Live webcam coaching to help early elementary classroom teachers provide effective literacy instruction for struggling readers: The Targeted Reading Intervention.

Abstract

This study evaluated whether the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRl), a classroom teacher professional development program delivered through webcam technology literacy coaching, could provide rural classroom teachers with the instructional skills to help struggling readers progress rapidly in early reading. Fifteen rural schools were randomly assigned to the experimental or control condition. Five struggling readers and 5 non-struggling readers were randomly selected from eligible children in each classroom. There were 75 classrooms and 631 children in the study. Teachers in experimental schools used the TRI in one-on-one sessions with 1 struggling reader in the regular classroom for 15 min a day until that struggler made rapid reading progress. Teachers then moved on to another struggling reader until all 5 struggling readers in the class received the TRI during the year. Biweekly webcam coaching sessions between the coach and teacher allowed the coach to see and hear the teacher as she instructed a struggling reader in a TRI session, and the teacher and child could see and hear the coach. In this way the classroom teacher was able to receive real-time feedback from the coach. Three-level hierarchical linear models suggested that struggling readers in the intervention schools significantly outperformed the struggling readers in the control schools, with effect sizes frx)m .36 to .63 on 4 individualized achievement tests. Results suggested that struggling readers were gaining at the same rate as the non-struggling readers, but they were not catching up with their non-struggling peers.

The Targeted Reading Intervention: Face‐to‐Face vs. Webcam Literacy Coaching of Classroom Teachers

“…The one previous study that examined modes of coaching delivery between face‐to‐face and technology‐mediated coaching found limited differences between groups (Powell et al., ). Across that study and TRI studies (Vernon‐Feagans et al., ), students made gains regardless of the mode of coaching delivery. These positive results for teachers and/or students across studies are in fact encouraging.…”

“…The TRI was developed as a one‐year Tier 2 professional development program (see Figure ) that provided classroom teachers with reading instructional strategies to rapidly advance the reading skills of struggling readers in kindergarten and first grade, using trained literacy coaches who met with classroom teachers every other week (Amendum et al., ; Vernon‐Feagans et al., , , ). The TRI was built upon the tenets of successful literacy instruction for children with reading difficulties articulated by Foorman and Moats () and validated by a number of other researchers (e.g., Foorman & Torgesen, ; Morrison, Bachman, & Connor, ; Snow et al., ).…”

“…The results from a series of TRI randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with kindergarten and first grade teachers revealed significant gains in literacy by struggling readers in the schools that implemented the TRI coaching of classroom teachers compared to gains in literacy for struggling readers in control schools, with medium to large effect sizes ranging from 0.4 to 1.0 for 6 to 8 weeks of intervention by the classroom teacher (Amendum et al., ; Vernon‐Feagans et al., , , ). For the first two years of the project, TRI used face‐to‐face coaching with different schools used each year; for the second two years of the project, TRI employed webcam technology coaching, again with new schools participating each year.…”

Handbook of Early Childhood Special Education

“…Given this relatively steep trajectory in acquiring early reading skills, children who are behind their peers when they enter kindergarten, while making gains, are unlikely to catch up. For most at-risk children, then, it is unlikely that the achievement gap will ever be closed (Vernon-Feagans, Kainz, Hedrick, Ginsberg, & Amendum, 2013 ).…”

Increasing the Quality of Tier 1 Reading Instruction: Using Performance Feedback to Increase Opportunities to Respond During Implementation of a Core Reading Program

“…Coaching provides in‐house professional development to teachers on a regular basis through observing, modeling, and providing feedback. Results from research conducted on literacy coaching indicate that students in classrooms of teachers who received coaching make significant gains in literacy achievement (Biancarosa, Bryk, & Dexter, ; Vernon‐Feagans, Kainz, Hedrick, Ginsberg, & Amendum, ). In their study on coaching effectiveness, Elish‐Piper and L'Allier () suggest that coaching may be most effective when directed at teachers’ individual areas of need in specific instructional areas (e.g., letter/sound knowledge or phonemic awareness).…”