Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

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Learning and Individual Differences

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Teachers adapt their instruction in reading according to individual children'sliteracy skills☆

Jari-Erik Nurmi a,⁎, Noona Kiuru a, Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen b, Pekka Niemi d, Anna-Maija Poikkeus b,Timo Ahonen a, Esko Leskinen c, Anna-Liisa Lyyra a

a Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finlandb Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finlandc Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Jyväskylä, Finlandd Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland

☆ The work presented in this article was funded by th213486, 126043, 7133146 and 7133146).⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology

of Jyväskylä, Finland. Tel.: +358 504285308; fax: +358E-mail address: jari-erik.nurmi@jyu.fi (J.-E. Nurmi).

1041-6080/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. Allhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.07.012

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 26 August 2011Received in revised form 21 May 2012Accepted 16 July 2012

Keywords:Adaptive teachingEvocative impactInstructionLiteracyStudentsTeachers

This study examined the extent towhichfirst grade teachers adapt their reading instruction to the literacy skills ofparticular children in their classroom, and investigated whether teacher and classroom characteristics influencesuch adaptation. Three hundred seven Finnish children were tested with regard to their literacy skills at theend of their kindergarten year. At the beginning of the first grade, the teachers of these children filled in a ques-tionnaire on the reading support they had given each child. The results showed, first, that the poorer the literacyskills a child showed at the end of kindergarten, themore personal reading instruction the teacher gave the childin grade 1. Second, teacherswhowere less experienced or had fewer teaching assistants in the classroom adaptedtheir instruction on the basis of children's literacy skills to a greater extent than other teachers did.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Although previous research has shown that adapting reading instruc-tion to students' literacy skills has a positive impact on their skill devel-opment (Connor, Morrison, Fishman, Schatschneider, & Underwood,2007; Connor, Morrison, & Katch, 2004), only few attempts have beenmade to directly investigate the extent to which a student's academicskills influence his or her teacher's instruction for that particular student(Pianta, 2006). Many teacher and classroom characteristics—such asprofessional experience (e.g., Connor, Son, Hindman, & Morrison,2005; Kontos & Wilcox-Herzog, 1997; Pianta et al., 2005), class size(e.g., Blatchford, 2003; NICHD, 2004), and the number of teaching assis-tants in a classroom—may also influence the extent to which teachersadapt their instruction according to particular students' skills. To inves-tigate these assumptions, the present study addressed three specificquestions: First, to what extent do first grade teachers adapt theirreading-related instruction to the literacy skills of a particular child in

e Academy of Finland (Grants

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rights reserved.

their class? Second, to what extent do teachers differ in the extent towhich they adapt their reading-related instruction? Third, to whatextent do structural characteristics in classroom teaching—that is, theteacher's teaching experience, the number of teaching assistants, andthe number of students in the class (i.e., class size)—moderate the asso-ciation between a child's literacy skills and the instruction the teacherprovides to him or her in the class?

1.1. The role of students' academic skills in shaping teachers' instruction

The notion that a particular student's academic performance acti-vates a certain kind of instruction has been discussed by many re-searchers (Babad, 1998; Corno, 2008; Pianta, 2006; Skinner & Belmont,1993) and can be described as individual students' “evocative impact”on teachers' instructional practice (Rutter, 1997; Scarr & McCartney,1983). Originally, this idea of a child's impact on his or her interpersonalenvironment was introduced in family studies (Bell, 1968; Hartup &Laursen, 1991).

There are at least two psychological mechanisms that may beresponsible for how students' characteristics impact their teachers'behavior and instruction. First, teachers' cognitive mechanisms areinvolved. Besides having general pedagogical knowledge concerningclassroom management and subject matters, teachers also constructknowledge with regard to particular students (Borko & Putnam,1996; Calderhead, 1996). By constructing student-related knowledge,

73J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

teachers are able to plan their teaching tasks and can design appro-priate instructional content (e.g., instruction that is code-focusedvs. meaning-focused and teacher–child oriented vs. child-managed;Calderhead, 1996; Connor et al., 2009). Second, students and their char-acteristics also activate affective reactions among their teachers. Somestudies suggest that the major source of teachers' positive emotions,such as satisfaction, are children's successful learning outcomes andprogress (Emmer, Oakland, & Good, 1974; Hargreaves, 1998). Teachers'emotions may then also have important consequences for the kind andamount of instruction they direct at a particular student in their class(Sutton & Wheatley, 2003).

