Effects of a 6-week, co-taught literacy unit on preservice special educators' literacy-education knowledge

Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 47(5), 2010 C© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pits.20485

EFFECTS OF A 6-WEEK, CO-TAUGHT LITERACY UNIT ON PRESERVICE SPECIALEDUCATORS� LITERACY-EDUCATION KNOWLEDGE

LISA A. PUFPAFF AND NINA YSSEL

Ball State University

For special education preservice teachers to be prepared to assist studentswith disabilities to achievetheir maximum potential in literacy, an innovative, co-taught literacy unit was implemented withinexisting methods courses. The intensive, 6-week unit was created to prepare all candidates in bothmild interventions and severe interventions licensure programs to meet the literacy needs of diverselearners. The curriculum was designed around the National Reading Panel�s Þve critical compo-nents of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, ßuency, vocabulary, comprehension) in addition tothe topics of emergent literacy and writing. Pre- and posttests were administered, revealing a signif-icant growth in participant knowledge related to literacy assessment and instruction. Implicationsfor future efforts to improve literacy outcomes for students with disabilities by improving teachers�knowledge and skills related to literacy instruction are discussed. C© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Approximately 20% of all children in the United States experience difÞculties in literacy(Lyon, 1995). According to recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress,36% of fourth graders and 27% of eighth graders scored at a below basic level of proÞciency inreading (Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007). The difÞculties for students with disabilities are far morepronounced. The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD, 2008) reported thatsecondary students with learning disabilities (LD) have signiÞcant deÞcits in reading and math,with 21% of this population approximately Þve or more grade levels below in reading (NationalLongitudinal Transition Study II, 2003). Given the vast numbers of students struggling, includingthose at risk for reading and writing disabilities, researchers have been questioning the effectivenessof teacher-education programs in efforts to address this problem (Mather, Bos, & Babur, 2001;McCutchen et al., 2002). Moreover, the No Child Left Behind call for increased accountabilityand Reading First grants to bring students up to grade-level reading performance underscored theimportance of an examination of teachers� knowledge and skills and preservice teacher preparationto provide effective reading instruction.

Researchers have reported a positive correlation between teacher training in literacy instructionand student reading achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2000; McCutchen et al., 2002); moreover, thesuccess rate for teachers in kindergarten and primary grades could show a marked improvement withadequate preservice training and inservice follow-up (International Dyslexia Association, 1997).It is not clear what the optimal curriculum should include to prepare preservice teachers to teachreading effectively; however, the National Reading Panel (NRP) noted that the focus should be oneducating rather than training. Teachers should be educated in �a professional context that willgive them control over a wide range of decision making tools� (2000, chap. 5-4). Results of 11studies on preservice teacher preparation and reading reviewed by the NRP indicated improvementsin knowledge; whether the increased knowledge translates into effective reading instruction is notknown because none of these 11 studies followed beginning teachers� performance after participationin the experimental programs.

Moats (1994) argued that teachers are typically uneducated for the demand of explicitly teachingreading and writing. Bos, Mather, Dickson, Podhajski, and Chard (2001) came to the same con-clusion. Results of their study indicated that both general education teachers and special educators

Correspondence to: Lisa A. Pufpaff, Department of Special Education, Teachers College, Room 710, Ball StateUniversity, Muncie, IN 47306. E-mail: [email protected]

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may not be adequately prepared to teach students with dyslexia and related reading problems. Alimited knowledge of language structure and systematic, explicit reading instruction appeared tobe a problem speciÞcally for special educators. Mather and colleagues (2001) concurred that manyteachers do not have a sufÞcient grasp of spoken and written language structure that is needed toteach reading explicitly to struggling students. Only 37% of inservice teachers (n= 293) in that studyknew that phonics instruction involves teaching the application of sounds to letters. The results of thestudy showed a disparity between teachers� beliefs that they should know how to teach phonologicalawareness and phonics and their actual level of preparation to effectively implement instruction.McCutchen and colleagues (2002), too, felt that the concept of literacy is not well understood byeducators, despite its emphasis in research literature. In their 1990 study, Troyer and Yopp foundthat only 32% of veteran kindergarten teachers indicated that they understood the term phonemicawareness. Yet, to teach reading effectively, speciÞcally to students struggling with the alphabeticprinciple, �teachers need more than simple awareness that /k/ is the Þrst sound in cat� (McCutchenet al., 2002, p. 70). They must have a thorough understanding of the linguistic structures beyondsimple letter�sound correspondences, in addition to the knowledge of difÞculties that students en-counter in phonological awareness and word-reading skills (McCutchen et al., 2002). Accordingto Cheesman, McGuire, Shankweiler, and Coyne (2009), special educators need a deeper level ofunderstanding of phonemic awareness than general educators have to provide effective instructionto students who do not respond to classroom instruction. Denton, Vaughn, and Fletcher (2003), too,emphasized the importance of effective and knowledgeable teachers�the Þrst area that must beaddressed in an attempt to improve the reading development of all students. They explained the needfor explicit instruction, rather than an approach that requires learners to make inferences.

