Person:

Burkhauser, Mary

While the field of educational research has produced an enormous amount of literature relevant for improving teaching and, ultimately, student achievement, the field has been less successful at producing deep and lasting instructional change at scale. In this dissertation, I present three papers that explore an approach to program implementation that attempts to cultivate conditions to support scale by involving teachers in a process of collaborative inquiry around an evidence-based program called READS for Summer Learning (READS). While many have called for implementation approaches that give educators an opportunity to make adaptations, few studies have examined the ways in which teachers respond to such an approach, including: the process that teachers go through as they are making their adaptation decisions, the kinds of adaptations they make, and the ways in which participation in such an approach may affect their perceptions of the program. In this thesis, I begin to address these gaps.

Together, the papers in this dissertation explore how teachers at three high-poverty schools in one urban district responded when given opportunities—both as individuals and as teams—to make structured adaptations to READS. In the first study, I focus on individual teachers’ enactments of READS in their classrooms. The purpose of this study was to explore individual teachers’ fidelity to and adaptations of the core component of READS in which teachers have the most responsibility—teaching the READS lessons. In the second study, I consider the adaptation decisions that grade-level teams arrived at through a collaborative inquiry process. In my third study, I use interview data, collected after the implementation of the school-based components of READS (including the lessons) but before the end of the summer, to explore teachers’ expectations of the program’s effectiveness for their students and the basis for these expectations. Taken together, these studies provide insight into what success might look like when it comes to giving teachers greater autonomy over the implementation of evidence-based programs, as well as how researchers and school leaders might support these kinds of efforts.

This study employs a sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) design to develop an adaptive intervention with personalized print and digital content for kindergarten to Grade 2 children (n = 273). In Stage 1, we ask whether it is better for children to receive an adaptive intervention based on (a) 10 conceptually coherent texts or (b) 10 leveled texts on a range of topics. In Stage 2, we ask how best to encourage nonresponding children. Findings indicate that children who received either conceptually coherent texts or leveled texts performed similarly on reading comprehension posttests, while augmenting and intensifying follow-up with gamification of the app and text messages to parents improved comprehension outcomes for nonresponders. Descriptively, we find that only 26% (n = 71) of parents accessed the app, highlighting the need for better implementation procedures to increase take up of app-based digital activities.

While the field of educational research has produced an enormous amount of literature relevant for improving teaching and, ultimately, student achievement, the field has been less successful at producing deep and lasting instructional change at scale. In this dissertation, I present three papers that explore an approach to program implementation that attempts to cultivate conditions to support scale by involving teachers in a process of collaborative inquiry around an evidence-based program called READS for Summer Learning (READS). While many have called for implementation approaches that give educators an opportunity to make adaptations, few studies have examined the ways in which teachers respond to such an approach, including: the process that teachers go through as they are making their adaptation decisions, the kinds of adaptations they make, and the ways in which participation in such an approach may affect their perceptions of the program. In this thesis, I begin to address these gaps.

Together, the papers in this dissertation explore how teachers at three high-poverty schools in one urban district responded when given opportunities—both as individuals and as teams—to make structured adaptations to READS. In the first study, I focus on individual teachers’ enactments of READS in their classrooms. The purpose of this study was to explore individual teachers’ fidelity to and adaptations of the core component of READS in which teachers have the most responsibility—teaching the READS lessons. In the second study, I consider the adaptation decisions that grade-level teams arrived at through a collaborative inquiry process. In my third study, I use interview data, collected after the implementation of the school-based components of READS (including the lessons) but before the end of the summer, to explore teachers’ expectations of the program’s effectiveness for their students and the basis for these expectations. Taken together, these studies provide insight into what success might look like when it comes to giving teachers greater autonomy over the implementation of evidence-based programs, as well as how researchers and school leaders might support these kinds of efforts.

This study investigated the effectiveness of the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a content literacy intervention, on first graders’ science domain knowledge, reading engagement, and reading comprehension. The MORE intervention emphasizes the role of domain knowledge and reading engagement in supporting reading comprehension. MORE lessons included a 10-day thematic unit that provided a framework for students to connect new learning to a meaningful schema (i.e., Arctic animal survival) and to pursue mastery goals for acquiring domain knowledge. A total of 38 first-grade classrooms (N = 674 students) within 10 elementary schools were randomly assigned to (a) MORE at school (MS), (b) MORE at home, (MS-H), in which the MS condition included at-home reading, or (c) typical instruction. Since there were minimal differences in procedures between the MS and MS-H conditions, the main analyses combined the two treatment groups. Findings from hierarchical linear models revealed that the MORE intervention had a positive and significant effect on science domain knowledge, as measured by vocabulary knowledge depth (effect size [ES] = .30), listening comprehension (ES = .40), and argumentative writing (ES = .24). The MORE intervention effects on reading engagement as measured by situational interest, reading motivation, and task orientations were not statistically significant. However, the intervention had a significant, positive effect on a distal measure of reading comprehension (ES = .11), and there was no evidence of Treatment × Aptitude interaction effects. Content literacy can facilitate first graders’ acquisition of science domain knowledge and reading comprehension without contributing to Matthew effects.

This mixed-methods study explores the relationship between early elementary students’ domainspecific vocabulary knowledge and their ability to comprehend grade-level reading passages on unfamiliar science topics. Specifically, this study used (a) structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the extent to which students’ networks of domain-specific vocabulary knowledge in Grades 1 and 2 mediated the effects of a Tier 1 content-based literacy intervention on domainspecific reading comprehension scores in Grade 2 (N = 2,156); and (b) quantitative survey and qualitative interview data from teachers (N = 48) to surface new themes about teacher vocabulary instruction that might suggest potential explanations for the SEM findings. SEM analysis revealed that students’ domain-specific vocabulary knowledge in first and second grade explained 69% of the treatment effect on a domain-specific reading comprehension outcome. Results from the quantitative survey also indicated that treatment group teachers reported providing more incidental exposures to vocabulary than control teachers (Effect Size [ES] = .54) and qualitative analyses revealed that teachers with high incidental exposures tended to provide expanded opportunities for their students to engage with words and to connect words to topics. Findings from this mixed-method study paint a more complete picture of (a) the important role domain-specific vocabulary knowledge plays in facilitating reading comprehension transfer in the domain of science, and (b) what teachers do during vocabulary instruction to promote transfer in domain-specific reading comprehension.

This experimental study aimed to replicate and extend a previous efficacy study of an elementary grade content literacy intervention that demonstrated positive effects on students’ vocabulary knowledge depth, argumentative writing, and reading comprehension. Using a cluster (school) randomized trial design, this replication experiment was conducted with 5,494 first- and second- grade students in 30 elementary schools in an urban school district located in the southeastern United States. Teachers implemented thematic lessons (20 lessons) that provided an intellectual framework for helping students acquire networks of related vocabulary knowledge while learning science and social studies content. Teachers integrated thematic lessons, concept mapping, and interactive read-alouds of conceptually related informational texts to enable their students to build networks of vocabulary knowledge and to transfer this knowledge to argumentative writing and collaborative research activities. Confirmatory analyses replicated positive findings on science vocabulary knowledge depth (ES = 0.50) and argumentative writing (ES = 0.24) and also extended positive findings to social studies vocabulary knowledge depth (ES = 0.56) and argumentative writing (ES = 0.44). Positive and statistically significant findings were not replicated on domain-general reading comprehension outcomes. Exploratory analyses indicated that students’ vocabulary knowledge depth partially mediated the impact of content literacy instruction on domain-specific argumentative writing outcomes.