Preparing Special Education Preservice Teachers to Teach Phonics to Struggling Readers: Reducing the Gap Between Expert and Novice Performance

Abstract

In this study, the authors examine the learning of 48 preservice teachers (PSTs) taking a literacy course in special education and the primary-grade struggling readers they tutored in a field component of the course. The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the effects of the course and tutoring on PSTs’ knowledge and preparedness to teach reading. In addition, the authors examine whether the phonics scores of their tutored students improved. The results showed that PSTs improved in their knowledge of literacy, self-confidence in teaching reading to struggling readers, and analyses of oral reading miscues. Their tutored students also improved significantly on measures of their phonics knowledge and performance. The authors of this study suggest that carefully designed literacy coursework with field experiences can help PSTs perform more like mature teachers when the literacy tools and instructional scripts for teaching phonics are made explicit and transparent. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Keywords

at-risk students teacher knowledge academic achievement teacher preparation practices and outcomes reading curriculum-based assessment general special education

Special education teachers who teach students with learning disabilities (LDs) must be capable teachers of literacy (Brownell et al., 2009; Brownell, Ross, Colón, & McCallum, 2005; Dingle, Brownell, Leko, Boardman, & Haager, 2011). Nearly 85% of the students with LD in the primary grades have reading disabilities that delay their progress in learning to read (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003; Sayeski, Gormley Budin, & Bennett, 2015). This means that primary-grade special education teachers must be trained to recognize and address deficiencies in phonological awareness, word identification, decoding and phonics, and spelling. Without this multilayered and intensive approach, their students with disabilities may never catch up to their peers, and their literacy difficulties will not be ameliorated.

The emphasis on preparing preservice teachers (PSTs) who can provide explicit instruction in phonics creates a dilemma for teacher preparation programs as “many teachers, including special educators, do not understand the structure of words well enough to provide explicit and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics” (Al Otaiba & Lake, 2007, p. 592). Studies indicate that many PSTs have a weak pedagogical knowledge for literacy concepts related to phonological awareness, phonics, and word structure (Moats, 1994, 2009; Moats & Foorman, 2003; Spear-Swerling & Cheesman, 2012). A further complication is that many PSTs lack accurate self-perceptions of their own states of knowledge and judge it to be much higher than actual tests show, which suggests a diminished sensitivity to what they have yet to learn (Spear-Swerling, 2009; Spear-Swerling, Brucker, & Alfano, 2005). Boosting PST knowledge to a high enough level so that teacher and student outcomes are impacted is essential, although future investigations must be conducted to determine whether knowledge acquisition for PSTs and their students is attainable in a semester-long university course (Brownell et al., 2005).

We draw on three key principles from sociocultural theory that might offer a conceptual basis for understanding how teacher preparation programs might address the gap in the phonics knowledge and performance of PSTs (Shabani, 2016). First, we recognize that language is the main mechanism for literate thought and action. Language includes both the disciplinary knowledge related to teaching beginning reading through the effective implementation of a phonics curriculum and the dialogic routines for participating in those instructional interventions with beginning readers. That is, PSTs need to master language-based and pedagogical concepts related to “knowing phonics,” “doing phonics with children,” and “talking about phonics” (Westby & Torres-Velasquez, 2000). Initially, PSTs’ mastery of the discourse and routines may be beyond their initial grasp, but through explicit and guided apprenticeships, they should be able to participate in the routines in a manner that deepens their own and their student’s mastery of the literacy concepts over time.

Second, PSTs need a toolkit that contains psychological and cultural tools for teaching phonics in a manner that makes reading, writing, and spelling a more transparent and conscious process. In other words, “doing phonics” requires tools and routines that help PSTs and their students to communicate and participate together in the context of applied and shared activities. According to Vygotsky (1978), these psychological tools include symbol systems, mnemonic techniques, diagrams, maps, conventional signs, and language forms (Daniels, 2001; John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996; Kozulin, 1998). For children, the symbolic tools become ways of lessening their cognitive burden as they engage in early literacy activities. For PSTs, the symbolic tools can be used to link the oral and written language register into a more predictable and organized system that is more transparent to all the participants, and that draws attention to the medium of written language and reading itself (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996).

Third, the concept of the zone of proximal development can be used in teacher preparation programs to conceptualize two levels of teacher development: the actual and the potential levels of development (e.g., current and future performance). The actual level is what a PST can do without mediation and assistance, and the potential development is that which can be attained by PSTs in collaboration with the scaffolds, mediational tools, and frameworks. The goal is to move PSTs from the starting point (novice) to the desired future state (mature teacher) by bringing the endpoint “forward” to the beginning. As Cole and Engeström (1993) suggested, it may be possible to design a system of interpersonal interactions and moves that are embedded in an instructional framework that can help teacher–student dyads coordinate their talk, thoughts, and actions before the pair can accomplish the collaborative work for themselves.

The goal of this project was to design and pilot a protocol that might make phonics instruction more achievable by PSTs from the outset. There were three optimizing conditions that we established to improve the outcomes. First, we developed an instructional protocol and toolkit that incorporated the phonological awareness, symbol systems, and phonics routines that have been shown to improve reading outcomes for struggling beginning readers (Morris, 2005, 2015; Sayeski et al., 2015). The framework was designed to help PSTs to address core weaknesses in phonological skills, decoding, and spelling, as well as sequence their presentation of the phonics concepts in a logical order (Spear-Swerling, 2019).

