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Reading Research Recap

Neena’s Top Reading Research Picks for June

By Neena Saha, Ph.D., Research Advisor on

Neena's Top Reading Research Picks

Welcome to the Reading Research Recap!

I am Dr. Neena Saha, Research Advisor at MetaMetrics and founder and CEO of Elemeno, now a part of MetaMetrics. My focus is to bridge the research-practice gap so that educators can access real-time tools to support reading success. To expand the understanding of research to inform teaching and learning strategies, I put together this monthly compendium of the relevant and must-read research that impacts the reading and learning landscape. I offer research highlights in digestible summary slices. Hopefully, the data and findings you see here are useful to you as researchers, educators, and district and edtech leaders.

What Are Teachers Doing in Small Groups?

Hi All! For June I chose a research paper examining the kind of instruction Kindergarten teachers are providing students at risk of reading difficulties during small group instruction time.

The TL;DR 

There is room for improvement. Kindergarten teachers used explicit instruction (good!) alongside more harmful practices such as prompting students to memorize words.

Also, I am aware of the recent discussion (debate?) on the usefulness of small groups during tier 1 phonics instruction, and I’ll say more about that below after I cover the research article for this month!

Background

Early intervention is critical for students with or at-risk for reading disabilities. That’s why many states mandate early screening and intervention. However, there is a shortage of reading interventionists in these states, so Kindergarten classroom teachers have been tasked with providing small-group instruction for kindergarten students who are struggling with reading or at-risk for reading difficulties. Yet, it remains unknown if teachers are providing quality instruction during this time. That’s what these researchers decided to investigate: what type of instruction is occurring during teacher-led small-group instruction in Kindergarten?

Rationale 

Previous studies have examined different literacy domains but not how literacy knowledge and skills are taught. This study specifically focused on instructional practices during teacher-led small-group time.

Research Questions

These researchers investigated topics like activity types, instructional practices and materials. They also asked:

  • To what extent do teachers instruct students to read words using:
    • Knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences?
    • Memorization of whole words?
    • Context cues?
  • To what extent do teachers use predictable texts during reading instruction?

Methods

They used a combination of observation and teacher interviews. Observations were video recorded and coded at 1-minute intervals using the researcher-developed observation measure adapted from the Snapshot of Dyslexia Instruction (SDI) measure.

Sample

  • 31 observations of 11 kindergarten teachers in 5 schools across 2 Texas school districts.
  • The average group size was 3.9 students (range was 1-6).

Results

Results from Observations

Activity Types Observed

  • Most of the time was spent on text reading (36.35%)
  • The next most common activity types were: phonics/decoding (33.91%) followed by print concepts (30.31%)
  • Comprehension instruction occurred during 17.03% of the (observed) time
  • Encoding instruction occurred during 13.44%
  • Phonological awareness instruction occurred during 11.88%
  • High-frequency word instruction occurred during 6.25%
  • Less than 5% of the time was spent on handwriting, letter-name knowledge, writing and vocabulary
  • Only one teacher engaged in writing instruction
  • 5.16% of the time was not spent on any literacy instruction

Instructional Practices Implemented

  • 50.78% of time was devoted to teacher modeling or explaining
  • 24.69% of the time was devoted to teacher-guided practice
  • Student opportunities to respond were very common during group practice (66.56%) and independent practice (63.75%)
  • Scaffolding and feedback occurred 95% of the time
  • Teachers told students to use hand gestures or movements 12.97% of the time
  • Teachers infrequently told students to pay attention to the shape of their mouths, voices, or air flow (1.56%)

Instructional Materials Used

  • Sound boxes were rarely used (1.72% of the observed time)
  • Visual aids, flashcards, and manipulatives were used 9.84%, 8.91%, and 7.19% (respectively)

Text Reading Instruction

  • Predictable texts were frequently used (77.16%) vs non-predictable (22.84%)
  • In terms of reading words, teachers most frequently instructed whole word memorization tactics (95.26%)

Results from Teacher Interviews

Description of Instruction

  • Teachers spend about an average of 20 minutes in small groups
  • Many teachers said this was not enough time and they wished they had more time to implement small-group lessons
  • Common programs used were: Reading A-Z/Learning A-Z/Raz-Kids, Mondo, and Literacy Footprints (which match students to texts)
    • “It has a book that goes with each lesson. It has different levels. So, like this [holds up lesson plan] is for my babies, which is the beginner level, like beginning to read. And we do word work and sight words. And then our focus is usually a concept of print skill.” When another teacher was describing the program she uses, she said, “I do wish that we could make the switch from a lot of sight word heavy books to more decodable readers. It would be my preference.”
  • 3 of the teachers did not have a program, and several teachers reported piecing things together and making teacher-created lessons
  • Another theme that emerged from teacher interviews was the frequent use of manipulatives to keep students engaged

Limitations

  • Small sample size
  • Only an average of 3 observations per teacher
  • Not able to interview all teachers
  • Video recordings have some weaknesses
  • Coding certain variables was hard to do
  • The study took place during the pandemic when teachers’ stress, anxiety and depression were high

Take-Home Message 

There were several positives (use of explicit instruction, frequent feedback). There were also areas for improvement (prompting students to memorize words vs using their knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences). And, there needs to be more research on certain areas (multisensory instruction, sound walls).

