Support for the Improvement of
Practices through Intensive
Coaching (SIPIC): Literacy
Coaching for Reading Achievement
Misty Sailors
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
March 4 – 6, 2010
Washington, DC
[email protected]
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Purpose
The current study is an attempt to document,
measure, and describe the role of one model of
coaching in improving the instructional reading
practices of classroom teachers and in raising
the reading achievement of their students.
“New is not always right.” (Wilson & Berne, 1999, p. 5)
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Problem
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Discrepancy in reading achievement on NAEP (Lee,
Grigg, & Donahue, 2007)
Strategic reading is important in reading achievement
(for example, Paris, Waskik, & Turner, 1991; Pressley,
Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987; Pressley, 2000)
Students can learn to be strategic readers (Brown,
Pressley, Van Meter & Schuder, 1996; Duffy et al., 1986,
1987; Pressley & Wharton-McDonald, 1997)
Teachers are not teaching comprehension (Pressley,
2002; Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Mistretta-Hampston
& Echevarria, 1998; Sailors & Henderson, 2008)
Teachers CAN learn how to do this! (Brown et al., 1996;
Duffy, 1993a; 1993b; Duffy et al., 1986; Duffy et al.,
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1987; Pressley et al., 1997)
Furthermore…
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Traditional “one-shot” professional
development is not helpful to improving
practices (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, &
Garet, 2008)
Coaching is the current approach (for
example, Dole, 2005) to supporting teachers
Little or contradictory empirical evidence of
effectiveness (Lovette et al., 2008; Van Keer
& Verhaeghe, 2005; Sailors, 2008)
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Findings thus far…
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Positive impact on craft (Zwart, Wubbels,
Blohuis & Bergen, 2008) and domain knowledge
(Brady et al., 2009)
Teacher efficacy (Cantrell & Hughes, 2008)
Improved practices in special education
(Gersten, Morvant & Brengelman, 1995); writing
instruction (Frey & Kelly, 2002) and preservice
teacher education (Scantlebury, Gallo-Fox &
Wassell, 2008)
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Research questions
1. Does an intensive model of coaching lead to an
increased use of intentional comprehension
instruction on the part of teachers?
2. Does the increased use of intentional
comprehension instruction by teachers lead to
increased reading achievement of students from
low-income backgrounds?
3. Are there aspects of improvement in instructional
comprehension practices positively associated with
increased student achievement, and which aspects
of the model can be attributed to the coaching
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model?
Methods
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Participants
 Teachers
 Regular education (N=44)
 Grades 2-8
 Regular education (37%); departmentalized reading (21%);
social studies (20%); ELA (13%); and science (9%)
 3 districts (combined 11 elementary and middle schools)
 Average years of teaching 9.9 (SD = 7.53)
 Students
 N=527
 Low-income, minority families
Assigned to group at the school level to prevent experimental treatment diffusion
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Content of PD
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Intentional instruction
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Opportunities to engage in cognitive reading
strategies (Dole et al., 2008, p. 348) (Taylor,
Pearson, Clark & Walpole, 2000)
Engagements in discussions of the subroutines
involved in these strategies (Anderson, 1992;
Brown et al., 1992; Duffy, 2003)
Metacognition of teachers AND students
“Cannot be routinized” (NICHD, 2000, p. 4-125)
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Delivery of content of PD
Workshop only
Workshop PLUS
coaching
WORKSHOP:
•2 days
•Focused on “making inferences”
•Features of effective PD (Garet et al., 2001; Guskey, 2000)
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Highly qualified external
coaches (IRA, 2004, 2006)
Variety of interactions (demos,
co-teaching, feedback,
conferences)
Based on individualized
principles
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Plus resources
Fidelity of implementation
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Similarities and degree to which coaches were
implementing most critical components of intervention
(Mowray, Holter, Teague & Bybee, 2003)
 Observations of coaches
 Monitoring of coaching logs
 Monitoring of weekly coaching meetings
Visits (average 329 minutes) across period
Interactions
 62% classroom based; 38% conferences
 Demonstration lessons (50%); co-teaching (25%); and
feedback (25%)
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 Cognitive reading strategies (98%); fix-up (2%)
Data Collection Methods and
Procedures
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Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic
Evaluation (GRADE) (AGS, 2001)
Comprehension Instruction Observation
Protocol System (CIOPS) (Sailors, 2006
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Electronic category observation instrument (Martin, 1977)
Observational note-taking and quantitative coding (Herbert &
Attridge, 1975)
Narrative account of context, materials used, strategy content,
and instructional scaffolding
Units to coded based on the work of Duke (1999; 2000), Duffy
(1987, 1992, 2004), and Taylor and colleagues (Taylor et al.,
1999)
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Interrater reliability = .80 (Cohen’s kappa)
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Data Collection Timeline
Workshops
Teacher preobservations
September
Student preassessments
Teacher postobservations
April/May
Student postassessments
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Data Analysis
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Composite variables
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Provided opportunities to engage in cognitive reading strategies
(“comp”)
Intentional instructional explanations of cognitive reading
strategies (“intent_instruct”)
Student achievement– HLM (Raudenbush et al., 2004)
Teacher data: Conducted between groups (treatment vs.
control) chi-square analyses of change scores (posttestpretest) based on frequency counts of observational data
within classrooms
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Findings: (1) Does an intensive model of
coaching lead to an increased use of
intentional comprehension instruction on
the part of teachers?
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Findings: (2) Does the increased use of
intentional comprehension instruction by
teachers lead to increased reading
achievement of students from low-income
backgrounds?
X
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Findings: (3) Are there aspects of
improvement in instructional
comprehension practices positively
associated with increased student
achievement, and which aspects of the
model can be attributed to the coaching
model?
Impact by aspect:
Demonstration
Impact by aspect: Coteaching
Impact by aspect: Guided
reflection
Impact by aspect: Guided
conversations
Statistical
significance
Effect
size
Statistical
significance
Effect
size
Statistical
significance
Effect
size
Statistical
significance
Effect
size
No
CC=.77
No
CC=.81
No
CC=.82
No
CC=.84
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Discussions
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Coaching can support the implementation of cognitive
strategy reading instruction
Teachers teach what they learn in professional
development workshops (Desimone et al., 2002)
When teachers TEACH comprehension, students are
better readers (comprehension) (Beating the Odds
research)
No one component explained changes– more research
needed
Limitations
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Small sample size
No traditional control group
External coaches
Volunteers
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