A second optimizing strategy was to design a field experience tied to a special education literacy course. The lack of high-quality field experiences remains an obstacle to effective preservice education (Baumann, Ro, Duffy-Hester, & Hoffman, 2000; McCombes-Tollis & Spear-Swerling, 2011; Morris, 2011, 2015). There are a host of reasons that make a semester-long teaching practicum a challenging goal for higher education faculty, including administrative and supervisory issues associated with tutoring programs, class sizes, the availability of teaching materials, and the absence of teaching frameworks that support preservice teachers in beginning reading instruction (McCombes-Tollis & Spear-Swerling, 2011). This may be why studies suggest that most teacher preparation programs do not require PSTs to plan and implement lessons with struggling readers on a regular basis (McCombes-Tollis & Spear-Swerling, 2011; Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2004), and PSTs are seldom asked to evaluate their instruction by progress monitoring their students’ performance over time. Thus, we designed the field practicum where PSTs could regularly instruct beginning readers, with practical opportunities for PSTs to monitor students’ phonics performance and development. Simultaneously, the field experience allowed the university instructors to assess PSTs’ understanding of the literacy intervention in the applied setting and to determine what further supports were still needed by PSTs and their students to achieve reading success.

Third, as this was the first special education literacy course taken by PSTs, we tried to optimize the learning experience by limiting the complexity of the demands placed on them at any one time. One simplification was that PSTs tutored a single child for the duration of the semester (Morris, 2011, 2015). This allowed them to focus closely on one child to plan and evaluate their literacy instruction. A second measure was to ensure that all projects were bundled, introduced, and completed in phases, beginning with a focus on providing intensive instruction through the phonics lesson, and culminating in a complete literacy lesson that included instruction in sight words, guided reading, oral reading fluency, and comprehension. This allowed time for the PSTs to master one literacy component at a time, while shifting and expanding their knowledge over the semester to include more literacy components. In this way, we transferred increasing responsibility to the PSTs on a graduated basis, although we were concerned that this might have unintended consequences in meeting the full range of needs represented by their struggling readers in the practicum.

Two former studies conducted with PSTs informed this research and the design of the framework. Al Otaiba and Lake (2007) assigned PSTs to one of two conditions: Tutor-Assisted Intensive Learning Strategies (TAILS) and Book Buddies. TAILS was a code-focused intervention consisting of (a) word-building to develop phonological awareness, (b) identifying rhyming pictures, (c) sound blending and segmenting, (d) decoding phonetically regular words, (e) fluency, (f) vocabulary, and (g) comprehension. Tutors in the Book Buddies condition were told to incorporate code-focused instruction in the context of their book reading. At the end of the semester, a pretest–posttest examination showed that both groups of teachers gained significantly in their knowledge, but TAILS teachers scored higher in their feelings of preparedness and depth of knowledge in phonological awareness, phonics, and fluency. Subsequent analyses further revealed that TAILS students also showed more growth on the DIBELS test of Nonword Fluency, but there were no other statistically significant differences between the two groups in phonics knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension.

In a second study (Spear-Swerling, 2009), PSTs enrolled in a language arts course tutored a second-grade student in basic reading and spelling skills. The literacy intervention focused on (a) letter sounds, (b) phonics concepts/syllable types, (c) reading and spelling phonetically regular and irregular words, (d) fluency-building, (e) reading controlled or decodable texts, and (f) listening comprehension. Analyses of PSTs’ pretest–posttest knowledge showed significant improvements in their knowledge of graphophonemic segmentation, syllable types, identifying irregular words, morpheme segmentation, and general knowledge about reading. Likewise, their students showed significant pre–post differences in their knowledge of letter sounds, spelling, irregular words reading, irregular words spelling, and phonics concepts, although there were no relationships between teachers’ knowledge and their tutees’ progress.

Purpose of the Study

In summary, the purpose of this study was to pilot and evaluate a phonics literacy protocol that PSTs might implement with at-risk beginning readers. More studies are needed to show the impact of teacher preparation programs on special education PSTs’ knowledge and beliefs, and by extension, the impact of the teacher preparation program on the literacy achievement of the students they teach (Brownell et al., 2005). Because it was not possible to recruit a comparison group of PSTs and tutees, the purpose of this study was not to evaluate or to make claims about the impact of the teaching framework per se, but rather, to describe the teaching framework and its potential outcomes for PSTs and students. We also asked whether the intervention protocol could be implemented with fidelity as it was designed, or whether it was beyond the PSTs’ knowledge and attainment. We asked three questions related to the piloted protocol:

Research Question 1: How do the PSTs’ literacy knowledge and ratings of their self-confidence in teaching literacy to struggling readers change after implementing the phonics intervention?

Research Question 2: What are the effects of the PST-implemented phonics intervention on the phonics performance of their at-risk beginning readers?

Research Question 3: Can PSTs follow the intervention protocol to teach phonics to struggling readers?

Method

Field Setting for the Literacy Practicum

The field practicum operated in a community-based literacy organization which managed an after-school tutoring program for at-risk readers. The literacy organization specifically recruited university students and placed university tutors in one of 10 local tutoring sites where they were paired with an elementary student to tutor twice a week for an hour each session throughout the semester. Tutors were required to complete 5 hours of training provided by the literacy organization. The training focused on reading books, teaching sight words, and writing, but there was no formal training in teaching phonics.

