Project Activities
The researchers will conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that involves 60 schools, 240 teachers, and their students in southern California. They will randomly assign schools to LETRS or business-as-usual (BAU) conditions. Teachers assigned to the LETRS condition will complete the full LETRS training over 2 years. Those assigned to the BAU condition will continue their typical practice. Students in participating classrooms will experience the literacy instruction provided by their teachers, whether informed by LETRS or typical practice. The researchers will examine implementation (including fidelity), teacher, and student outcomes via teacher surveys, classroom observations, and student pre-post assessments each year. They will also collect cost data and data related to the implementation context that may moderate LETRS effects.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The project will take place in 60 schools in southern California. The target region serves more than 100,000 students in primary grades from diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Sample
The sample will include teachers and students in kindergarten to grade 3, but the researchers will focus on students in grades 1 and 3 for instructional practice and student outcomes. They expect to recruit and work with 240 teachers (who are randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions) and their students over the course of impact study.
LETRS is a fully developed and widely used teacher professional development in the US. The focus of LETRS is building kindergarten to Grade 3 teachers' knowledge to support effective literacy instruction and thereby support student literacy learning. LETRS consists of 2 year-long volumes of professional development, each of which comprises four units. Volume 1 focuses primarily on code-focused knowledge to support word recognition and spelling practices (for example, phonology and phonemic awareness; grapheme-phoneme correspondences; orthography, orthographic patterns, and orthographic mapping; spelling, morphology and structural analysis; fluency), and Volume 2 focuses primarily on meaning-focused knowledge to support comprehension practices (for example, semantics/vocabulary; comprehension and its subskills such as predicting, inferencing, and monitoring; background knowledge; text structures; syntax; writing and reading-writing connections).
Research design and methods
The researchers will use a multi-district school-level randomized control trial (RCT) design in which schools are randomly assigned to LETRS or business-as-usual (BAU) conditions. The researchers will conduct the RCT with 60 schools, 240 teachers, and their students. They will randomly assign schools to LETRS or BAU conditions with all kindergarten through grade 3 teachers and students within the school participating in the assigned condition. Teachers assigned to the LETRS condition will complete the LETRS professional learning over 2 years. Students in participating classrooms will experience the literacy instruction provided by their teachers, whether informed by LETRS or typical practice, and their literacy skills will be assessed at pretest and posttest. The researchers will also collect data on literacy instructional practices in both conditions.
Control condition
Schools in the comparison condition will implement business as usual instruction or typical practice, and the research team will document professional development and instructional practices occurring within the control condition.
Key measures
The researchers will examine implementation (including fidelity, using e.g., adapted version of Perceived Characteristics of Intervention Scale, adapted version of the Usage Rating Profile-Intervention, and classroom observations), teacher knowledge (for example, LETRS knowledge measure, Knowledge for Enhancing Reading Development Inventory, Teachers' Content Knowledge of Oral Language Survey), classroom observations, and student pre-post assessments (for example, Elision subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing-2nd Edition, Sight Word Efficiency and Phonetic Decoding subtests of the Test of Word Reading Efficiency-2nd Edition, Test of Written Spelling-5, Oral Reading Fluency subtask of Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-4th Edition, Expressive Vocabulary task of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4th Edition, Comprehension subtest of Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests-4th Edition).
Data analytic strategy
The researchers will use covariate-adjusted linear mixed-effects regression models to examine the impacts of LETRS on teacher and student outcomes. Additionally, they will evaluate the extent to which those impacts are moderated by context and implementation, and the degree to which impacts on student outcomes are plausibly mediated by teacher outcomes.
Cost analysis strategy
The researchers will calculate the cost of implementing LETRS at multiple levels (overall cost for implementation and per class) accounting for expenditures for personnel (for example, teachers), facilities, and materials. They will estimate the cost per student and per class by dividing the total cost by the number of participating children and classes. They will estimate the cost effectiveness of the intervention following guidelines and recommendations in Hollands and Levin and Belfield's work.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
This project will result in evidence of the effects of the LETRS program on teacher knowledge, literacy instructional practices, and student literacy outcomes, possible mediation and moderation effects, and the cost and cost effectiveness of LETRS. The project will also result peer-reviewed publications and presentations, and additional dissemination products that reach education stakeholders such as practitioners and policymakers.
Study registration:
Publications:
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
