Identifying Key Components of Effective Professional Development in Reading for First-Grade Teachers and Their Students

The researchers are comparing the efficacy of a three-component professional development delivery model currently used by Michigan Reading First schools to two alternative models. One model focuses entirely on teacher knowledge, and the other model focuses on teacher knowledge combined with student assessment training. The three components of Michigan's Reading First model are

1. teachers' language and their literacy content and reading pedagogical knowledge
2. teachers' ability to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching through the assessment of student progress
3. teachers' participation in sustained collegial discussions about reading

In schools that are eligible for Reading First but not yet funded, the researchers are randomly assigning the teachers to a teacher knowledge model or to a teacher knowledge and student assessment training model. The research team is examining those aspects of teachers' knowledge and background experience that best predict students' first grade progress in reading. The researchers are following the teachers for 2 years in order to study changes in their practices with two successive groups of children that may be due to the professional development. The study sample includes 40 school districts, 100 schools, 200 teachers and 6,000 students. Participating schools serve large numbers of struggling readers.