The preparation of special education teachers paints a more dismal picture than that of generaleducation teachers. Swanson�s (2008) extensive review of literature since 1980 examining reading in-struction for studentswith disabilities yielded discouraging results. Little timewas devoted to phonicsinstruction. Students with LD, speciÞcally, spent little time engaged in the Þve critical componentsof reading according to the NRP report (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, ßuency, vocabulary,comprehension). In addition to insufÞcient time, inappropriate grouping structures were used duringreading instruction. SpeciÞcally, instead of small-group instruction, which has been shown to beeffective for phonemic awareness instruction, whole-class instruction was predominantly used. Notonly did students receive little reading comprehension instruction, but they also spent little time en-gaged in reading. According to Denton and colleagues (2003), special education placements �tendto stabilize the reading growth of students with reading disabilities rather than accelerate it� (p. 203).

Seo, Brownell, Bishop, and Dingle (2008) highlighted the lack of differentiated instruction aswell as insufÞcient time in teacher-directed instruction in special education classrooms; however,when students in resource rooms and/or self-contained classrooms do receive intensive instructionin reading, their achievement improves. Positive results of effective instruction were also noted byDenton and colleagues (2003), who presented clear conditions for successful programs for studentswith LD. These conditions included the general education teacher�s skills, time, knowledge, andinterest in providing students with appropriate reading instruction and the special educator�s timeand ability to provide systematic and explicit reading instruction daily to small groups of students.

The role of the teacher in literacy instruction cannot be overemphasized. Seo and colleagues(2008) underscored the strong inßuence that engaging teachers have on ßuency and word identiÞ-cation gains for students with LD; moreover, they stated that beginning special educators who wereconsidered to be highly engaging also provided explicit reading instruction.

Although issues in reading instruction and performance pertain to all students at all grade lev-els, the problems are exacerbated in the case of adolescents. With little time for reading instructionand remediation and the pressure of high stakes testing, students continue to experience difÞculties

Psychology in the Schools DOI: 10.1002/pits

Special Educators� Literacy-Education Knowledge 495

in reading and, consequently, in content areas. The NJCLD (2008) emphasized the need for moreexplicit instruction for students with reading problems by infusing �high-quality, research-informedliteracy instruction throughout the secondary curricula to address varying levels of literacy pro-Þciency� (p. 215). Target areas include decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, ßuency, spelling,composing, higher-order language skills, metalinguistic awareness, and metacognitive skills.

To date, there is no known evidence regarding the effect of preservice teacher education onreading outcomes for students with moderate to severe cognitive impairment. Although Browder andcolleagues (Baker, Spooner, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Flowers, & Browder, 2010; Browder & Lalli, 1991;Browder, Wakeman, Spooner, Ahlgrim-Delzell, & Algozzine, 2006; Browder & Xin, 1998) havefocused attention on the need to provide literacy instruction for students with signiÞcant cognitiveimpairment, little attention has been given to teacher preparation for this challenging task. Yet ampleevidence exists that students with signiÞcant developmental disabilities can achieve literacy skillsand should be provided with explicit, systematic instruction (e.g., Basil & Reyes, 2003; Bradford,Shippen, Alberto, Houchins, & Flores, 2006; Conners, 1992).

If students with signiÞcant developmental disabilities are to achieve improved literacy out-comes, their teachers must be properly educated to provide appropriate, explicit, and systematicliteracy instruction (Al Otaiba & Hosp, 2004). Teachers of students with severe disabilities not onlymust be well versed in scientiÞcally based practices for reading instruction among typically devel-oping children, but must also possess the knowledge and skills to adapt assessment and instruction tomeet the individualized needs of all students with disabilities. This level of preparation cannot occuron the job, through trial and error, but must become a part of the preservice preparation curriculum.

