Project Activities
The research team will develop content literacy lessons in major academic subjects (e.g., math, science, history, and literature). These lessons will be tested and evaluated by content area experts, teachers, and students, and their feedback will help guide the iterative design of the final product.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The research will take place in two large, diverse school districts in Virginia and Maryland, and a large high school with a high number of English language learners in New Jersey.
Sample
Participants will include ninth-grade students and teachers.
Intervention
An overall framework for content literacy skills and strategies will be used to guide the subject-specific lessons that will incorporate the unique disciplinary thinking and communication processes of each major subject. Disciplinary areas include literature, science, history, and mathematics. The overarching lesson framework includes text recognition (print signals and formats, disciplinary organization of presentations), key vocabulary (new word families and precise meanings of familiar words for content units), comprehension strategies (before, during and after reading in the context of each discipline), and motivational support (links to background knowledge and high-interest low-frustration assignments). Teachers will be supported for the implementation of weekly content literacy lessons by either traditional workshops and departmental meetings or more extensive teacher teams and expert coaching.
Research design and methods
The weekly 30-minute content literacy lessons for each major academic subject will be developed by a Johns Hopkins University team of four content specialists in each of the core subjects and two specialists in adolescent literacy instruction for struggling readers. Feedback for lesson improvements will be obtained in two pilot-test high schools from teacher critiques of each lesson, classroom observations of lessons in each subject, and focus group interviews and surveys from teachers and students. A pilot test of the revised lessons for struggling readers will occur in authentic settings of three sets of four matched high schools.
Control condition
The control condition will cover the same material but using typical instruction as opposed to the lessons generated during the development phase.
Key measures
The key evaluation measures during the development phase will include quality of lesson implementations, records of increased instructional use of textbooks in each subject for instruction and homework, student learning results from well-established general reading tests, and new measures of content reading success and motivation in each subject. During the pilot study, the team will use general tests of reading comprehension; specialized reading tests for high school mathematics, science, history, and literature developed for this project; the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test; an adaptation of the CARS assessments (Comprehensive Assessment of Reading Strategies published by Curriculum Associates); and the Motivation for Reading in the Content Areas (MRCA) assessment, to evaluate student outcomes.
Data analytic strategy
The initial analyses of the newly developed literacy instruction and teachers' team participation will include statistical comparisons looking at group differences on survey or observation measures of teacher classroom practices in each major subject. They will also check the reliability and validity of the three measures of teacher classroom practices (teacher and student surveys and classroom observations) which are intended to capture four instructional practice traits (text recognition, vocabulary, comprehension strategies before or after reading and comprehension strategies during reading). To analyze the potential impact of the intervention, they will use a two-level hierarchical model.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: Products include a final version of 24 weekly sets of coordinated content literacy lessons for struggling readers in four core ninth-grade academic subjects. Additionally, the research team will develop professional development manuals for workshops, department meetings, coaches and teams. Initial implementation data and preliminary evidence of the effects of the intervention on student achievement will be reported in published articles.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigator: Marcia Davis
** This project was submitted to and funded under Interventions for Struggling Adolescent and Adult Readers and Writers in FY 2009.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