Each week, the PSTs taught tutees in 1-hour, twice-weekly sessions for the 10 to 12 weeks remaining in the semester. They were supervised by mentor teachers and supervisors from the literacy organization at each site. For instructional materials, tutors had access to leveled books, lined paper, and whiteboards. Much of the community-based training focused on immersing the at-risk readers in developmentally appropriate books that were interesting and motivating to read. Through cooperative arrangements, the community-based organization ceded responsibility for the assignments and tutoring content to the university instructors for the semester.

PSTs and Their Students

PSTs were juniors in the special education program. Most teachers had a literacy assessment course in teacher education, but this was their first literacy course in special education. There were 48 PSTs enrolled in the course, including 46 females and two males: 44 of the PSTs were Caucasian, one African American, two Asian Americans, and one Arab American. PSTs were assigned to 48 tutees in the community tutoring program. Their students included 46 children in Grades 1 to 3, and an additional two students who participated in the program through another teacher education placement outside the literacy corps program. This was because the after-school tutoring hours did not fit into the PSTs’ schedules.

All tutees were referred by teachers because they were considered to be at risk in reading and writing (reading and writing below grade level). Demographically, the tutees included 24 African American students, 18 Caucasian students, 5 Hispanic American students, and one Asian American student. PSTs administered the San Diego Quick Word Assessment in the second tutoring session (La Pray & Ross, 1969). This survey showed that 37 tutees (77%) read at or below a first-grade level (preprimer, primer, or Grade 1), nine tutees read at a Grade 2 or 3 level, and one tutee read at Grade 5 level or slightly higher.

Assessment Materials

Measures of teacher knowledge

PSTs were tested on their phonics knowledge at the beginning and end of the semester. We modified Spear-Swerling’s (Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2003, 2004) knowledge assessment to evaluate PSTs’ knowledge of word structure. Prior studies of the reliability of this instrument ranged from .63 to .781 (Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2003). This assessment included five categories of items, including (a) multiple-choice survey of general knowledge, (b) Graphophonemic Segmentation Task where PSTs indicated the number of phonemes in 13 written words by counting and recording the phonemes in sound boxes, (c) syllable types test where PSTs indicated the syllable types of 13 pseudowords (closed, open, Final e, r-control, Vowel Digraphs, Vowel Diphthongs, stable _le), (d) irregular words task where PSTs circled the irregular words that violated common spelling patterns given a list of 30 common regular and exception words, and (e) miscue analysis test where the PSTs analyzed 16 oral reading miscues by naming the missed phonics elements and syllable types in each missed word. In addition, we administered an eight-item confidence scale where PSTs were asked to rate their confidence on a 5-point Likert-type scale related to teaching struggling readers (e.g., “Rate your current level of knowledge and confidence for planning and implementing lessons for struggling readers that address the following areas: phonological awareness, phonics, assessment, designing and implementing reading lessons, reading fluency, comprehension, collecting and analyzing data, and overall confidence in teaching struggling readers”). Altogether, there were 78 items on the knowledge survey.

Measures of student performance: Consortium on Reading Excellence (CORE) phonics survey

At the beginning of the semester, PSTs administered the CORE Phonics Survey (CORE, 2008) to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their students, and they wrote goals for identified difficulties. The Pearson test–retest reliability for the phonics survey is .98, and it is considered a reliable and valid measure of children’s phonics knowledge (Reutzel, Brandt, Fawson, & Jones, 2014). The CORE Phonics Survey included letters and words that were organized into 12 phonics categories (e.g., letter recognition, CVC words with short vowels, words with consonant blends and short vowels, words with consonant digraphs and short vowel patterns, and R-controlled vowels). Most subtests consisted of reading 10 real words and five pseudowords in isolation. The CORE also offered three levels of proficiency: Benchmark, Strategic, and Intensive. According to the CORE manual, older struggling readers who score at intensive levels will likely need instruction in phonemic awareness, blending, sound/spelling correspondences, and reading/writing words. Students who attain strategic levels of performance are expected to benefit from targeted and intensive phonics instruction (CORE, 2008). Students who perform at benchmark levels are likely to have mastered the fundamentals of the skill.

To identify appropriate levels for instruction, PSTs administered the CORE subtests until they reached two consecutive levels where the child read the words at a level that was deemed to be at the strategic level (67%-87%) or intensive level (≤60%). Practically, we considered the strategic level to be the closest to the child’s entry-level knowledge and the instructional level for the beginning of the intervention, and the intensive level to be at the frustration level, it being the most distant level or future goal for the development of phonics knowledge. The results showed that approximately 96% of the students qualified for instruction on basic phonics skills (Earle & Sayeski, 2017), such as reading CVC words with short vowels, short vowels in words with consonant blends or digraphs, R-controlled vowels, long vowels (Final e, vowel digraphs), or vowel diphthongs. Only two students (4%) qualified for more advanced instruction on low-frequency elements or multisyllabic words. Thus, nearly all students qualified for instruction for the phonics skills taught in the early grades (Grades 1-3).