Despite researchers' interest in the role played by an individual stu-dents' academic performance and the ways inwhich teachers deal withthat student, our understanding of the phenomenon is limited (Doyle,1981; Pianta, 2006). The major reason for this is that previous researchon the topic is scarce and the findings are contradictory (Nurmi, inpress). Early studies in the field, focusing on teachers' expectations ofstudents, showed that high achieving students receivedmore preferen-tial treatment from their teachers, such as higher academic demandsand privileges, whereas low achieving students receivedmore criticism,concern, and management (Good & Brophy, 1973; Weinstein &Middlestadt, 1979). Some of the more recent studies have found that,although high achieving students receive more emotional support andpositive affect from their teachers, low achieving students receivemore instructional support and active instruction (Babad, 1990, 1996;Nurmi, Viljaranta, Tolvanen, & Aunola, 2012). Consequently, the firstaim of the present study was to examine to what extent teachersadapt the reading instruction they give to a particular child at thebeginning of the first grade according to the child's current literacyskills.

In the present study, the reading-related instruction received byindividual children was assessed using teachers' reports concerningthe extent to which they had provided support for and gave attentionto particular children with respect to learning to read.

1.2. Teacher differences in the adaptation of instruction according to students'academic skills

While it has been shown that the instruction given by teachers,such as in reading, varies in many ways (Connor et al., 2004, 2009;Juel & Minden-Cupp, 2000), teachers may also differ in the extent towhich they adapt their instruction according to individual students'academic skills. The differences between teachers in such adaptationmay be influenced by a variety of teacher and classroom characteristics.For example, teachers with less teaching experience have been shownto be more influenced by contextual factors (Tschannen-Moran &Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), such as students' level of academic performance,than those with more teaching experience. Moreover, as teachers withless experience tend to show a higher emotional quality toward stu-dents than teachers with more experience tend to do (NICHD, 2004),such emotional qualitymay be important in activating attention towarda particular student who exhibits problems in his or her performance(Sutton & Wheatley, 2003).

The differences between teachers in their instructional adaptationto individual students' skills may also be influenced by the number ofteaching assistants present in the classroom at the same time. On theone hand, the teaching support of additional adults in the classroommay give the teacher greater freedom to adapt his or her instruction.On the other hand, when the teacher does not have an assistant in theclassroom, he/she may be obliged to focus more on the students whoare doing poorly. Also, class size (i.e., the number of students in theclassroom) may influence the differences between teachers regardingthe amount of adaptation they apply to a particular student's level ofacademic performance. For example, teachers of smaller classes mayhave more resources and time to adjust the instruction they give aparticular student than do teachers of larger classes.

Previous studies that have investigated the influence of class size,teachers' teaching experience, and the number of teaching assistantson class-level instruction have shown mixed findings. For instance,most studies on the role of teachers' teaching experience in the qualityof instruction have not found any associations (Henninger, Flowers, &Councill, 2006; Myrberg, 2007; Stipek & Byler, 2004). However, in astudy by Connor et al. (2005), teachers with more years of experiencewere less warm and responsive to their students than were teacherswith fewer years of experience. The extent to which teaching assis-tants contribute to classroom instruction has seldom been investi-gated. In one study, a minor association between the number ofteaching assistants and a positive emotional composite in classroominteractions was found (NICHD, 2002). Moreover, some studies onclass size have shown that smaller classes result in a higher qualityof instructional and emotional support (Blatchford, 2003; NICHD,2004). As far as we know, no research results have been publishedon the extent to which classes' structural variables contribute tohow far teachers adapt their instruction in reaction to their students'academic skills.