Although the topic of teacher preparation for literacy instruction is gaining attention in the liter-ature, there is little published evidence that programs that prepare special educators are incorporatingliteracy instruction in the curriculum. Researchers are in agreement that preservice education mustensure that all teachers are comprehensively and effectively prepared to implement research-basedpractices (Denton et al., 2003; NJCLD, 2008; Swanson, 2008). Lyon (1999) posed that major effortsmust be implemented to ensure that colleges of education provide appropriate training in content(including the structure of language, reading development, and the nature of reading disabilities) atthe preservice level.

As the emphasis on application of scientiÞc reading methods among children in our schoolscontinues to gain momentum, teacher-education programs must take a hard look at the quality oftheir preservice curriculum related to literacy instruction. The long-term literacy outcomes for ournation�s schoolchildren depend on their teachers� knowledge and skills related to effective literacyinstruction.

The current research project emerged from the brainstorming of two facultymemberswithin onespecial education department who felt the need to improve their candidates� abilities to effectivelyteach literacy to all students. The faculty members, one in the area of severe disabilities and theother in the area of mild disabilities, were already attempting to embed literacy assessment andinstruction into their respective courses, but consistently falling short of their desired outcome asmore topics/content needed to be covered each successive semester. This project represents thefaculty members� commitment to devote 6 weeks of their respective methods courses to literacyinstruction. Furthermore, the faculty members chose to combine their courses for those 6 weeks andco-teach the literacy unit so that participants in both licensing programs would be better prepared toteach literacy to a full range of students with disabilities.

The purpose of this study, then, was to demonstrate that preservice special education teachercandidates could demonstrate gains in knowledge needed for effective literacy instruction across the6-week unit. The goal was to begin to close the gap between research and practice by providingteacher candidates with the requisite knowledge needed to become more effective literacy teachers.



METHODS

A pretest�posttest design was used to assess growth in participants� literacy knowledge acrossthe 6-week unit. Selection of participants involved purposive sampling from those students whoenrolled in the two special education methods courses during the spring semesters of 2008 and 2009.

Participants

Forty-one students have participated in this project to date. Participants were from a midsizeuniversity in the Midwest. During the spring of 2008 there were 10 participants, and there were31 in spring 2009. All students enrolled in both courses were eligible for participation as bothmethods courses were restricted to students accepted into the Teaching Curriculum for either mildinterventions or intense interventions licensure. There was only one section of each course offeredeach spring semester. Among the students enrolled in the courses both years, 100% were female and100% completed both the pretest and posttest.

The methods course for mild interventions was taught during the day, two days per weekfor 75 minutes per day. The content covered a range of issues including instructional strategiesin language arts and collaborative learning. The methods course for intense interventions was forundergraduate students working toward initial licensure. The course was taught once per week in theevening for 150 minutes per week. The course content addressed assessment and intervention strate-gies for students with physical, sensory, and health impairments as well as students with multiple dis-abilities. The content focused primarily onmeeting the needs of students within the general educationcurriculum.

The literacy unit was co-taught live during the mild interventions course meeting time andvideotaped in a classroom designed for use with distance education. The recorded lectures then wereplayed back during the intense interventions course meeting with the intense interventions facultymember present to stop the recordings to answer questions and generate discussion.

Literacy Unit Curriculum

The purpose of the literacy unit was not to provide candidates with a curriculum from which toteach, but to provide them with the knowledge and skills needed to develop ways of implementingresearch-based practices in their own classrooms best suited to the individualized needs of theirstudents.

The 6-week curriculum was developed based on the NRP�s (2000) Þve key areas essentialfor learning to read (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, ßuency, vocabulary, and comprehension)and a textbook that adhered to the NRP�s Þndings as well as emphasized a balanced approach toliteracy instruction (Bursuck & Damer, 2007). Each week the faculty addressed one of the criticalcomponents for reading, with the sixth week focused on handwriting, composition, and spelling.Additionally, a presentation on emergent literacy (e.g., book handling, phonological awareness,world knowledge, concepts of print) was included during the Þrst week to address the needs of earlyliteracy learners (not a topic included in the textbook).

