Project Activities
The project was organized in three phases. During the development phase, the researchers iteratively designed and revised the components of the intervention in collaboration with experienced teachers. In the second phase, they conducted a feasibility study to identify barriers affecting implementation of the intervention in school settings. In the final phase, the researchers investigated the promise of the intervention in a year-long pilot study.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The research took place in elementary schools in North Carolina, Texas, and Ohio
Sample
Upper elementary teachers and multilingual children designated as English learners (EL) in grades 3-5 participated in this research across three phases. In the first phase (years 1 and 2), the researchers worked with 15 teacher collaborators who provided feedback on the intervention after reviewing and/or implementing sample lessons during afterschool instruction with 42 students, all of whom spoke Spanish at home. In the second phase (year 3), 7 English as a second language (ESL) teachers and 2 upper elementary classroom teachers implemented full intervention modules during the school day with a total of 37 students. The most common home languages in the sample were Spanish, Pashto, and Arabic. In the final phase (year 4), a total of 10 ESL teachers and 66 children participated in the experimental pilot study. Home languages among these children included Spanish, Arabic, Khmer, Haitian Creole, Fulani, Nepali, Somali, Swahili, and Twi.
K.L.I. is a small-group intervention for upper-elementary multilingual children identified as English learners who need extra support in reading comprehension. Each module focuses on a content area topic, introduced with overarching inquiry questions that serve as a thread connecting the activities across 41 lessons, each lasting approximately 20-30 minutes. The lessons are organized as a repeating sequence of five components: Discovery Reading, Confident Reading, Breaking Words, Sentence Workshop, and Uncover the Structure. The repeating components provide a predictable structure and enable students to become familiar with the routines and to take increased responsibility for leading the activities over time. Teachers who participated in the project received training on the intervention routines and resources needed to implement selected modules with their students.
Research design and methods
During the development phase, the researchers iteratively designed and revised the components of the intervention through a series of systematic design-implement-observe-revise cycles in afterschool settings. They leveraged input from interviews with teachers and ratings of observations of instruction to inform their revisions to maximize the usability of the intervention. In the second phase, they used interviews, observations, teacher ratings, and student pre-post learning outcomes to identify feasibility barriers affecting implementation of the intervention in authentic school settings. In the final phase, the researchers investigated the promise of the intervention in a year-long group-randomized pilot study. They estimated the impact of K.L.I. on student outcomes relative to control instruction and tested the underlying theory of the intervention.
Control condition
In the pilot study, students in the control group received business-as-usual instruction from their ESL teachers using existing curricular resources.
Key measures
Usability, feasibility, and implementation quality were examined using teacher interviews and observations of selected lessons. To determine the impact on student outcomes, the researchers used a standardized measure of reading comprehension and researcher-developed measures of language, content knowledge, reading fluency, and comprehension processes.
Data analytic strategy
The researchers examined usability and feasibility by qualitatively coding teacher interviews across successive iterations of the intervention. They also tracked teachers’ ability to successfully use the intervention by examining trends in videorecorded lessons using a customized set of intervention indicators, rated by trained research assistants. In the pilot study, the researchers used a multilevel mediation model to examine the extent to which intervention exposure improved reading comprehension by operating through improvements in the mediators proposed in their theory of change (English language proficiency, reading fluency, content knowledge, and comprehension processes).
Cost analysis strategy
Data for the cost analysis were collected concurrently with the pilot study. Researchers enumerated the resources needed to implement the intervention and then accounted for the opportunity costs associated with each ingredient, above and beyond the resources needed to implement business-as-usual instruction.
Key outcomes
The main findings of this project, as reported by the principal investigator, are as follows:
- Teacher collaborators perceived the K.L.I. materials to be useful and applicable for small-group instruction with multilingual learners, and they provided important suggestions for continued improvements. (Davis, Relyea, et al., 2025; Relyea et al., 2025)
Findings from the pilot study of the intervention reported in Davis, Kelcey, et al., 2025 include:
- K.L.I. lessons created opportunities for students to engage in metacognitive and metalinguistic talk thought to be supportive of language and literacy development.
- K.L.I. had a positive, non-significant effect on a standardized measure of reading comprehension.
- K.L.I. had a positive, significant effect on content knowledge on a researcher-designed measure.
- Findings confirm the mediational relationships proposed by the researchers; specifically, that the intervention impacted reading comprehension indirectly through four proximal outcomes: English language proficiency, content knowledge, expository comprehension processes, and reading fluency.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
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.
Project website:
Publications:
ERIC Citations: Find publications available in ERIC here.
Davis, D.S., Kelcey, B., Huang, B., Relyea, J., & Dobis, C. (2025). Evaluating the impact of the Knowledge, Language, and Structured Inquiry (K.L.I.) intervention on reading comprehension in upper elementary multilingual English learners. Journal of Experimental Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2025.2590449
Davis, D.S., Relyea, J.E., Samuelson, C., Huang, B., & Dobis, C. (2025). Usability of a reading intervention for upper-elementary English learners: Building reading comprehension through Knowledge, Language, and Structured Inquiry (K.L.I.). AERA Open, 11(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584251323893
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.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
