The Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI): A Classroom Teacher Tier 2 Intervention to Help Struggling Readers in Early Elementary School
Author: Vernon-Feagans, Lynne
Date: 2009-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Reading Difficulties,Rural Schools,Intervention,Consultants,Effect Size,Counties,Instructional Effectiveness,Educational Technology,Reading Skills,Coaching (Performance),Disadvantaged,Teacher Effectiveness,Individualized Instruction,Reading Improvement,Comparative Analysis,Student Evaluation,At Risk Students,Reading Achievement,Reading Instruction,Video Technology,Early Childhood Education,Racial Differences,Social Differences,Synchronous Communication,Faculty Development

The two studies presented in this report were designed to test the effectiveness of a new diagnostic-based reading intervention for classroom teachers, called the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI). This TRI Tier 2 intervention stressed diagnostic teaching as the key to helping struggling readers make rapid progress in reading in the regular classroom. In Study 1 the authors wanted to understand whether the intervention was effective for struggling readers and under what conditions and for whom was the intervention most beneficial. In Study 2, the authors wanted to understand if their intervention could have an effect when it was delivered via technology, using webcams that allowed real time consultation in the regular classroom where their consultants could see and hear the teacher working with individual children. Study 1 included 6 elementary schools in two rural poor counties in the Southeastern United States. Consistent with literature on rural schools, the teachers in this study had many years of classroom experience but their advanced education was less than might be expected for their years of teaching. Study 2 included two schools in rural Texas and two in rural New Mexico. The teachers in this study had slightly less experience but more advanced degrees than in study 1. These studies suggest that professional development for classroom teachers in rural low wealth communities that focuses on diagnostic teaching in the regular classroom with struggling readers can make a dramatic difference in the gains these children make in one academic year. With the help of a biweekly literacy consultant who worked with the teacher in the regular classroom, the TRI Tier 2 intervention found effect sizes of almost 1 in Study 1 and effect sizes of about 0.5 in Study 2 when consultation was delivered by webcam technology. In both studies there was no evidence that normally progressing children were suffering because of the time teachers used to work with the struggling readers. In addition, this study also suggests that this diagnostic approach appears to help all children equally with no evidence that boys, African American children, or low-SES children gained less than other struggling readers. In addition, the interaction between rapid color naming and the intervention suggested that children with rapid color naming problems gained the most from the TRI, providing evidence that this kind of deficit may be particularly addressed in a diagnostic teaching format. Finally, this study demonstrates that low cost effective teacher professional development can dramatically improve the reading of struggling readers by biweekly consultation in the regular classroom either face to face or by very cost effective web cam technology that allows teacher and consultants to see and hear each other in real time as they work with a struggling reader.