Situated learning, professional development, and early reading intervention: A mixed methods study

Abstract

The purpose of the present mixed methods study was to investigate a model of situated professional development and classroom-based early reading intervention implemented by the K–2 teaching teams from one school in a large urban/suburban school district in the southeastern United States. Twenty-nine teachers participated along with 125 students (74 intervention, 51 comparison). Student-level data sources included letter-word identification, word attack, spelling of sounds, and passage comprehension measures. Teacher-level data sources included semistructured interviews with each teacher, planning/recording documents, and pre/post questionnaires to gather information about teachers’ self-efficacy and demographics. The main conclusions were the following: (a) struggling readers eligible for intervention made significant gains, (b) struggling readers eligible for intervention made significantly greater gains than their nonstruggling peers did, (c) teachers’ reflections on the intervention and the situated professional development were generally positive, and (d) teachers’ self-efficacy for instructional strategies positively changed across the year.