Measures of student’s lesson performance using progress-monitoring assessments

In addition to the CORE Phonics Survey, probes were developed to monitor student’s phonics progress in the lessons. The probes were created for a developmental sequence suggested for remedial readers (Hegge, Kirk, & Kirk, 1965), and that also correlated to the skill sequence in on the Core Phonics Survey. Each probe contained 64 words that focused on a particular vowel element at each skill level (e.g., CVC words with short a, CVC words with short i), and students were given 1 minute to read the words. The probe was administered at the start of the lesson while PSTs marked correct/incorrect words on their copy of the probe, and the probe was readministered at the end of the lesson as a posttest. PSTs calculated the percent accuracy (number of words correct/number words attempted in 1 minute) and words correct per minute (WCPM). They graphed the accuracy and fluency data to (a) directly measure and compare their students’ pretest–posttest performance, (b) look for improvement on the missed words from the start of the lesson to the finish, and (c) evaluate the student’s progress over time by graphing the student performance data as a basis for decision-making.

To support decision-making, PSTs were given guidelines to evaluate the lesson data for planning purposes. Specifically, PSTs were told to continue teaching a skill until students read words with an appropriate degree of accuracy (90% accuracy) and fluency (>30 WCPM) for two consecutive sessions. Once the student reached this level on both dimensions (accuracy and fluency criteria), the next lesson shifted to a new skill. Through these assessment and decision-making routines, teachers were apprenticed into methods for using progress-monitoring data in a continual process of performance and lesson evaluation and data-based decision-making.

To confirm that PST’s reliably scored the phonics probes, we examined 33% of the PSTs’ record forms and performed inter-rater reliability on the scores assigned by students and their instructor on their scoresheets. For WCPM, reliability on the PSTs’ calculated fluency score was 99%, with exact score matches obtained 94% of the time. For percent accuracy, the overall inter-rater reliability between the percent accuracy attained by the PST and expert was 99%, with exact matches obtained 92% of the time.

Lesson Framework and Materials

The lesson framework included several essential components that featured explicit decoding instruction, sound blending, and rehearsal. Because the lesson was intended to be used as an intensive intervention for struggling readers or students with LDs in the early grades, there was intentional redundancy in the lesson plan through the implementation of mixed methods and activities that simultaneously focused on the targeted skill using different language modalities and a multisensory approach (speaking, reading, spelling, writing). The intensive intervention lesson plan (a) offered explicit instruction in the phonics sounds and decoding processes in a developmental continuum; (b) supported the development of phonological awareness skills (e.g., strengthening phoneme segmentation and phoneme blending skills); (c) promoted transfer by reading words in context; (d) offered word work and the systematic study of orthographic patterns using manipulative letters, words sorts, and spelling activities; and (e) built fluency and automaticity (Lane, Pullen, Hudson, & Konold, 2009; Rupley, Blair, & Nichols, 2009). Some of the activities were redundant, but we wanted the PSTs to experience the full range of phonics activities for their own development as future literacy teachers and literacy specialists. In this case, we erred on the side of preparing proficient teachers who understood the instructional routines at their disposal.

In addition, we created a framework that PSTs might adapt for different phonics skills and reading abilities. The framework was designed to be structured yet flexible, allowing PSTs to customize the language stems and words for their students’ phonics skills. This seemed to be a more viable option for teacher preparation than opting to purchase a licensed curriculum for three reasons. First, a licensed program with 40 or more sets was cost-prohibitive, and the management of the sets would be problematic. Second, we wanted PSTs to develop their pedagogical knowledge for teaching phonics and the developmental sequence rather than rely on a manualized curriculum or external program. Third, we wanted the PSTs to make decisions based on progress-monitoring tools and data that they collected and managed, as this is a cornerstone of curriculum-based measurement (CBM; Brownell, Sindelar, Kiely, & Danielson, 2010; McCombes-Tollis & Spear-Swerling, 2011). The components in the instructional framework that we developed for teaching the phonics portion of the intervention lesson are summarized in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Fidelity checklist for phonics lesson components.

The framework also offered a rubric for scoring the lesson plans and systematically observing the phonics lessons. The 10 components of the phonics lesson included the following:

Goal-setting: Pretesting and involving the student in setting an accuracy and fluency goal for the lesson based on a 1-minute phonics fluency probe with 64 words.

Modeling the new sound (or phonics rule) with sound (rule) rehearsal to develop the sound-symbol correspondence and alphabetic principle.

Presenting a picture mnemonic and a keyword (word–picture association) that contained the new sound or rule.

Modeling an explicit blending strategy using sound-blending routines and Elkonin sound boxes to read four to eight words with the new sound (Coyne & Koriakin, 2017).

Word-building using manipulatives or sound boxes to reinforce how the sound can be manipulated to read, build, blend, and write words.

Sorting words using a matrix with anchor words that represented the target sound and other known minimal-contrast patterns.

Building automaticity on four to eight lesson words in the matrix with Fast Reads (Fast Pencil).

Spelling five words from the matrix with the new sound and other known sounds.

Reading decodable sentences or books with the new sound.

Fluency probe (posttest): 1-minute probe on words with the phonics element.

