The purpose is to address the gap that exists between research and practice in early reading by preparing to scale-up a kindergarten and Grade 1 intervention shown to be effective in previous work by Blachman and colleagues (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Blachman et al., 1994; Blachman et al, 1999; Blachman et al., in press). We address unanswered questions regarding timing and duration of early intervention needed for maximum benefit and investigate whether responsiveness to treatment is influenced by different beginning skill levels, home literacy experiences, and classroom behavior, helping us determine whom to target for instruction in Phase II. In addition, we investigate the relationship between teacher instruction (e.g., knowledge, fidelity, quality), school context variables (e.g., principal leadership) and student outcomes in reading to increase understanding of variables to be targeted during scale-up. The proposed grant falls into two Phase I categories: replication studies and feasibility studies. First, we replicate research, referenced above, shown to be effective in improving reading. Second, we address specific implementation issues that can impact the feasibility of scale-up. In Phase I we develop a technology-based professional development component that will, in Phase II, allow us to dramatically increase the number of schools and districts involved in professional development. Children will be drawn from all kindergarten and Grade 1 classes in eight low-income, schools in a large urban district in upstate New York. On average, 76% of children will receive free or reduced lunch and 67% are minorities. A block-randomization procedure will be used to randomly assign schools similar on background variables (free lunch, state exam scores) to one of four conditions (3 treatments and 1 control). Schools will be used to randomly assign schools similar on background variables (free lunch, state exam scores) to one of four conditions: 1) kindergarten intervention only, 2) Grade 1 intervention only, 3) both kindergarten and Grade 1 interventions, and 4) a control condition using the school district basal in kindergarten and Grade 1. The kindergarten intervention (referenced above) includes 56 lessons, each lasting 15 to 20 minutes, conducted over 14 weeks, and including 3 activities: a) """"""""say-it-and-move-it,"""""""" a phoneme awareness (PA) activity in which children move disks to represent the sounds in words, first segmenting and then blending the word, eventually moving disks with letters on them to build simple decodable words (e.g., man), b) a PA practice activity, c) explicit letter name and sound instruction. The Grade 1 intervention (referenced above) is conducted daily for 40 minutes and includes a systematic 5-step plan for explicitly teaching the alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency in reading words, frequent text reading to build motivation and comprehension, and spelling dictation.
