Research Results
WordWork Preschool
A study to determine the impact of the WordWork preschool curriculum showed that the curriculum enhanced the literacy and oral language skills of preschool-aged children. The WordWork preschool program is an integrated print knowledge and phonological awareness program that was been adapted from its original form for use with a younger population of children. The program promotes the development of specific emergent literacy skills through conceptual understanding of the similarities and differences of letters and sounds. Students are also trained to use metacognitive techniques to monitor their articulation. Letter sounds are grouped together because they share meaningful characteristics. The curricular sequence is as follows: 1) unvoiced plosives—c, k, t, p; 2) unvoiced fricatives—s, f, h; 3) voiced nasals—m, n; 4) voiced fricatives—j, v, z; 5) voiced plosives—g, d, b; 6) voiced glides—y, r, l, w. The emphasis on developmentally appropriate, explicit instruction in small groups produced superior results as compared with other curricula. The study in its entirety can be downloaded here.
(use this as the link: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cehsgpirw/10/)
WordWork Summer School
This presentation describes results from a six-week summer school for underachieving kindergarten students using the WordWork decoding-spelling program. The program was used to examine the connection between metacognition and literacy acquisition in an authentic learning environment. Results suggest that young readers who are at risk for reading failure can be metacognitive about basic reading and writing processes. The benefits extend beyond metacognition into all reading and writing measures. The long term tracking of students shows that the effects of the WordWork summer school were maintained throughout first grade and were still meaningful at the end of second grade. The flexibility in the professional development model allowed the teachers to make multiple adjustments to the environment. Link to Summer School (PPT)
Year 1 - Lessons from the trenches
Year One centered on the development and implementation of a cascading series of two-week long design experiments to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of several innovative procedures to teach decoding and spelling skills to primary level students. The methods build on an analysis of English orthography and social cognitive methods of instruction and were developed with the classroom teachers participating in the study. Curriculum and assessment instruments were designed to support each variation in the design. The study, conducted in 17 first grade classrooms from four schools in Southern California, utilized classroom teachers trained in the WordWork instructional procedures to deliver instruction. Instructional variations examined phonemic awareness activities, the use of explicit and implicit instruction in articulation, word building, and the introduction of the English ending system. The students were assessed before the design variations were initiated, at the end of each of the six variation blocks, and at the end of the school year. The findings suggest that metacognition and awareness of articulation increased over time with instruction in WordWork principles. No differences in student achievement were found when comparing classrooms in high, middle, and low SES neighborhoods. Significant teacher effects were found between high, middle, and low implementation classes. Link to Year 1 (PPT)
Year 2 - Refining our knowledge
This paper presents the results from the second year of the WordWork design experiment. A key feature of the design experiment is its flexibility in addressing needs and difficulties that arise during the process of the experiment. The second year of the WordWork design experiment was designed with three objectives in mind; following the non-responders from year one, replicating and clarifying year one findings, and extending the sample to include second grade classrooms. The replication experiment started in October and continued until March, seven two-week blocks in all. Participants were students from 10 classrooms located in four different schools. In each classroom, six students were selected for assessment. Based on year one results, teacher observations targeted the key elements of the lessons: student participation, classroom discourse, and net instructional time. Two second-grade classrooms from one school participated in a short two-block intervention based on WordWork principles. Here again, six students were selected for assessment in each classroom.
We continued to work in the real classrooms, using systematic curricular variations refined by our first year analysis. Concurrently we measured natural variations through systematic observation. Longitudinal assessment of students was conducted on a bi-weekly basis supplemented by more thorough pre and post assessments as well as district assessments. Student measures included measures of writing, sentence reading, synthetic word reading and spelling, and measures of articulation based phonemic awareness, metacognitive knowledge of word building and metalinguistic declarative knowledge. Results were analyzed using growth curve analysis.
Results supported conclusions from the first year that neither schools nor gender were meaningful factors in student achievement. An emphasis on meta-cognitive knowledge of word building in the curriculum produced very positive results in both reading and spelling. The best predictor of spelling ability after accounting for reading ability is a measure of meta-cognitive knowledge of word building.
The results for second grade students showed two very different patterns. In one classroom, the curriculum was implemented successfully and student achievement rose significantly; in a second classroom, the curriculum was rejected and implemented very partially and as a result, no change in student achievement was seen. Link to Year 2 (PPT)
Year 3 - Professional Development
In order for young children to decode and spell independently, they need knowledge of the structure of words -- the English orthography. If they are also able to engage in reflective dialogue in a problem-solving context, thus leading to conceptual understanding of the underlying structure of the English writing system, the likelihood that they will become proficient readers and writers of unfamiliar words increases. The preceding papers examined curricular and instructional elements that facilitate student learning. This paper investigates the development of teachers' knowledge of these elements, as actualized in their instructional practices.