Introducing the Lesson Components to PSTs in the Course (Apprenticeship)

Each step in the framework was introduced in the course by providing background information, concerning (a) the goal or purpose of the step, (b) why it was important, (c) when it might be used, and (d) how to perform the step (what to say and do). We further demonstrated each step by presenting an exemplary video of a teacher implementing the step with a child to provide visual and auditory models of the corresponding instruction (Sayeski et al., 2015).

In addition, to guide PSTs in the execution of the steps, we provided a lesson plan with instructional mini-scripts that contained language stems for each component step to cue the PSTs as to what they might say or do in each step (Englert, Hicks, & Mariage, 2018). Each teacher then customized and wrote their own lesson plan for their student by editing and modifying the language to teach a specific phonics skill based on their student’s identified needs, and they selected their own words, sounds, and examples to complete the modeling and guided practice requirements at each step. The mini-scripts increased the likelihood of intervention fidelity by cueing and scaffolding the teacher–student dialogic interactions, while allowing teacher decision-making and curricular modifications based on student needs and data. To ensure adequate modeling and rehearsal opportunities, we embedded links to videos in the actual lesson template so that the PSTs might view each of the steps as they planned and prepared their lessons.

Breakout Sessions and Teaching Project

To offer a more in-depth apprenticeship, PSTs received practical experiences on the lesson plan and concepts during breakout sessions as they worked in smaller groups led by one of three instructors to apply the knowledge to address specific problems, teaching scenarios, exercises, or student cases. The exercises in the breakout sessions involved PSTs in (a) identifying phonics skills needed by their student, (b) developing a lesson plan for their student, (c) implementing the mini-scripts, (d) analyzing and responding to reading miscues, (e) graphing data, and (f) evaluating phonics lessons and students’ progress.

To further develop teachers’ mastery of the instructional routines and mini-scripts, PSTs practiced the steps and scripts in the lesson plans and videos with lab partners in the breakout sessions. Feedback was provided to PSTs by their partners and instructors, and partners switched roles to ensure equitable practice for all PSTs. In addition to watching videos with examples of desired teaching practices, they watched some nonexamples so that they might become aware of the qualities that typified both effective and ineffective implementation. Through these instances of video analysis and reflection, PSTs observed and named successful teaching behaviors in actual lessons, as well as identified instructional behaviors that may have blunted opportunities to respond, or that interfered with students’ phonics development in some way (e.g., insufficient mastery on a component skill, too much word complexity and variability in the lesson).

In addition, multiple opportunities were provided for PSTs to apply their phonics abilities to analyze and identify missed phonics elements in students’ reading miscues. PSTs learned to create a diagnostic table by recording the missed text word in the first column, the reading miscue in the second column, and they performed a phonetic analysis of the missed elements in the third column. Several diagnostic routines were emphasized in this analytical process, including (a) circling the missed elements in the text word (based on the substitutions or omissions in the text word), (b) labeling each missed element in the third column (working left-to-right through the text word), and (c) consulting a phonics analysis grid with a developmental hierarchy to confirm the elements and teaching sequence. This was a diagnostic-prescriptive process that we emphasized throughout the semester because miscue analysis was a challenging skill. Simultaneously, PST’s performance on miscue analysis tasks yielded valuable information as to whether they were developing their knowledge of decoding patterns to make sense of the mistakes that children made while reading (Brownell et al., 2009). When PSTs did not automatically develop this knowledge as rapidly as we expected, we created additional practice materials and self-test materials and quizzes to further their mastery of this content.

Evaluating Phonics Lessons and Student Progress

Last, teachers completed an assignment that required them to use the instructional template and teaching toolkit to plan, implement, and evaluate a phonics lesson. To ensure teaching accountability, PSTs were asked to videotape and self-evaluate their lesson based on the teaching framework and guidelines (see Figure 1), as well as through the collection, interpretation, and evaluation of the student data based on the administration of the phonics probes at the beginning and end of each lesson. We offered data-decision rules and graphing templates for PSTs to display the student data and make relevant decisions. As stated previously, the criteria recommended for advancing students to the next phonics skill included both accuracy (>90% accuracy for two to three sessions) and fluency criteria (>30 WCPM for two to three consecutive sessions). Based on these criteria, the PSTs evaluated the progress of their students and submitted a written report that described their ability to implement the instructional framework, the progress of their student, and their teaching recommendations for future lessons. Instructors provided feedback to the PSTs on their written reports (lesson plans, student graphs, and instructional decisions). In addition, instructors watched the 30-minute videotapes using the detailed observation form (Englert et al., 2018) and offered individual feedback on the teaching practices on that basis.

After the project was completed, PSTs continued to teach, assess, and graph their students’ phonics performance as part of their daily lesson routines, although PSTs were expected to expand their lesson coverage to include other components of the reading lesson in the next course assignment. Specifically, for the next assignment, PSTs developed a lesson plan that focused on sight word and phonics instruction, as well as repeated reading (familiar book rereading, new book reading), fluency and prosody, progress monitoring through the collection and graphing of oral reading accuracy and fluency data, and comprehension instruction. Altogether, the content related to the assessments and phonics lesson was covered in the first 5 weeks of the semester, and the content related to the complete reading lesson was covered in the next 5 to 6 weeks of the semester. At the end of the semester, PSTs retested tutees using the same assessments administered at the start of tutoring, evaluated their students’ progress over the course of the semester, and submitted a final report with the lesson plans and graphs that they produced during the semester.