The present study was carried out in Finland. Finnish schools differin at least three important ways from many other educationalsettings. First, the children are from one to two years older whenthey start primary school than children in many other countries.In Finland, a child's compulsory education begins in the year inwhich the child turns seven years of age. Six-year-olds are entitledto kindergarten education for one year before embarking on theirnine-year compulsory school career (National Board of Education,2008). Second, kindergarten education in Finland focuses on learningthrough play, participation and creativity, and systematic instructionin reading starts only when children move to primary school.Although the curriculum covers seven subject areas, lessons are notdivided into individual subjects as such. Third, compared to manyorthographically opaque languages (e.g., English and French; see,Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003), learning to read Finnish is rela-tively easy since it has a highly regular orthography and simplesyllabic structure. Instruction in reading leans heavily on phonics,enabling beginning readers to decode new written words by blendingsound-spelling patterns. One should also keep in mind that the class-rooms examined as part of the present study represent one particularcultural setting with specific historical and political precedents forparticular practices.

1.3. Aims of the study

The present study investigated the following research questions:

(1) To what extent do 1st grade teachers adapt their readinginstruction according to a particular child's literacy skills (mea-sured in the spring of the kindergarten year)? Our hypothesis(1) was that teachers focus more on instructing students whoshow poor skills in literacy than on students who demonstrategood skills (Corno, 2008; Pressley, Hogan, Wharton-McDonald,Mistretta, & Ettenberger, 1996).

(2) To what extent do 1st grade teachers differ in the extent towhich they adapt their reading instruction according to theliteracy skills of a particular child? (2) We hypothesized thatteachers do differ in the extent to which children' literacy skillsinfluence the support in reading they provide to particularchildren (Connor et al., 2009; Pakarinen, Lerkkanen, Poikkeus,Siekkinen, & Nurmi, 2011).

(3) Towhat extent do classes' structural characteristics—i.e., teachers'teaching experience, the number of teaching assistants, and classsize—moderate the impact of children's literacy skills on the in-struction teachers give a particular child. We set several hypothe-ses concerning this point:

74 J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

(3a) We hypothesized, first, that teachers with less teaching ex-perience adjust their instruction to a greater extent than doteachers with more teaching experience, because they havebeen found to be warmer and more responsive to their studentsthan teachers with more teaching experience (Connor et al.,2005), and they have been trained more recently and may conse-quently have learned more child-centered strategies (Hytönen,2008).Two alternative hypotheses were set regarding the number ofteaching assistants. (3b) As teachers in classrooms with addi-tional adult help can be assumed to have more freedom inchoosing their classroom activities, we assumed that themore teaching assistants are in the classroom, the more theteacher adapts his/her instruction according to particularchildren's literacy skills. (3c) Alternatively, when teachers donot have assistants in the classroom, they may be obliged toadapt their instruction for particular students who areperforming especially poorly as regards literacy.(3d) As previous research has shown that smaller classes tend toresult in a higher quality of instructional support (Blatchford,2003; NICHD, 2004) than is the case for larger classes, we as-sumed that teachers of smaller classes adapt the instructionthey give a particular student according to that student's academ-ic skills to a greater extent than do teachers of larger classes.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

2.1.1. ChildrenThe participants comprising the sample of our study were 307

(151 girls, 156 boys) children who were studied from kindergartento primary school as part of the more extensive First Steps study(Poikkeus et al., 2006). In the fall of their kindergarten year, the ma-jority of the children were six years old (M=74.0 months, SD=3.4 months). The children came from kindergartens and primaryschools that were situated in three medium-sized towns and onemunicipality in Finland.

Originally, 361 target children (179 girls, 182 boys) were random-ly selected from a larger sample of 1 880 children (upon kindergartenentry) who were participating in the First Steps study. The aim of thesampling was to randomly select three students from each classroom.Due to some either particularly small or large class sizes, the actualnumber of children selected from the different classrooms ranged be-tween one and six. The reason for creating the subsample was to de-crease teachers' workload. Due to the fact that of the 139 teachersoriginally contacted, 22 did not provide ratings of the students intheir classroom, the final sample of students in the present studywas 307. Parental consent was requested and received for all 307children.

