Translating the Evidence: Creating Professional Development from an IES

Practice Guide

Russell Gersten, PhDDirector of Research, REL–SW

Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon

Presented at IES REL MeetingFebruary 7, 2008

Website Information

• For the full Practice Guide:http://www.dww.ed.gov/media/EL/ReadingK5/TopicLevel/el_practice_guide.pdf

• For the Doing What Works website:http://dww.ed.gov/

Themes for this Session

1. Search for Concreteness: Craving for Concreteness

2. Mixing Conceptual Knowledge with Procedural Knowledge

Teacher study Groups as a means of professional development

3. Identifying and Tackling Roadblocks

What is the goal of a Practice Guide?

• Consider all available evidence • Clearly identify level of evidence • Formulate specific guidelines that will

be useful to school districts• Formulate a Plan of Action for teachers,

administrators, coaches, curriculum specialists

• Not a rehash of conventional wisdom

Panelists

Russell Gersten (Chair)Robin ScarcellaTimothy ShanahanPenny Collins (formerly Chiappe)Scott K. BakerSylvia Linan Thompson

The Topics

1. Early screening and identification/ Progress monitoring

2. Early Intervention 3. Vocabulary 4. Academic English 5. Peer assisted learning

Theme 1:Search for Concreteness

Panel struggles to develop 5 to 10 assertions that are:

Clear Forceful and useful And COHERENTThat do not• encompass all things for all people read like a book chapter or article

Recommendation 1: Early Screening using English Language

Measures• Level of Evidence: Strong

Twenty-two studies have demonstrated that three types of measures are valid means of determining which English learners are likely to benefit from typical classroom reading instruction and which children will require extra support:

• Measures of phonological awareness

• Measures of familiarity with the alphabet, and the alphabetic principle in English

• Word reading for grade 1only

Recommendation 1(Actions): Screening & Progress Monitoring

• Level of Evidence: Strong

• Conduct screening assessments in kindergarten and first grade using English language measures of phonological processing, letter knowledge, and word reading to identify English learners who require additional instructional support.

• Monitor progress using measures of word reading, pseudoword reading and connected text in grades 1-4.

Suggestions: Progress Monitoring

• Districts should establish policies and training for schools to monitor the reading progress of all students, including English Learners, at least three times per year.

• These measures will be valid predictors of scores on state assessments or nationally normed tests.

• There are values to progress monitoring in the language of reading instruction but also being aware of how students fare against English language benchmarks.

Recommendation 4: Develop Academic English

• Level of Evidence: Low

• Based on two intervention studies, on one correlational study, and on expert judgment.

• English learners require considerable explicit and deliberate instruction to learn academic English.

Suggestions

• English learners must have a daily block of time devoted to development of academic English.

• Daily academic English instruction should also be integrated into the core curriculum.

• Teach academic English in the earliest grades. • Provide teachers with appropriate professional

development.

Recommendation5: Regular Peer-assisted Learning Opportunities

• Level of Evidence: Strong

• Based on three high-quality experiments and quasi-experiments

• All of these studies demonstrated positive impacts on reading achievement for students at varying ability levels

Suggestions

• Ensure that teachers of English learners devote at least two hours a week to instructional activities where pairs of students at different ability levels and/or different English language proficiencies work together on academic tasks in a structured fashion.

• These activities should provide practice and extension to material already taught.

Theme 2: Mixing Conceptual Knowledge with

Procedural Knowledge

Examples of the Conceptual & Procedural Mix

• An example from screening section

• Use of Teacher study Groups as a means to accomplish this mix

Recommendation 1: Early Screening using English Language

Measures• Level of Evidence: Strong

Twenty-two studies have demonstrated that three types of measures are valid means of determining which English learners are likely to benefit from typical classroom reading instruction and which children will require extra support:

• Measures of phonological awareness

• Measures of familiarity with the alphabet, and the alphabetic principle in English

• Word reading for grade 1only

Recommendation 1: Early Screening

• Fights conventional wisdom of “wait until child is proficient in English”

• No need to wait until students have good oral proficiency in English before teaching reading

• No need to wait until students are proficient in English before screening for students who may need extra support

• Recent research (Lesaux, Journal of Educational Psychology, November 2007) shows still valid for fourth grade reading

What are Teacher Study Groups?

A form of professional development that:• Is truly professional (uses readings from research

and professional dialogue)• Brings coherence to Reading First activities that

the District and State provide• Links research principles to teachers’ own

classroom• Provides state of the art information on applying

research to English Learners

Suggestions for a Teacher Study Group

• Use next week’s unit in core reading series as a base

• Select words that are crucial for understanding the content (paired activity)

• Locate words in Teachers Edition that are not essential

• Generate student friendly definitions• Generate examples and non-examples to

use

Teacher Study GroupsSession Design (75 Minutes)

1. Debrief Previous Application of Research

2. Walk Through the Research

3. Walk Through the Lesson

4. Collaborative Planning

5. Assignment

Teacher Study GroupsVocabulary Scope and Sequence

Student Friendly DefinitionsExamplesNon-examples/Contrasting Examples

Choosing Words to Teach: Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Words

Activities to Promote Multiple Meaningful Exposures

Tradebook LessonEnriching the Verbal Environment

Activities for Non Examples and Examples: Rich, deep vocabulary instruction

1. Would it be strange to see an elephant on the playground? Why? Why not?

2. Would a hermit go to a birthday party? Why? Why not?

3. If I give an example of something that is enormous, say, “Enormous.”

(Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002)

Examples of Identified Roadblocks

Recommendation 1 – Early Screening for RD using English Language Measures

Recommendation 4 – Develop Academic Language

Roadblocks: Early screening in English

Some teachers think that: • Reading problems may resolve themselves once

English learners develop proficiency in oral English. It is unfair to test a child in a language that she or he does not understand.

• Native language assessments are more valid than English language measures for this group of students. Fine to do both.

• It is inappropriate to teach phonological processing skills in a language that a child does not fully understand.

Roadblocks: Academic English

• Some educators may cushion their English learners, believing that: • academic English is too hard for them to develop• expectations are too demanding

• Not enough time to provide sufficient instruction

• Teachers fail to link vocabulary instruction to instruction on proper language usage.

Questions and on to Doing What Works