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Support for the Improvement of Practices through Intensive Coaching (SIPIC): Literacy Coaching for Reading Achievement

Misty SailorsThe University of Texas at San Antonio

Society for Research on Educational EffectivenessMarch 4 – 6, 2010Washington, DC

misty.sailors@utsa.edu

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Purpose The current study is an attempt to document, measure, and describe the role of one model of coaching in improving the instructional reading practices of classroom teachers and in raising the reading achievement of their students.

“New is not always right.” (Wilson & Berne, 1999, p. 5)

Problem Discrepancy in reading achievement on NAEP (Lee, Grigg, &

Donahue, 2007) Strategic reading is important in reading achievement (for example,

Paris, Waskik, & Turner, 1991; Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987; Pressley, 2000)

Students can learn to be strategic readers (Brown, Pressley, Van Meter & Schuder, 1996; Duffy et al., 1986, 1987; Pressley & Wharton-McDonald, 1997)

Teachers are not teaching comprehension (Pressley, 2002; Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Mistretta-Hampston & Echevarria, 1998; Sailors & Henderson, 2008)

Teachers CAN learn how to do this! (Brown et al., 1996; Duffy, 1993a; 1993b; Duffy et al., 1986; Duffy et al., 1987; Pressley et al., 1997)

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Traditional “one-shot” professional development is not helpful to improving practices (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008)

Coaching is the current approach (for example, Dole, 2005) to supporting teachers

Little or contradictory empirical evidence of effectiveness (Lovette et al., 2008; Van Keer & Verhaeghe, 2005; Sailors, 2008)

Furthermore…

Findings thus far… Positive impact on craft (Zwart, Wubbels,

Blohuis & Bergen, 2008) and domain knowledge (Brady et al., 2009)

Teacher efficacy (Cantrell & Hughes, 2008) Improved practices in special education

(Gersten, Morvant & Brengelman, 1995); writing instruction (Frey & Kelly, 2002) and preservice teacher education (Scantlebury, Gallo-Fox & Wassell, 2008)

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Research questions1. Does an intensive model of coaching lead to an

increased use of intentional comprehension instruction on the part of teachers?

2. Does the increased use of intentional comprehension instruction by teachers lead to increased reading achievement of students from low-income backgrounds?

3. Are there aspects of improvement in instructional comprehension practices positively associated with increased student achievement, and which aspects of the model can be attributed to the coaching model?

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Methods Participants

Teachers Regular education (N=44) Grades 2-8 Regular education (37%); departmentalized reading (21%);

social studies (20%); ELA (13%); and science (9%) 3 districts (combined 11 elementary and middle schools) Average years of teaching 9.9 (SD = 7.53)

Students N=527 Low-income, minority families

Assigned to group at the school level to prevent experimental treatment diffusion

Content of PD Intentional instruction

Opportunities to engage in cognitive reading strategies (Dole et al., 2008, p. 348) (Taylor, Pearson, Clark & Walpole, 2000)

Engagements in discussions of the subroutines involved in these strategies (Anderson, 1992; Brown et al., 1992; Duffy, 2003)

Metacognition of teachers AND students “Cannot be routinized” (NICHD, 2000, p. 4-125)

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Delivery of content of PDWorkshop only Workshop PLUS coaching

Highly qualified external coaches (IRA, 2004, 2006)

Variety of interactions (demos, co-teaching, feedback, conferences)

Based on individualized principles Plus resources

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WORKSHOP:•2 days

•Focused on “making inferences” •Features of effective PD (Garet et al., 2001; Guskey, 2000)

Fidelity of implementation Similarities and degree to which coaches were implementing most

critical components of intervention (Mowray, Holter, Teague & Bybee, 2003) Observations of coaches Monitoring of coaching logs Monitoring of weekly coaching meetings

Visits (average 329 minutes) across period Interactions

62% classroom based; 38% conferences Demonstration lessons (50%); co-teaching (25%); and feedback

(25%) Cognitive reading strategies (98%); fix-up (2%)

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Data Collection Methods and Procedures Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic

Evaluation (GRADE) (AGS, 2001) Comprehension Instruction Observation

Protocol System (CIOPS) (Sailors, 2006 Electronic category observation instrument (Martin, 1977) Observational note-taking and quantitative coding (Herbert &

Attridge, 1975) Narrative account of context, materials used, strategy content, and

instructional scaffolding Units to coded based on the work of Duke (1999; 2000), Duffy

(1987, 1992, 2004), and Taylor and colleagues (Taylor et al., 1999)

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13Interrater reliability = .80 (Cohen’s kappa)

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Data Collection Timeline

September April/May

Workshops

Teacher pre- observations

Student pre-assessments

Teacher post- observations

Student post-assessments

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Data Analysis Composite variables

Provided opportunities to engage in cognitive reading strategies (“comp”)

Intentional instructional explanations of cognitive reading strategies (“intent_instruct”)

Student achievement– HLM (Raudenbush et al., 2004) Teacher data: Conducted between groups (treatment vs.

control) chi-square analyses of change scores (posttest-pretest) based on frequency counts of observational data within classrooms

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Findings: (1) Does an intensive model of coaching lead to an increased use of intentional comprehension instruction on the part of teachers?

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Findings: (2) Does the increased use of intentional comprehension instruction by teachers lead to increased reading achievement of students from low-income backgrounds?

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Findings: (3) Are there aspects of improvement in instructional comprehension practices positively associated with increased student achievement, and which aspects of the model can be attributed to the coaching model?

Impact by aspect: Demonstration

Impact by aspect: Co-teaching

Impact by aspect: Guided reflection

Impact by aspect: Guided conversations

Statistical significance

Effect size

Statistical significance

Effect size

Statistical significance

Effect size

Statistical significance

Effect size

No CC=.77 No CC=.81 No CC=.82 No CC=.84

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Discussions Coaching can support the implementation of cognitive

strategy reading instruction Teachers teach what they learn in professional

development workshops (Desimone et al., 2002) When teachers TEACH comprehension, students are better

readers (comprehension) (Beating the Odds research) No one component explained changes– more research

needed

Limitations Small sample size No traditional control group External coaches Volunteers