Investigating the Efficacy of a Web-Based Early Reading and Professional Development Intervention for Young English Learners

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), a professional development program and early reading intervention delivered via webcam technology could support English learners’ early reading progress. Participants for the current study were drawn from a larger three-year randomized controlled trial and included 108 English learners (ELs) from 47 classrooms randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions. Teachers in treatment classrooms used the TRI in one-on-one sessions in the regular classroom for approximately 15 minutes per day. Weekly, and later, biweekly webcam coaching sessions between the TRI coach and each classroom teacher allowed the coach to interact with both the teacher and student in real time, and allowed classroom teachers to receive real-time feedback from the coach. Two-level hierarchical linear models suggested that ELs struggling with learning to read in intervention classrooms significantly outperformed their peers in control classrooms on word-level measures of early reading with effect sizes of .43 and .45, but not on text-level measures. Results also suggested that ELs struggling with learning to read were gaining at the same rate as their non-struggling peers, but they were not able to catch up within the study year