The children's literacy skills were examined in the spring of theirkindergarten year (T1).

2.1.2. TeachersTeachers were asked for their written consent to be entered in the

study. Of the 139 teachers contacted, one hundred seventeen firstgrade teachers from 117 classrooms in 110 schools agreed to partici-pate in the study. Forty-five percent of the teachers had more than15 years of teaching experience, 36% had from 6 to 15 years experi-ence, 15% had 1 to 5 years experience, and 4% had less than oneyear of experience (Mode=more than 15 years).

In the fall of the first grade year (T2; October), 117 teachers (107females, 10 males) rated the extent to which they supported eachchild in reading. At this time point, the teachers had taught thechildren from 6 to 8 weeks. In the spring of the first grade year (T2)110 of these 117 teachers filled in a questionnaire on their teaching

experience, class size, and the number of teaching assistants in theclassroom.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Children's literacy skills in the spring of kindergarten (T1)All literacy skills were individually assessed in the spring of the

kindergarten year (T1).

2.2.1.1. Phoneme identification. Initial phoneme identification wastested using the ARMI test (Lerkkanen, Poikkeus, & Ketonen, 2006).The children were shown four pictures of objects with the matchingnames. The children were then asked to select the correct pictureon the basis of the spoken initial phoneme of the name of the targetobject (e.g. At the beginning of which word do you hear ____?). Thesum score was based on the number of correctly answered items(maximum score 10). The Cronbach's alpha for Phoneme Identifica-tion was .73.

2.2.1.2. Letter knowledge. Children were asked to name 29 uppercaseletters shown by the examiner. The letters were in random order, ar-ranged into three rows and shown one row at a time (subtest of theARMI; Lerkkanen et al., 2006). Uppercase letters were used sincethe children in Finnish kindergartens are mainly exposed to lettersin this form. The use of a phoneme or a letter name was coded as acorrect response. The child received one point for each correctresponse (maximum score=29). The Cronbach's alpha for LetterKnowledge was .94.

2.2.1.3. Word reading. Reading of words was assessed using an indi-vidually administered word list (subtest of the ARMI; Lerkkanen etal., 2006). The list contained 10 words. The words were two-syllable(7 words), three-syllable (2 words) and five-syllable (1 word)words. The sum score of the correct items was calculated with regardto each child's performance. The Cronbach's alpha for Word Readingwas .86.

2.2.1.4. Text reading fluency. Text reading fluency was assessed usingan oral reading test. The text Jännittävät Matkat (meaning ExcitingAdventures), comprised of 124 words, was used to assess text readingfluency. The fluency score was calculated by counting the number ofwords correctly read within one minute (Lyytinen, Eklund, &Lyytinen, 2005). The text reading test was only administered forthose children who scored 9 or 10 points on the Word Reading test.Other children (nonreaders) were assigned the score zero on thistest. The test-retest correlation over the period of half a year was.87 for this test.

The composite score for Literacy Skills was calculated as follows.First, the scales of the children's tests scores on the Phoneme Identifi-cation, Letter Knowledge, Word Reading, and Text Reading Fluencytests were standardized. Then, a composite mean sum score wascalculated based on the four test scores. The Cronbach's alpha forthe Literacy Skills composite score was .81.

2.2.2. Measures of first grade teachers

2.2.2.1. Perceived teacher support in reading. In October (T2) of the firstgrade, the teachers were asked to rate, on a five-point scale, the ex-tent to which they provided special support for and gave extra atten-tion to particular children with respect to learning to read duringclassroom teaching hours in comparison to most of the other childrenin the class (i.e., the relative amount of reading support given). Addi-tional analyses showed that perceived teacher support in reading inthe fall of the 1st grade year, and the same variable measured inspring, showed a correlation of .69 (pb .001). Moreover, perceivedteacher support in reading correlated .86 (pb .001) with teacher

75J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

support in writing, in this sample. The data of the subsample of 97children with a risk for reading disability showed that the instructionreported by the classroom teachers correlated .48 (pb .001) with theamount of remedial reading instruction in grade 1 reported by specialeducation teachers.