Teaching Framework and Scaffolds in the Toolkit

We designed a teaching framework and toolkit that offered a number of scaffolds to reduce the complexity of teaching phonics for the PSTs. We realized that PSTs did not have time to develop their own activities and tools to teach phonics to beginning readers, so we designed a set of mediational tools and teaching routines that they might use in their lessons, making it easier for teachers to “do phonics” and “talk about phonics” with their students. Because these templates are especially important but difficult to develop, we provide more detail than is customary in an article of this nature.

Phonics hierarchy

One scaffold that we provided was a developmental sequence of phonics skills (Morris, 2015). From past experience, we knew that PSTs did not enter the course with a solid understanding of the phonics principles or a phonics hierarchy. Often PSTs cannot reliably distinguish short from long vowel sounds, and they do not know the vowel patterns or syllable types. Accordingly, we provided an explanation of the phonics elements and gave the PSTs a phonics skills continuum they might follow. This hierarchy was designed to provide a foundation to help PSTs to identify the phonics elements and organize them into a sequence for instruction (e.g., what to teach first, second). The recommended scope and sequence for phonics instruction for beginning readers included the following: (a) knowledge of the high-frequency consonant sounds (e.g., m, n, r, s, t, c, p); (b) knowledge of short vowel sounds (short a and i; then o, u, e); (c) blending and reading CVC words with short vowels; (d) reading words with short vowels and consonant blends (e.g., bl, cl, fl, sl; br, cr, dr, fr); (e) reading words with short vowels and consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh); (f) long vowel sounds in words with Final e (CVCe); (g) words with R-controlled vowels (ar, or, ir, ur, er); (h) long vowels in words with vowel digraphs (ai, ay, oa, ee, ea); (i) words with vowel diphthongs (au, aw, oi, oy, ou, ow, ew); and (j) syllable types and multisyllabic word patterns (V/CV, VC/CV, -le syllables).

Picture mnemonics and sound rehearsal

A second scaffold that we incorporated into the framework was a focus on teaching new letter-sound correspondences through word–picture associations. Often PSTs provide insufficient attention to a new sound: They present and say the new sound, but there is inadequate demonstration and sound rehearsal. Accordingly, we recommended a word–picture association routine to make the new sound more salient and memorable (Ehri, 2014). PSTs were asked to develop a poster with a picture mnemonic and keyword with highlighted phonics elements to create a strong association between the letter, new sound, and picture-keyword that represented the new sound. PSTs were instructed to model and emphasize the letter name and sound and then offer immediate rehearsal by following a mini-script that asked students: “What letter?” “What sound?” and “What word?” Later in the lesson, the picture mnemonic and scaffolding routine could be used to scaffold students’ performance when they came to a word with the target phonics element that they could not identify.

Modeling sound blending and word reading using blending boxes/blending dots

Third, we introduced Elkonin boxes as an instructional scaffold to help PSTs teach sound blending and sound isolation (McCarthy, 2008). There is strong research evidence that suggests that students with reading disabilities have problems in processing and operating on the sounds of language (Ball & Blachman, 1988; Blachman, 1994). Furthermore, a child’s phonemic awareness is one of the most powerful predictors of later reading success (Blachman, 1994; Blachman, Tangel, Wynne, Black, & McGraw, 1999). Phonological awareness is also a skill area that is difficult for PSTs on knowledge surveys, suggesting that PSTs might not address the skill sufficiently in their lessons (McCombes-Tollis & Spear-Swerling, 2011; Moats & Foorman, 2003). Thus, we developed a protocol for the PSTs to help them to address phonological awareness skills to support word reading, sound blending, and spelling.

Elkonin boxes were introduced as visual boxes that allowed letters to be mapped into the component boxes (McCarthy, 2008). Morris (2005) suggested that mapping letters and sounds is an important step in helping emergent readers learn to decode. Elkonin boxes were useful in achieving the goal of developing phonological awareness and phonics skills because each phonetic element can be mapped into a sound box using an object or letter (Lane et al., 2009). Then, beginning readers can be asked to blend, read, build, or spell words that they form in the boxes. To ensure their use, we actually developed a developmental set of sound boxes that corresponded to the phonics skills continuum that had been introduced in the course (e.g., CVC, CVCe, R-control, CVVC, vowel diphthongs). Coyne and Koriakin (2017) further suggested that “Teachers often broadly explain the ‘rules’ for phonics or other skills but do not model or demonstrate the application of these rules” in reading or writing. Accordingly, we provided PSTs with instructional scripts based on a Model-Lead-Test format taken from Direct Instruction programs to strengthen the explicit decoding qualities of the lesson (Bursuck & Damer, 2011; Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver, 2010; Coyne & Koriakin, 2017; Earle & Sayeski, 2017). An example of an instructional script that was developed by a PST based on the explicit decoding and Model-Lead-Test format of the teaching template is shown below. This example illustrates how the teacher modeled sound blending and provided rehearsal to read CVC words (e.g., man) as it was presented in Elkonin boxes:

My turn to read the word. First, I’ll say the new sound. Then I’ll blend the sounds without stopping between the sounds in the word. Then I’ll say the word fast as I slide my finger under the word.

Listen. Sound? /a/.

Blend? mmmm-aaaa-nnnn.

