonological awareness assessment |
University of Florida Literacy Initiative vs. literacy intervention |
40 Days |
UFLI vs UFLI minus manipulative letters;
|
51.70 |
50.30 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Phonological awareness assessment |
University of Florida Literacy Initiative vs. literacy intervention |
40 Days |
UFLI minus extended literacy vs. UFLI minus manipulative letters;
|
51.20 |
50.30 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Phonological awareness assessment |
University of Florida Literacy Initiative vs. literacy intervention |
40 Days |
UFLI minus sentence writing vs. UFLI minus manipulative letters;
|
49.70 |
50.30 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Decoding assessment - author designed |
University of Florida Literacy Initiative vs. Business as usual |
40 Days |
UFLI minus sentence writing versus Control;
|
12.30 |
8.80 |
No |
-- | |
|
Sight words assessment - author designed |
University of Florida Literacy Initiative vs. Business as usual |
40 Days |
UFLI minus sentence writing versus Control;
|
72.40 |
56.20 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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South
Study Details
Setting
The intervention was conducted in a medium-sized district located in the southeastern United States. The intervention was targeted to first-grade students in 12 elementary schools and consisted of one-on-one tutoring sessions. The intervention was delivered by tutors during the school day.
Intervention Group
The purpose of the intervention was to promote phonemic awareness, print awareness and decoding skills, as well as improve reading fluency, comprehension and use of strategy. The study tested different variations of the program to determine the relative efficacy of the different elements of the tutoring model. It tested five conditions in the study (four treatment conditions and one control no-treatment condition). The treatment conditions were as follows: Treatment Condition 1: UFLI program in its entirety with all 5 steps. The tutoring session under this condition lasted approximately 38 minutes. The tutoring session consisted of the following five steps. 1. Gaining fluency: Tutor coaches student as s/he read a familiar book (4-5 minutes). Tutor also helps student conduct word work using manipulative letters, encoding and decoding at onset-rimes and phoneme levels, starting with words familiar to the student (3-4) minutes. (2) Measuring progress: Tutor monitors student's performance by taking a running record of reading progress (3-4 minutes) and reinforces effective use of reading strategies. (3) Writing and Reading. Tutor discusses the familiar book used in Step 2 with the child and together they create a sentence (30 sentence). The student writes the sentence with coaching from the tutor, using Elkonin boxes and repeated writing practice to learn unfamiliar words (6-8 minutes). (4) Reading a new book: Tutor takes student on a "picture walk" through a new book (5-6 minutes), which the student then reads with the tutor's coaching. Tutor leads the student in word work using manipulative letters, and encoding and decoding words at onset-rime and phoneme levels, this time using new words (2-3 minutes). (5) Extending Literacy: In this step the tutor introduces a new genre of text, explaining its purpose and emphasizing the strategies that can be used to read the genre well. (5-7 minutes). Treatment Condition 2: UFLI minus manipulative letters. This treatment group received the UFLI program without any word work with manipulative letters. The tutoring session lasted approximately 35 minutes. Treatment Condition 3: UFLI minus sentence writing. This treatment group received the UFLI program without any sentence writing. The tutoring session lasted approximately 32 minutes. Treatment Condition 4: UFLI minus the extending literacy component. This treatment group received the UFLI program without the extended literacy component. The tutoring session lasted approximately 34 minutes. The type of Intervention: The intervention was a full reading curriculum. Number of Lessons, Duration, Implementation period: Each student was supposed to receive 40 lessons. On average students received 39.1 lessons, which occurred three or four days each week. (The overall period over which all the sessions were conducted was not specified in the study ) Students receiving less than 35 sessions were excluded. The duration of individual tutoring sessions varied by type of treatment (mentioned above).
Comparison Group
The comparison group did not receive any component of the intervention and simply received the regular reading instruction provided by classroom teachers.
Support for implementation
The intervention was implemented by 32 masters' level graduate students. These tutors received 12 hours of training and had to demonstrate mastery of the intervention model in a simulated lesson before they began instructing students. They also received one-hour follow-up training sessions each week. Trainees observed demonstrations and reviews of videotaped reading lessons as well as practiced each lesson step. Research team members observed each teacher conducting tutoring lessons at least twice to determine fidelity to tutoring steps.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).