2.2.2.2. Background questionnaire. Teachers were first asked to report thelength of their experience of working as a primary school teacher, usingthe following six alternatives: 0=not at all, 1= less than a year, 2=1–5 years, 3=6–10 years, 4=11–15 years, 5=more than 15 years. Avariable measuring less vs. more teaching experience was dummy-coded in the following way: 0= less than 15 years of teaching experience(55%), 1=more than 15 years of teaching experience (45%). This recodingwas undertaken to distinguish those teachers who had gone throughthe old type of teacher education from those who went through themore recent teacher education program (Kansanen, 2008).

Teachers were also asked how many teaching assistants they hadin their classroom. The answer to this question was coded in thefollowing way: 0=no assistant (30%), 1=one assistant (60%), 2=2assistants (7%), and 3=3 or more assistants (2%). Finally, teacherswere asked to report the size of their class (M=17.5; SD=5.90).

2.3. Analysis strategy

The first research question was examined by estimating the pathleading from students' literacy skills in kindergarten (T1) to thelevel of reading support that teachers gave to particular children inthe first grade (T2), using the Complex approach (Muthén &Muthén, 1998–2008). Instead of multilevel modeling, this methodestimates the model at the level of the whole sample but correctsdistortions of standard errors in the estimation that may have beencaused by the clustering of observations (Fig. 1a). The followingregression equation corresponds to Fig. 1a:

y ¼ β0þβ1xþ ε; εeN 0;σ2ε

� �;

where β0 is a fixed intercept and β1 is a fixed regression coefficient.Next, multilevel modeling with random slopes (e.g., Muthén &

Muthén, 1998–2008; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Snijders & Bosker,1999) was used to examine whether the strength of the associationbetween children's literacy skills and the reading support for particu-lar children varied among the teachers (see Fig. 1b; classroom levelabove the dashed line and individual child level below the dashedline), and whether some classroom-level variables predict this varia-tion (see Fig. 1c). The following equations correspond to Fig. 1b:

Level-1 (within-level, within classrooms)

y ¼ iþ s xcwð Þ þ ε; εeN 0;σ2ε

� �;

where

xcw ¼ x−�x

is a group-mean centered covariate at thewithin-level (literacy skills inkindergarten),i is a random intercept term, and s is a random slope term(see Fig. 1b).

Level-2 (between-level, between classrooms)

i ¼ α0 þ ζ0; ζ0eN 0;σ2i

� �;

s ¼ α1 þ ζ1; ζ1eN 0;σ2s

� �:

In the equations, i refers to the random intercept and s refers tothe random regression coefficient (Fig. 1b). At the individual level of

this model (Fig. 1b), perceived teacher support in reading in grade 1(T2) is predicted by students' literacy skills in kindergarten (T1).The individual-level predictor (i.e., literacy skills) is group-mean cen-tered. We were particularly interested in investigating whether sta-tistically significant variation exists between classrooms with regardto the strength of the slope s, i.e., the regression coefficient pointingfrom literacy skills to the teacher support in reading.

Next, we examined whether some classroom-level variables predictthis variation (see Fig. 1c). The equations presented in Fig. 1c were thesame as those in Fig. 1b, except that the random slope s was predictedby the classroom-level variables. The equations of Level-2 were asfollows:

Level-2 (between-level, between classrooms)

i ¼ α0 þ ζ0; ζ0eN 0;σ2i

� �;

s ¼ α1 þ γ1xcb1 þγ2xcb2þγ3xcb3þζ1; ζ1eN 0;σς12

� �

In the between-level equations,γ-parameters refer to the regressioncoefficients leading from the three grand-mean centered between-levelcovariates to the random slope (Fig. 1c).