Word? Now I’ll say it fast. “man.”

Did you see how I slid my finger below the word when I blended and said the word fast? I said the sounds without stopping.

Your turn. Sound? Blend? Word?

The blending boards and instructional mini-scripts helped PSTs to begin to systematically incorporate and teach sound blending using four to five words in their lessons. For older students who were learning multisyllabic principles, we provided lesson templates that guided PSTs and their students through other blending and word-reading routines, focusing on rules for syllable segmentation, syllable blending, and word reading.

Building words with manipulatives

A fourth scaffold incorporated manipulatives and multisensory techniques to develop the student’s knowledge of sound representation and orthographic mapping as prior research suggests that children perform better on decoding measures when they participate in word work using manipulative letters (Keesey, Konrad, & Joseph, 2015; Lane et al., 2009; Pullen & Lane, 2014). The lesson framework offered three options for building and manipulating the sounds in words. Each of these options incorporated the physical manipulation of moveable letters or used other multisensory techniques to support encoding (spelling) and decoding (reading) practice through multisensory actions with moveable objects to build, read, and spell words. The three options included Push and Say (Say It and Move It), Making Words (substituting and manipulating letters or sounds to build words), and Spelling words using Elkonin boxes (Tap It and Spell It). Once again, we provided videos and modeling to demonstrate each option, which included the following:

Push It-Say It. For push-and-say, the PST dictated a word, and the student built the word as they pushed up letter tiles or manipulative letter cards to construct the words (Keesey et al., 2015). Each time the student pushed up a letter, they said the sound and then blended the sounds together to say the word fast as they swept their finger below the printed letters.

Making Words. In making words, the PST presented manipulative letter tiles, magnetic letters, or letter cards and asked the student to manipulate or substitute letters to form new words. A simple mini-script included, “Make (Read) the word ___. Change the letter ___ to ___. What word?.” This activity helped the student to transfer knowledge based on the focus element in the lesson to form, build, and read new words (Morris, 2005).

Tap and Spell. Tap and spell was the third option that was designed to enhance student’s awareness of spelling patterns and spelling–sound relations. The PST dictated a word with the new phonics element as (a) students stretched and segmented the word into phonemes, (b) counted the sounds using their fingers or tapped the Elkonin sound boxes, and (c) spelled the word by writing the corresponding letter-sounds into the sound boxes. PSTs followed a mini-script by saying: “Say the word slowly and (count) tap the boxes for each sound you say” “How many boxes did you tap?” “So how many sounds?” Then, students were told to say the word slowly a second time as they were instructed to: “Write the letters for the sounds you say in the order you say them.”

Promoting generalization and automaticity

A fifth set of scaffolds were designed to deepen students’ consciousness of the orthographic and spelling principles and to promote greater automaticity. Several word-study activities were selected from Morris’s (2005) remedial program that was designed for struggling readers, including Word Sort, Fast Pencil, Spelling, and Decodable Books. These activities focused on developing automaticity in decoding and spelling new words with the new spelling pattern:

Word Sort: In Word Sort, students sorted a set of words under anchor words placed in columns that represented particular patterns and categories. One anchor word contained the target spelling pattern, and the other anchor words contained familiar patterns that were selected to focus attention on the sound-spelling pattern through minimal contrast pairs (e.g., short vowels in CVC words vs. CVCe words) or through word families (-at, -ap, -an). Each time a student sorted a word in a column based on similarities to the anchor word, the student read all the words in that column from the top to bottom. This drew attention to the spelling–pronunciation relationship and allowed for self-correction. At the end of the sort, the student explained the pattern that typified the words in each column to make their knowledge more explicit.

Fast Pencil: In Fast Pencil, PSTs sought to develop speed and automaticity (Morris, 2005). The PSTs used the eraser end of a pencil to point quickly to five words in the word sort matrix while students read them quickly. “Fast Pencil” was fun for the students, and PSTs often elected to use it in other areas of the lesson to build speed and automaticity.

Spelling: Next, the PST picked up five words from different columns of the word sort and asked the student to spell the words. The students self-checked the spellings of their words against the words on the index cards. This developed their metacognitive knowledge of spelling generalizations related to the target pattern or rule and integrated the spelling and decoding instruction so that each reinforced the other (Morris, 2005; Spear-Swerling, 2019).

Decodable books: It was also essential that beginning readers decode the new pattern in words and sentence contexts (Rupley et al., 2009). PSTs provided this practice using decodable books that contained high-frequency words with the pattern. Students read the phonetically regular words in context to develop more automatic recognition of sounds and patterns that they had practiced previously in isolation.

Phonics probes

Finally, one of the last scaffolds that we provided PSTs was a phonics probe to evaluate their students’ literacy progress in the lesson. A series of probes were developed that correlated with the phonics hierarchy. There were two primary reasons for incorporating the phonics probes in the daily lessons. For struggling readers, the failure to develop automaticity in applying the new phonics element to decode words automatically is a serious problem (Lane et al., 2009). Timed readings of word lists offered a tool to promote reading fluency and automaticity, and the hot-timing probes anchored the fluency-building components of the phonics lesson by tying instruction and practice to a measurable reading outcome. It created an opportunity for children to read words more automatically, as opposed to decoding words slowly or letter by letter. Furthermore, it allowed the students to participate in goal-setting, self-graphing, and self-monitoring their progress.