The authors conclude that teachers need more professional development:

“Overall, this study suggests the need to provide teachers with professional learning opportunities that build knowledge of evidence-based practices for teaching students at risk for RDs.”

Research Citation:
Dahl-Leonard, K., Hall, C., Mesa, M. P., Zucker, T. A., & Peacott, D. (2024). Exploring Small-Group Reading Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Difficulties in Kindergarten Classrooms. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573569.2023.2298497

Professional Development

Speaking of professional development, I came across a study that paired nicely! The above paper on small groups ends with the idea that teachers need more professional development, but what makes professional development effective?

This open-access paper (Effective Teacher Professional Development: New Theory and a Meta-Analytic Test) found that for PD to be effective, it should:

  • Instill insight.
  • Motivate change.
  • Develop techniques.
  • Embed in practice.

There were some important caveats and limitations to keep in mind, so be sure to read the full paper if this is of interest, but I think this quote sums up the key  take-home point for teachers and administrators:

“For a theory to be practical it should point towards actionable steps for solving a real-world problem (Berkman & Wilson, 2021). Our theory potentially provides a flexible framework for designers of PD to use when thinking about how to combine different components of PD in order to develop teacher insights, motivate change, develop techniques, and embed these in practice. This granular, flexible approach is more likely to be useful than black box evaluations of entire PD programs, which are likely unavailable to the majority of schools (Hill et al.,2013).”

So, as you think about which PD programs to purchase for your school/teachers for the upcoming school year, you might want to keep the above variables in mind.

Research Citation:
Sims, S., Fletcher-Wood, H., O’Mara-Eves, A., Cottingham, S., Stansfield, C., Goodrich, J., Van Herwegen, J., & Anders, J. (2023). Effective Teacher Professional Development: New Theory and a Meta-Analytic Test. Review of Educational Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543231217480

Small Groups

And, finally, as promised; some thoughts on small groups vs whole class in tier 1 for phonics instruction. Please note. Some of these ideas were derived from conversations with Colby Hall, who is a co-author on a forthcoming Scholastic white paper on this topic.

Recently,  Dr. Shanahan wrote this insightful blog post that said small groups during phonics instruction were perhaps not the best/most effective use of time. Many people chimed in with their support, agreement, and success stories. But some pointed out that there is research that lends support for providing small group instruction in Tier 1 (e.g., Connor et al., 2006, Al Otaiba et al., 2011). For example,

  • Meta-analyses show that students in classes that group students in order to provide differentiated instruction do better (Steenbergen-Hu et al., 2016, Lou et al. 1996). While the effect sizes of grouping  are small in some of these meta-analyses, they can compound (“add up”) over time.
  • In two other studies (Connor et al., 2011; Connor et al., 2009), researchers found that more teacher-managed instruction in general does not consistently predict better student outcomes.
  • Differentiation via small-group instruction has also been shown to be good for student engagement (Connor & Morrison, 2016) and student attitudes (Kulik & Kulik, 1992).

There also could be good reasons to group students during instruction that do not serve the purpose of differentiation (please note that these are not all specific to phonics instruction):

  • Small groups allow time for children to independently practice skills.
  • They are better for demonstrating subtle activities (e.g., place and manner of articulating phonemes).
  • They can offer children more opportunities to respond and more accountability for engaging with learning and practice.
  • In whole-class discussion, fewer voices get to be heard; there are fewer opportunities for kids to practice new language knowledge/skills).

My Thoughts

In summary, this is a very nuanced discussion in terms of the research and becomes a bit of a complicated calculus when determining what is best for your classroom if you are a teacher.

I don’t see it being a debate as much as what is best for whom and when. For example, what resources does your class/school have; do you have a co-teacher or teaching assistant to help with small groups? How different are your students? The results of beginning-of-year screeners and ongoing formative assessments (or progress monitoring) probably also need to be taken into account when planning the best use of instructional time as classroom heterogeneity (of skill) is probably an important moderator of the effects of small-group instruction on student reading outcomes.

I hope this is helpful!

— Neena

Additional Research of Interest

Teacher Knowledge, Teacher Practices, Policy, Commentary, Other

Struggling Readers, Dyslexia

Alphabetics, Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Decoding

Morphology

Fluency

Comprehension

Handwriting, Spelling, Writing

Other Interesting Articles That Did Not Fit Nicely in One of the Above Headings

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