Improving Language-Focused Comprehension Instruction in Primary-Grade Classrooms: Impacts of the Let’s Know! Experimental Curriculum

Abstract

This quasi-experimental study was designed to test the impacts of a curriculum supplement, Let's Know! on the quantity and quality of language-focused comprehension instruction in preKindergarten to third grade classrooms. Sixty classrooms (12 per each of pre-K to grade 3) were enrolled in the study, with 40 teachers assigned to implement one of two versions of the experimental Let's Know! curriculum and 20 assigned to a control condition, in which they maintained their typical language-arts curriculum. Classroom observations, 90 minutes in duration, were collected near the end of the first unit's completion, about four to five weeks into the academic year. These observations were coded to examine impacts of Let's Know! instruction on two outcomes: (a) teachers' use of 18 language-focused comprehension supports, and (b) general classroom quality. Study results using quantile regression showed that Let's Know! teachers used a significantly higher number of language-focused comprehension supports during Let's Know! instruction compared to the control teachers during language-arts instruction; the same finding was also true for general classroom quality. Quantile regression results showed the greatest differentiation in instructional quality, when comparing experimental and control teachers, for teachers in the middle of the distribution of general classroom quality. Study findings highlight the value of language-focused curricula for heightening comprehensionspecific supports in pre-K to grade 3 settings.

Early childhood educators' knowledge, beliefs, education, experiences, and children's language- and literacy-learning opportunities: What is the connection?

“…The present study's data met all requirements for quantile regression analysis. There are no set sample size requirements for quantile regression, although typically larger samples are more reliable than smaller sizes (Petscher and Logan, 2014); the current sample size is consistent with or exceeds sample sizes used in other reports employing quantile regression (Language and Literacy Research Consortium, Pratt, & Logan, 2014;Purpura & Logan, 2015). Importantly, quantile regression makes no assumptions about the normality of the data and as such was also appropriate given the positive skew of most of our outcomes of interest (Buchinsky, 1998).…”

How Much Is Enough? Evaluating Intervention Implementation Efficiently

“…Other researchers have also used shorter observations in a similar way to measure implementation. For example, Pratt and Logan (2014) reliably measured the presence or absence of teachers’ use of comprehension strategies in reading classrooms in as little as two, 6-min segments.…”

“…The full data set of full-length videos was used for a previous study, while a subset of these videos (obtained from Weeks 2, 5, and 8) was used for the current study. Based on previous research that used shorter observations for measurement of implementation (Gargani & Strong, 2014; Ho & Kane, 2013; Pratt & Logan, 2014), 10-min segments were created for this study. Each video was evenly divided into three sections (beginning, middle, and end) and 10 consecutive minutes were selected from each of these three sections by using random starting points for each segment.…”

“…For an observation tool to be effective and useful, however, assessment of implementation must be both efficient and sensitive to measure growth across time, in much the same way as curriculum-based measures are used to measure student achievement (Deno, 2003; Stecker, Lembke, & Foegen, 2008). Some have begun to explore the use of short observations to achieve this efficiency, but the purpose of short observations in some previous studies has been for summative evaluation of teacher performance (Gargani & Strong, 2014; Ho & Kane, 2013) or for documenting the presence or absence of specific instructional supports in a research context (Pratt & Logan, 2014). Previous research has not focused on short observations for providing formative feedback with the aim of improving instruction.…”

Impacts of the let’s know! Curriculum on the language and comprehension-related skills of prekindergarten and kindergarten children.

“…We first reported results of a quasi-experimental study in which we compared instruction during Let’s Know! lessons, as implemented by 40 teachers in their PK through Grade 3 classrooms, to that of their typical literacy instruction as well as to the typical instruction provided by comparison teachers (LARRC et al, 2014). We found that teachers used significantly more language-focused comprehension supports when implementing Let’s Know!…”