Project Activities
The researchers will use an iterative approach to develop the curriculum and ensure its usability and feasibility. Once they have a fully developed approach, they will use a school-randomized control trial to determine its impact on student outcomes. During this pilot study, the researchers will also determine the intervention's implementation cost.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The research will take place in elementary schools in districts in North Carolina and Texas that serve high numbers of English learners.
Sample
Approximately 60 students and 8 educators across 5 schools will participate during the development phase, and approximately 400 students and 30 educators across 20 schools will participate in the pilot study. The students will be English learners in grades 3 through 5 who have difficulties in reading comprehension but are not experiencing difficulties with word recognition.
KLI will have five inquiry-based modules, each of which leverages an engaging science or social studies topic. Each module will include multiple, high-quality curated texts that will have varying levels of complexity and will include informational and literary genres. Each module will also include instructor materials for topic-relevant instruction in vocabulary, morphological word building, morpho-syntactic sentence manipulation, and fluency practice. The intended instructors include literacy specialists/interventionists, ESL specialists, and classroom teachers with advanced preparation in language and literacy. These staff will use the modules with small groups of ELs (approximately three to four students per group) during supplement sessions. Each session will be approximately 40 minutes long, with instruction occurring 3 times per week.
Research design and methods
During the development phase, the researchers will iteratively design and revise the components of the intervention through a series of systematic design-implement-observe-revise cycles in afterschool settings. They will leverage input from interviews and surveys of teachers and ratings of observations of instruction to inform their revisions. Once they have a nearly complete version of the curriculum, they will determine its usability and feasibility in school settings and will finalize the materials. During this phase, they will continue to collect data from instructors and through feasibility interviews and surveys. The researchers will then test the full curriculum in a pilot study using a school-randomized design.
Control condition
The control condition will be students in other schools who are receiving business-as-usual small-group intervention supports from an ESL or literacy specialist.
Key measures
To determine the impact on student outcomes, the researchers will use standardized, researcher-developed, and school measures of reading comprehension, language, reading fluency, and comprehension processes.
Data analytic strategy
The researchers will use multivariate multilevel models with treatment exposure to determine the main effects of the KLI intervention on student outcomes. They will use similar models to test the effects of the intervention on the intermediate learning opportunities targeted for improvement by the intervention and will use sequential multilevel mediation analysis to evaluate the various components of the intervention according to the components of the theory of change that support the instructional approach.
Cost analysis strategy
As part of this pilot study, they will also determine the cost for implementing the full intervention, calculating the per student and per school and benchmarking the costs relative to the costs of the business-as-usual controls in the pilot study schools.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Products: This project will develop the KLI curriculum, collect and report information about the cost of implementing the intervention, and disseminate findings through peer-reviewed publications, presentations, and additional dissemination products (e.g., research briefs) that reach education stakeholders such as practitioners and policymakers.
Publications:
Relyea, J. E., Davis, D., Dobis, C., Huang, B., & Samuelson, C. (2025). Feasibility of the Knowledge, Language, and Inquiry (KLI) intervention for multilingual English learners. The Journal of Educational Research, 1-16.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigators: Huang, Becky; Relyea, Jackie
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