Social-cognitive instruction emphasizes the importance of providing learners with opportunities to refine their thinking through discussion (Vygotsky, 1978). The design experiment studies underscore the importance of discussion that promotes metacognitive knowledge in understanding and applying phonic principles. However, teaching for conceptual understanding requires a level of reflection that is difficult to evoke in the typical classroom. Despite the prevalence of collaborative learning techniques and informal conversation, classroom talk is typified by the Initiate-Respond-Evaluate (IRE) structure (Cazden, 1988; Mehan, 1979). This instructional pattern is deeply ingrained in American educational settings. Therefore, supporting reflective, problem-solving conversations requires skill on the part of the teacher, and in some cases, a fundamental shift in (a) one's theory of teaching and learning, particularly with regard to the role of the learner and (b) a view of phonics as a "basic skill" in a system having structure and concepts on which to reflect.
The practice of teachers in two research/professional development contexts was examined. The first was the year-long design experiment research described in previous papers. The second model was a four-week professional development institute - School Institute for Reading and Teaching (SIRT) – that combined teacher institutes with summer schools for students with reading-writing problems. In this project, two cohorts of 15 teachers examined theory and research in a morning seminar, then extended and deepened the learning experience by applying concepts and strategies immediately in a classroom context.
Data sources include field notes from weekly or bi-weekly classroom observations and teacher meetings, teachers' reflections, semi-structured interviews and surveys. Preliminary analysis of the ways teachers implement the curricular/instructional programs reveals a continuum identified by two major categories: 1) direct application and 2) principled application. Direct application involves a struggle to infuse concepts and strategies into programs already impacted with required curricula and merging new instructional approaches with previous practices. In contrast, teachers with a more principled application display a grasp of critical concepts and apply them within their own settings. They have the level of understanding that appears to enable them to modify existing programs and practices and integrate new ones. For example, teachers adopting metacognitive questioning strategies during WordWork facilitate similar discussions in other literacy contexts and in other content areas. Similar patterns were found with regard to articulatory phoneme awareness – attending to how sounds are produced. Teachers who understand the concept more fully encourage students to apply their knowledge beyond the "WordWork time" to other reading-writing contexts. Factors that contribute to a teacher’s placement on the continuum and implications for teacher education and professional development are discussed. Link to Year 3 (PPT)
The Notion of a Design Experiment
Virtually every high school graduate knows about "scientific experiments”—a special treatment for one group, business as usual for the other, and results that should show the superiority of the special treatment. Graduates often realize the limitations of this strategy, the difficulty of doing what is supposed to be done, and the problem that sometimes the results aren’t as expected. R. A. Fisher, who focused on agricultural studies but serves as the guru for social science and educational experiments, knew better (Fisher, 1934). His writings reveal an awareness of the importance of "knowing the territory," of incorporating contextual factors in comprehensive and coherent designs, and an appreciation for complexity that connects with today’s qualitative methodologies.
To paraphrase the Bard, however, "The phrase is the thing." The concept of the design experiment emerged about a decade ago (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992); it has also been referred to as "formative experiments," Reinking & Pickle, 1993), with wellsprings in action research (Lewin, 1946), facets of the qualitative-research movement of the 1970s and beyond (Lagemann & Shulman, 1999), and teacher/classroom studies (Freedman, in press; Sandholtz, 2000). The methodology for design experiments is presently sparse, but the basic concept is compelling. The challenge is to combine the rigor of systematic experimentation with the chaos of classroom realities in a way that informs practice while also contributing to theory, to collaboration between practitioners and researchers, and to thoughtful modifications in curriculum, instruction, and other factors. The idea incorporates the notion of formative evaluation, of studying the growth of student skill and knowledge over time, penetrating into the classroom processes on a monthly or even weekly schedule, as teachers (and researchers) negotiate curricular and instructional decisions.
The design experiment inverts the Fisherian invention of experimental design in several ways. Collins (1999) poses seven distinctions between traditional (1940-1970) experimental research and the design-experiment approach, including (a) strict laboratory control vs. messy classrooms, (b) socially isolated "subjects" vs. participative informants, and (c) single vs. multiple outcome indicators. These contrasts actually describe continua rather than distinctive categories, and call for ongoing methodological decisions during the design and implementation of an investigation, decisions that we have placed into four categories: program variations, settings and situations, documentation, and systematic variability.
The first category entails the identification of program variations, whether the result of intentional or natural variations. Design experiments are presently associated with educational studies, hence the goal to discover which treatments make a difference for teachers and students. The traditional "experimental" approach relies on a horse-race paradigm. A pre-defined package is compared to a control condition (things as usual). This strategy has evoked critiques for decades (e.g., Cronbach, 1963). In contrast, design experiments systematically tweak various program elements, and exploring naturally-occurring quirks in routine practice. Link to Design (PPT)