All of the analyseswere carried outwith theMplus statistical package(version 5.1; Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2008), using the missing datamethod, that is, the standard missing-at-random (MAR) approach tomissingness (Muthén &Muthén, 1998–2008). This missing datamethoduses all of the relevant data available in order to estimate a model with-out imputing data. The parameters of the models were estimated usingthe MLR estimator (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2008).

3. Results

We used the Complex method (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2008) toexamine whether literacy skills in kindergarten (T1) would predictindividual instruction in reading given to a particular child in thefall of the first grade year (T2). The results showed that the poorerthe students' literacy skillswere at the endof kindergarten, themore in-dividual instruction they received in reading at the beginning of theirfirst school year (Standardizedβ̂ s:eð Þ ¼ �0:64 0:04ð Þ; pb:001;R2 ¼ :41).

Next, the intraclass correlation (Heck, 2001;Muthén, 1991) for liter-acy skills variablewas calculated. The results showed that 9% of the totalvariance in literacy skills in kindergarten spring was due to differencesbetween classes in the first grade, confirming that classes differed withrespect to children's skill levels already before the first grade. The re-sults of the multilevel models with random slopes showed furtherthat the strength of the regression coefficient pointing from kindergar-ten literacy skills to perceived teacher support in reading in grade 1 var-ied between classes (σ̂ 2

s s:eð Þ ¼ 0:33 0:17ð Þ; pb .01; one-tailed test, H1:between-variance is larger than zero; CI (95%)=[0.06, 0.61]): teachersdiffered in the extent to which they adapted their reading-relatedinstruction according to individual students' literacy skills.

There was also statistically significant classroom-level variation in theoverall amount of reading support givenby teachers to the students in theclass. ( σ̂ 2

i s:eð Þ ¼ 0:41 0:09ð Þ; pb:001; one-tailed test, H1: between-variance is larger than zero; CI (95%)=[0.26, 0.57]). However, as ourmeasure for reading instructionmeasures the relative amount of instruc-tion per child, an interpretation of classroom-level variation in the overallinstruction is not informative.

To examine whether classes' structural characteristics would mod-erate the impact of students' literacy skills on perceived teacher supportin reading, the random slope at the between-level was predicted simul-taneously by teaching experience, the number of teaching assistants,and class size (Table 1).

The results showed (Fig. 2) that the less teaching experience theteacher had, the larger was the negative association between students'literacy skills and the individual instruction the teacher provided. Also,the fewer assistants the teacher had in the classroom, the stronger was

Within

Between

Teacher supportin reading (T2, grade 1)

Literacy skills a

b

c

(T1, kindergarten)

y

Between

Within

s

i

)( 2i

1

10

1

)( 2s

s

wxc y

Literacy skills (T1, kindergarten)

Teacher supportin reading

(T2, grade 1)

i

Between-level

Within-levels

s

Teachers’ experience

Teachingassistants

Class size

γ1

γ2

γ3

wxc y

b1xc

b2xc

b3xc

Literacy skills (T1, kindergarten)

Teacher supportin reading (T2, grade 1)

i

1

1

10

1

0

i

Between

Within

Fig. 1. Theoretical models. a. Theoretical regression model for perceived teacher support in reading using the Complex approach. b. Theoretical random slope multilevel model with-out for perceived teacher support in reading. c. Theoretical random slope multilevel model with predictors for perceived teacher support in reading. Note. The within-level covariateis group-mean centered (xcw) and between-level covariates are grand-mean centered (xcb).

76 J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

the negative association between students' literacy skills and the indi-vidual instruction the teacher provided as shown in Fig. 3 (3a and 3b).

4. Discussion

Only few previous attempts have been made to investigate the in-fluence of a student's academic skills on the instruction given by hisor her teacher, or how different teacher and classroom characteristicsexplain differences between teachers concerning this type of influ-ence. The results of the present study showed, first, that the poorerthe performance in literacy skills a student showed at the end of

kindergarten, the more reading instruction the teacher gave to thatparticular child in first grade. Second, the less teaching experienceand the fewer teaching assistants in the classroom, the more students'performance in reading influenced the instruction the teacher gavethem.

