D. Implementing the Interventions
The interventions were implemented from the first week of November 2003 through the first weeks in May 2004. During this time students received, on average, about 90 hours of instruction, which was delivered five days a week to groups of three students in sessions that were approximately 50 minutes long. A small part of the instruction was delivered in groups of two, or 1:1, because of absences and make-up sessions. Since many of the sessions took place during the student's regular classroom reading instruction, teachers reported that students in the treatment groups received less reading instruction in the classroom than did students in the control group (1.2 hours per week versus 4.4 hours per week.). Students in the treatment group received more small-group instruction than did students in the control group (6.8 hours per week versus 3.7 hours per week). Both groups received a very small amount of 1:1 tutoring in reading from their schools during the week.
Teachers were recruited from participating schools on the basis of experience and the personal characteristics relevant to teaching struggling readers. They received, on average, nearly 70 hours of professional development and support during the implementation year as follows:
- About 30 hours during an initial week of intensive introduction to each program
- About 24 hours during a seven-week period at the beginning of the year when the teachers practiced their assigned methods with 4th-grade struggling readers in their schools
- About 14 hours of supervision during the intervention phase
According to an examination of videotaped teaching sessions by the research team, the training and supervision produced instruction that was judged to be faithful to each intervention model. The program providers themselves also rated the teachers as generally above average in both their teaching skill and fidelity to program requirements relative to other teachers with the same level of training and experience.