During the Þrst presentation each week, the targeted topic was addressed using a chapter fromBursuck and Damer (2007) as the anchor. The topic was addressed from the perspective of typicallydeveloping learners using research evidence regarding their acquisition of the knowledge and skillsrelated to that topic. Typically, only one faculty member presented during the Þrst weekly session,and the topics were divided between the faculty members based on their perceived strength withthe topic. For example, the faculty member for intense interventions had more experience teachingphonemic awareness, vocabulary, and early writing skills whereas the mild interventions facultymember had more experience teaching phonics, ßuency, and comprehension.



Then, during the second presentation each week, the same topic was addressed from theperspective of students with exceptional learning needs, again using research evidence to guide thecontent. The faculty members used a co-teaching model during these instructional sessions withone faculty member presenting information and the other faculty member then describing how itapplied to her respective disability population and vice versa. Both faculty members shared personalexperiences with literacy assessment and instruction of students with exceptional learning needsto assist participants in understanding the practical application of the content knowledge acrossdisability populations. Numerous resources were provided to participants for each topic, consistingmostly of Web sites for easy access to resources in the classroom. Assessment and intervention forall topics addressed a continuum of strategies for a range of students with disabilities (e.g., mild tosevere cognitive impairments, severe physical impairments, and learning disabilities).

One of the major challenges of this project was to determine how much content to cover andhow quickly. Both the mild and severe intervention programs were K�12 licensing programs. Assuch, the curriculum needed to address emergent literacy across the grade levels, the teacher�s rolein preventing reading and writing problems among young children, and instructional strategies andadaptations for older students reading below grade level. To ensure that research evidence waspresented in a manner that participants could easily assimilate, research Þndings were disseminatedwith the emphasis on practical application to classroom instruction. The faculty provided examplesfrom their own teaching experiences across all topics.

Instrument

The effectiveness of this project was evaluated on the basis of changes in candidate knowledgefrom the beginning to the end of the literacy unit. The instrument used in this study was a researcher-created examination with parallel versions for the pretest and posttest. The examination includedmultiple choice, true�false, and short answer objective questions. The content of the examinationaddressed the Þve key components of literacy as well as emergent literacy and writing/spelling.Questions related to both typically developing learners and students with exceptional learningneeds.

Procedure

The pretest was administered 2 weeks prior to beginning the literacy unit, and the posttestwas administered 1 week following the conclusion of the literacy unit. These examinations werevoluntary, in that scores were not included in course grades; however, all students participated. Theliteracy unit from 2008 was replicated during 2009. The same content was covered in the same orderand presented by the same faculty members.

RESULTS

The data analyses for response to treatment included all participants who completed both thepretest and posttest each year. In 2008 (n= 10), the mean score for the pretest was 12.70 (standarddeviation [SD] = 3.16; range = 9�17) whereas the mean score for the posttest was 18.10 (SD =3.11; range = 15�23) of a maximum possible score of 26. The positive gain scores ranged from1 to 11 with a mean of 5.4 points. One participant scored lower on the posttest than on the pretest by2 points. A paired samples t test was computed comparing the pretest scores to the posttest scores.Participants evidenced a signiÞcant improvement (t(9) = 4.32, p = .002).

In 2009 (n= 31), the mean score for the pretest was 15.16 (SD= 2.46; range= 12�20) whereasthe mean score for the posttest was 18.74 (SD= 2.77; range= 13�23) of a maximum possible scoreof 26. The positive gain scores ranged from 1 to 8 with a mean of 3.6 points. A paired samples t test



compared the pretest scores to the posttest scores, demonstrating signiÞcant improvement (t(30) =6.91, p < .0001). These results conÞrm that the participants beneÞted from the literacy unit and thatinstruction was consistent across years.

DISCUSSION

Given the alarming statistics on the number of school-age children in the United States whostruggle with reading, preservice teacher education programs must begin to address the literacylearning needs of all students by providing literacy-instruction education based on current scientiÞcevidence. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to demonstrate that intensive literacy educationcould be embedded in an existing teacher preparation program for special education candidates.