4.1. The role of students' literacy skills in teachers' instruction

Our first research question asked to what extent first gradeteachers adapt their reading instruction according to the literacyskills of a particular child. As was expected (Hypothesis 1), the results

Table 1Unstandardized estimates (standard errors in parentheses) of random slopecomponents: multilevel model of perceived teacher support in reading in firstgrade (Nbetween=117, Nwithin=306).

Estimate (S.E.)

Within-level (individual level)Residual variance (σ2

ε) 0.61(0.09)***Between-level (classroom level)

InterceptRegression coefficient from literacy skills (T1)to teacher support (T2, s) −1.18(0.11)***Regression coefficientsa

s on teachers' length of teaching experience (γ1) 0.36(0.19)*s on number of assistant teaching personnel (γ2) 0.61(0.13)***s on class size (γ3) −0.003(0.02)Residual varianceResidual variance (s) 0.20(0.14)

Note. *** pb .001; ** pb .01; * pb .05.a Between‐level predictors were allowed to correlate.

77J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

showed that a student's literacy skills at the end of kindergarten werea powerful predictor of the individual reading support teachers gave aparticular student (41% of variance): the poorer the performance in lit-eracy skills a student showed, the more reading support the first gradeteacher gave to that particular student. Our finding is in line with thoseof some previous studies showing that low-achieving students receivemore support and active instruction than high-achieving students do(Babad, 1990, 1996; Babad, Bernieri, & Rosenthal, 1989; Nurmi et al.,2012). Overall, our findings lend support to the classroom instructiontheories according to which teachers typically adjust their instructionto students' characteristics, such as in reaction to students' level of aca-demic skills (Corno, 2008; Doyle, 1981; Pianta, 2006). This is an impor-tant finding because it suggests that students' characteristics have an“evocative impact” on teacher–child interaction, similar to what hasbeen shown regarding parent–child interaction (Bell, 1968; Hartup &Laursen, 1991; Pomerantz & Murry Eaton, 2001). As the results pertainto Finland, and thus to the context of one particular educational and cul-tural settingwith specific historical and political precedents for particu-lar practices, there is an evident need to replicate the findings in othercultural settings.

Previous research has also shown that adapting (individualizing)reading instruction according to students' decoding skills and vocab-ulary improves students' literacy development during the first years

Teachers’ experience

Teachingassistants

Literacy skills (T1, kindergarten)

Within

BetweenBetween-level

Within-level

Fig. 2. Final multilevel random slope model with predictors for teachers' reading instructi

of primary school. By using a multidimensional model of readinginstruction (code-focused vs. meaning-focused instruction, teacher–child vs. child-managed instruction, and change over time), Connoret al. (2009) showed that it was the precise amount of model-basedindividualized instruction that predicted students' good reading out-comes (see also Connor et al., 2004).

4.2. Teacher and classroom characteristics as moderators of the associationbetween particular students' literacy skills and the teacher's instruction

Our next research question enquired whether teachers differ inthe extent to which they adapt their reading instruction accordingto a particular child's level of literacy skills, and whether teacherand classroom characteristics predict such differences. The resultsshowed, first, that teachers differed in how far they adapted theirclass instruction for the sake of a particular student according to thechild's literacy skills.

The results showed further, as expected (Hypothesis 3a), that theless teaching experience teachers had, the more they adjusted the in-struction they gave a particular student according to the student's levelof literacy skills. A similar pattern was recently found by another studyusing a different methodology (Nurmi et al., 2012). There are at leastthree possible explanations for the findings of the present study. First,previous results have suggested that teachers with less experienceshow a higher emotional quality toward students than teachers withmore experience tend to do (NICHD, 2004), which may be importantin activating attention toward a particular student who exhibits prob-lems in his or her performance (Sutton &Wheatley, 2003). Second, pre-vious research has shown that the beliefs of teachers with less teachingexperience are more influenced by contextual factors, that is, teachingresources and interpersonal support, than is true for teachers withmore teaching experience (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007).In our study, in the case of teachers with less experience, a further con-textual factor—students' level of academic performance—was found tobe influential concerning teachers' instruction given to a particular stu-dent in their class. The final explanation relates to the changes thathave taken place in teacher education (Babad, 1998). For example, be-fore 1979, teacher training in Finland was a three-year program carriedout in Teacher Training colleges and placed a heavy emphasis on didac-tics. In 1979, teacher trainingwas reformed anda 4-yearMaster's degreeprogramwas introduced (Kansanen, 2008). Between 1979 and the early1990s, the emphasis in teacher training gradually shifted away fromdidactics and toward educational psychology.

