Description:

Co-Principal Investigators: Emily Solari, University of California Davis and Brian Wilhoit, University of Tennessee.

Original Award Information: R305A100270: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Purpose: Learning to read requires the integration of several critical oral language and written language skills, yet there is little known about the types of instruction that would adequately support growth across these domains. In this project, researchers are building on a kindergarten and first grade vocabulary curriculum developed with IES support (the Building Vocabulary for Emerging Readers [BVER] curriculum) by integrating comprehension instruction into the existing vocabulary lessons, expanding the scope of the writing component of the curriculum, and extending the curriculum upward to second grade.

Project Activities: The goals in this project are threefold: (1) to integrate comprehension and writing instruction into the already developed vocabulary lessons for kindergarten and first grade; (2) to develop a similar curriculum for second grade that integrates comprehension, vocabulary, and writing instruction; and (3) to determine the feasibility of high-fidelity implementation in classrooms by examining how teacher opinion, knowledge, and instructional behaviors moderate usability and implementation. The researchers are working with teachers in kindergarten and first and second grade classrooms to develop an integrated literacy curriculum that is feasible, usable, and effective in improving children's oral language (e.g., listening comprehension and expressive language) and written language (e.g., early reading skills and written expression) in the early elementary grades.

Products: Products of this project include a literacy curriculum for kindergarten and first and second grades that integrates comprehension and writing instruction into existing vocabulary lessons, a set of curriculum-based assessments for teachers to track students' learning, and training manuals for the curriculum and assessment battery. Peer reviewed publications will also be produced.

Structured Abstract

Setting: This study takes place in elementary schools located in Texas, Tennessee, and California.

Population: The sample includes teachers (approximately 70) and students (approximately 300) in kindergarten and first and second grade classrooms.

Intervention: The intervention being developed is a literacy curriculum for kindergarten, first and second grade students that integrates explicit comprehension and expanded writing activities into existing vocabulary lessons developed with previous IES funding. Vocabulary is taught in a 5-day lesson cycle with instruction on a specific set of target words using storybook reading and student writing. In this project, the researchers are adding explicit instructional strategies to the existing lessons. The strategies are intended to support early developing comprehension skills such as main ideas, story sequencing, and use of imagery. The writing instruction in the existing lessons is being expanded and builds from alphabetic knowledge to orthographic mastery (handwriting and spelling) and composing (planning, text generating, reviewing and revising). Targeted assessments and curriculum-based measures are being developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum and to track students' acquisition of the material. Training manuals will be developed to support teachers' use of the curriculum and the accompanying assessment battery.

Research Design and Methods: In Year 1, a curriculum development team will begin by identifying the key principles and components of each curricular element—vocabulary, comprehension, and writing—separately and then across all three collectively. The researchers will then work with 10 teachers to develop and pilot the curriculum at all three grade levels. Through an iterative development process of implementation, observation, and teacher feedback, the researchers will explore facets of the curriculum (e.g., activity selection and degree of explicitness) that are associated with student learning and high-fidelity implementation. In Year 2, 10 teachers per grade level will participate in an expanded iterative process of implementation, observation, and feedback to further refine the lessons and materials. In Year 3, another group of 10 teachers per grade level will implement the curriculum to determine feasibility and usability. During this final year, the researchers will also randomly select 10 students per class to be assessed pre and post intervention to determine potential instructional effects of the curriculum on oral language (e.g., listening comprehension and expressive language) and written language (e.g., early reading skills and written expression).

Control Condition: There is no control condition.

Key Measures: Oral language skills will be assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III), the Story Recall subtest of the Woodcock Johnson – III, the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT), and narrative tasks from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV). Written language skills will be assessed using the Test of Early Written Language-2nd, the T-BEST (emergent spelling), and the Woodcock Johnson – III subtests of Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, and Word Attack. Researcher-developed measures will also be used to measure word learning, comprehension, and writing skills. The general literacy environment of the classrooms will be measured using the CIRCLE-Teacher Behavior Rating Scale.

Data Analytic Strategy: Analysis of covariance will be used to determine growth over time in oral and written language, and to assess the potential promise of the intervention at improving student outcomes.

Related IES Projects: Development of an Empirically Based Vocabulary Curriculum for Kindergarten and First Grade Students (R305G060008)