Providing 6weeks of intensive literacy instructionwas expected to result in growth in preservicespecial education teachers� knowledge about literacy assessment and intervention. Results revealedthat participants achieved signiÞcantly higher scores on the posttest than on the pretest, demonstratingthe success of the literacy unit in achieving anticipated results. These results support previousÞndingsthat teacher candidates can improve their knowledge of scientiÞcally based literacy instruction (NRP,2000).

Institutions of higher education that have special education teacher preparation programs musttake responsibility for addressing the needs of this nation�s struggling readers. Ample evidenceexists that teachers are not prepared for the daunting task of providing evidenced-based, explicitliteracy instruction (Mather et al., 2001; Moats, 1994). Additionally, it is well documented that,given explicit training and supports, preservice teachers� knowledge and skills do improve, and thistranslates into positive student outcomes (Darling-Hammond, 2000; McCutchen et al., 2002; NRP,2000). Swanson (2008) highlighted the critical importance of teacher education programs to ensurethat teacher candidates develop a deep knowledge of research-based reading instruction. The resultsfrom this project demonstrated that preservice teachers could acquire a solid grasp of evidence-basedreading assessment and instruction in a short period of time.

We know that the philosophies emphasized in preservice teacher preparation programs tend tobe adopted by preservice candidates and, as such, carried into the teaching environment (Dentonet al., 2003). Therefore, it is the responsibility of teacher preparation programs to instill withincandidates the importance of quality literacy instruction and provide them with the knowledge andskills to provide systematic, explicit, evidence-based instruction adapted to the individualized needsof all students.

Limitations

The most obvious limitation of this study is the lack of follow-through with participants intotheir classrooms to determine their ability to apply the knowledge gained during the literacy unit.Without this component, we cannot determine whether the research-to-practice loop is complete.Ultimately, teachers must be able to translate research knowledge into successful teaching.

An additional limitation is the fact that all of the participants were from a single universityand taught by a single pair of faculty members. Given that all faculty in special education willhave varying levels of knowledge and experience with literacy instruction, these results may notbe generalizable to other instructors or other special education preparation programs. In addition,although the curriculum content, instructional strategies, instructors, and assignments were the sameacross the 2 years, the course was composed of different students each year. The researchers couldnot control for student questions asked during the unit, and, therefore, it is likely that different studentquestions and subsequently different instructor responses, clariÞcations, examples, and discussionsoccurred in each year.



Future Research

Although the gain scores of participants across the literacy unit were signiÞcant, there is noindication as to the impact on their teaching. To measure the effectiveness of teacher preparation,the effect on student outcomes must be assessed (Brownell, Ross, Colon, & McCallum, 2005). Theresearchers are aware of the importance of longitudinal follow-up of participants to determine ifthe literacy unit will have positive, long-term effects on student-literacy achievement. A Þeld-basedcomponent could potentially be implemented with the literacy unit. Both methods courses requireconcurrent enrollment in an advanced practicum course which could provide an opportunity tomeasure participants� ability to apply knowledge and skills gained in the literacy unit. The ongoingchallenge to the current project as well as future extensions to this project is time. The literacyunit is currently taught during the second half of the semester, allowing time to address the coremethods content prior to addressing literacy. This timeline leaves little time for participants to planand implement literacy assessment and intervention activities at the conclusion of the unit.

Future research could also focus on time frames for delivery of the literacy curriculum. Addingadditional coursework and/or credit hours are usually not a viable option in teacher preparationprograms; it is therefore important to determine how the impact of this 6-week unit embeddedwithin a standard semester-long course would compare with that of a semester-long course withmore opportunity for application.

CONCLUSION

Hoffman and colleagues (2005) pointed out that the research community must continue to focuson how teachers should be prepared to effectively teach reading; moreover, they recommend large-scale experimental studies to determine the effects of teacher preparation on student learning. Thepositive results of our 6-week literacy unit afÞrmed Þndings of the NRP�s meta-analysis of teachereducation that �preservice courses improved prospective teachers� knowledge� (2000, p. 5�6). ThisÞnding, as well as the belief that �teachers are likely to use what they learn in college and adopt thebeliefs of those who prepared them� (Denton et al., 2003, p. 206), should provide the impetus fora renewed, incisive look at special education teacher education programs, and speciÞcally, how weprepare teachers to provide high quality, scientiÞcally based literacy instruction.

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Documents

Effects of a 6-week, co-taught literacy unit on preservice special educators' literacy-education knowledge