s

s(R 2= .49)

.29*

.59***

Teacher supportin reading

(T2, grade 1)

i

i

on. The paths are presented as standardized estimates. * pb .05; ** pb .01; *** pb .001.

-0,8

-0,6

-0,4

-0,2

0

0,2

0,4

0,6

a

b

Low literacy skills in

kindergarten (-1 SD)

High literacy skills in

kindergarten (+1 SD)

Tea

cher

sup

port

inre

adin

g in

gra

de 1

(z-s

core

)

Literacy skills in kindergarten

Less than 15 years of teaching experience

More than 15 years of teaching experience

-1

-0,8

-0,6

-0,4

-0,2

0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1

Low literacy skills in

kindergarten (-1 SD)

High literacy skills in

kindergarten (+1 SD)

Tea

cher

sup

port

inre

adin

g in

gra

de 1

(z-s

core

)

Literacy skills in kindergarten

No teaching assistants

One teaching assistant

Two or more teaching assistants

Fig. 3. Plots of cross-level interactions. a. Teacher experience as a moderator of the extent of adapting instruction in reading according to individual students' literacy skills. b. Numberof teaching assistants as a moderator of the extent of adapting instruction in reading according to individual students' literacy skills.

78 J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

In accordance with our Hypothesis 3c (and contrary to Hypothesis3b), our results showed that the fewer teaching assistants there werein the classroom, the more teachers adapted their instruction accordingto particular students' literacy skills. This finding suggests that whenteachers do not have assistants in the classroom, they are obliged tofocus particularly on students who are performing poorly whereaswhen they have assistants, they can more easily direct their instructionat themajority of students. Also, contrary to our expectations (Hypothesis3d), our results showed that class size did not impact the extent towhichteachers adapted the instruction they provided according to particularstudents' literacy skills (see also, NICHD, 2002; Rutter &Maughan, 2002).

4.3. Limitations

The present study has some limitations that need to be taken intoaccount when making generalizations on the basis of the findings.

First, our study focused on quantitative rather than qualitative as-pects of teachers' instructional practices and contents of their readinginstruction. Consequently, the qualitative differences in teachers'reading instruction that are activated by students' individual skilllevels also merit attention in future research. One possibility forsuch analysis would be to collect ratings from teachers concerningtheir beliefs about adaptive teaching practices to see whether thosebeliefs connect with their actual performance. Second, the measureof teacher support in reading given to a particular child was basedon the teachers' self-reports, and therefore our findings need to bereplicated by using classroom observations. Third, our measure ofperceived teacher support in reading given to a particular child wasbased on only one item. This was due to the fact that teachers werenot willing to fill in too long a questionnaire for each child. Fourth,our study examined children when they were facing the transitionfrom kindergarten to primary school. As it is possible that teachers

79J.-E. Nurmi et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 23 (2013) 72–79

are particularly sensitive to students' level of academic skills duringthis transition, it would be important to also investigate the phenom-enon of adaptive teaching with regard to the later school years.

4.4. Conclusion

This study adds to previous research on teacher–child classroominteraction by showing that teachers adapt the reading instructionthey give at the beginning of the first grade according to children'sliteracy skills. However, the less teaching experience teachers reportedhaving and the fewer teaching assistants there were in the classroom,the more students' literacy skills contributed to the individual readinginstruction they received from teachers.

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