Project Activities
The Interactive Strategies Approach is not a packaged intervention. It is a set of instructional goals, along with suggested activities for achieving those goals, and an approach to selecting the texts that students read. Using this approach, teachers will be able to individualize instructional goals to meet the reading and writing needs of a particular student.
The research team is designing the Interactive Strategies Approach to address multiple instructional goals for older struggling readers, including motivation to read and write, phonological skills, word identification, comprehension and general knowledge, and vocabulary. These goals will be designed to provide direction for each student's individual intervention, which will be developed to take into account the student's current capabilities, the teacher's expectations, classroom resources, and the student's response to the instruction.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The schools are located in New York.
Sample
Participants are 125 fourth- and seventh-grade students, all receiving special education services with reading as a primary area of need, and scoring at or below a standard score of 90 on the WIAT Reading Comprehension subtest.
The Interactive Strategies Approach is not a packaged intervention. It is a set of instructional goals, along with suggested activities for achieving those goals, and an approach to selecting the texts that students read. Using this approach, teachers will be able to individualize instructional goals to meet the reading and writing needs of a particular student.
Research design and methods
During year 1, 30-36 fourth-grade students will be identified as poor readers and participate a quasi-experimental, one-group, pretest-posttest trial of the Interactive Strategies Approach. Following that initial trial, modifications will be made to the intervention, and a second trial using the same design will be conducted. During year 2, 30-36 seventh-grade students will be identified as poor readers and participate in a quasi-experimental, one-group, pretest-posttest trial of the Interactive Strategies Approach. A second trial using the same design will occur in year 3 with a cohort of 20-24 seventh-grade students.
Control condition
The control condition receives standard classroom practice.
Key measures
Four classes of variables will be used to measure students: measures for assessing reader characteristics (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 3rd Edition, WIAT-II, Listening Comprehension subtest, Motivation for Reading survey, Reasoning Measure, and Instructional History Measure); measures for assessing the effects of intervention (WIAT-II, Reading Comprehension subtest, Woodcock-Johnson-III, Reading Fluency subtest, Word Identification subtest, (?) Word Attack subtest, Social Studies Knowledge Measure, New York State Assessment of English Language Arts); measures for assessing skills and strategies (Elementary Spelling Inventory - 1, Qualitative Reading Inventory - 4, and Strategic Reading Inventory); and measures for continuous progress monitoring (Monitoring Basic Skills Progress).
Data analytic strategy
The main analysis will be conducted separately for fourth and seventh grades, but will combine data across year cohorts. For the progress monitoring weekly assessments, data will be analyzed using individual growth curve analysis. For the assessments that are collected at three points in time (fall, midyear, and spring), multilevel modeling will be used.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: The products of this project include a teacher handbook, curriculum guide, and professional development materials to help teachers use the interactive strategies approach to teach reading to struggling readers. Published reports and presentations will also be disseminated to researchers and practitioners.
Book chapter
Gelzheiser, L.M., Scanlon, D., and Hallgren-Flynn, L. (2010). Spotlight on RTI for Adolescents: An Example of Intensive Middle School Intervention Using the Interactive Strategies Approach-Extended. In M.Y. Lipson, and K.K. Wixson (Eds.), Approaches to Response to Intervention (RTI): Evidence-Based Frameworks for Preventing Reading Difficulties (pp. 211-230). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Journal article, monograph, or newsletter
Gelzheiser, L.M., Hallgren-Flynn, L., Connors, M., and Scanlon, D. (2014). Reading Thematically-Related Texts to Develop Knowledge and Comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 68(1): 53-63. doi:10.1002/trtr.1271 Full text
Gelzheiser, L.M., Scanlon, D., Vellutino, F., Hallgren-Flynn, L., and Schatschneider, C. (2011). Effects of the Interactive Strategies Approach-Extended: A Responsive and Comprehensive Intervention for Intermediate-Grade Struggling Readers. The Elementary School Journal, 112(2): 280-306. doi:10.1086/661525
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