For PSTs, the phonics probes also served as a progress-monitoring tool. Teachers are more likely to sustain evidence-based practices when they see that the practices improve reading outcomes for their students (Al Otaiba & Lake, 2007). The daily collection of student data and performance graphing made visible the growth and progress of students, enhancing their ability to self-monitor and self-evaluate their lesson and teaching practices. In addition, PSTs were given firm criteria for knowing when a skill had been mastered and when to advance to the next skill (>90% accuracy, >30 wcpm). This helped teachers be more confident and resolute in teaching or reteaching skills until the students were solid and met the accuracy and fluency criteria. Once the student attained these mastery levels, the next lesson shifted to a new skill. Through these routines, teachers were apprenticed into methods for using progress-monitoring data in a continual process of performance evaluation and data-based decision-making.

Results

There were two types of pretest–posttest measures associated with teacher knowledge that were scored and analyzed. First, teachers were asked to rate their teaching confidence related to a number of literacy domains. Second teachers completed a knowledge survey that tested their general literacy knowledge and evaluated their mastery of particular concepts related to phonological awareness, phonics, word structure, and miscue analysis. In addition, we collected pretest–posttest data for their struggling readers on the CORE (2008) Phonics Survey, as well as analyzed the data from the phonics fluency probes that were administered by PSTs at the start and end of their lessons. All data were examined in a paired-samples comparison t test.

Teacher Confidence Scale

To compare confidence ratings of teachers on the pretest and posttest, a paired-samples t test was conducted on eight items on the teacher confidence scale (“Rate your current level of knowledge and confidence related to planning and implementing lessons for struggling readers that address the following areas of literacy”) and an overall aggregated or composite score. The means, standard deviations, t test, and standardized differences from pretest to posttest for the eight variables and the composite for each are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

T Tests on PSTs’ Self-Ratings of Their Confidence in Teaching Struggling Readers.

Literacy domain	Pretest		Posttest		df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
Literacy domain	M	SD	M	SD	df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
Phonological awareness	2.42	0.007	3.7	0.582	47	9.306	.000***	1.67
Phonics	2.34	0.939	4.13	0.61	46	13.16	.000***	2.26
Assessment	2.73	1.11	3.94	0.78	47	6.12	.000***	1.26
Plan/Implement lessons	2.58	1.01	3.98	0.67	47	8.32	.000***	1.64
Improve fluency	2.52	0.99	3.90	0.59	47	9.31	.000***	1.69
Teach comprehension	2.56	1.03	4.06	0.76	47	8.91	.000***	1.66
Collect/Use data in decision-making	3.00	1.07	3.94	0.810	47	4.73	.000***	0.989
Struggling readers	2.75	0.98	3.83	0.630	47	7.79	.000***	1.31
Total score	20.94	6.84	31.74	3.72	47	10.21	.000***	1.96

Note. PSTs = preservice teachers; ES = effect size.

¹Statistical significance for t-values: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

The results revealed statistically significant differences (p < .000) between the self-confidence ratings of PSTs for all items on the pretest and posttest. PSTs consistently rated their self-confidence higher at the end of the semester, as reflected in the self-ratings they assigned to their abilities to address the following areas of literacy: phonological awareness, phonics, assessment, planning and implementing lessons, improving fluency, teaching comprehension, using data, and teaching struggling readers. Furthermore, the results revealed effect sizes for the eight variables that were substantial and quite large (d > 1.0), with the largest effect size obtained for the self-confidence ratings assigned by PSTs to their ability to teach phonics (d = 2.26). Overall, the average PST’s confidence in the areas that were the focus of the course projects grew from not confident to confident.

Teacher Knowledge Survey

There were five components of teacher knowledge that were measured and evaluated on the Teacher Knowledge Survey, including PSTs’ performance on a multiple-choice knowledge test, a phoneme-grapheme mapping measure, identifying vowel and syllable types, irregular words, and performing miscue analyses (Spear-Swerling & Brucker, 2004). Table 2 reports the means, standard deviations, t test results, and standardized differences from pretest to posttest from the paired-samples t test analyses.

Table 2.

T Tests on PSTs’ Performance on the Knowledge Survey.

Knowledge type	Pretest		Posttest		df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
Knowledge type	M	SD	M	SD	df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
Multiple choice questions	7.65	2.34	11.45	2.57	48	9.63	.000***	1.54
Phoneme-grapheme mapping	4.59	3.35	10.41	2.97	48	10.21	.000***	1.84
Vowel and syllable types	1.88	2.71	8.47	3.07	48	11.35	.000***	2.27
Identifying Irregular words	2.00	2.47	6.06	3.31	48	7.61	.000***	1.39
Miscue analysis	0.25	0.69	40.13	5.43	48	52.45	.000***	10.31

Note. PSTs = preservice teachers; ES = effect size.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The t test analyses revealed significant gains in PSTs’ knowledge and performance from the pretest to the posttest (p < .000, d > 1.0) for all variables. As found in prior studies, PSTs began the semester with a limited knowledge of phonological awareness and phonics. On measures of their phonological awareness (phoneme-grapheme mapping), for example, PSTs in our sample achieved only 39% accuracy on the pretest, whereas they performed at 80% accuracy on the posttest. Similarly, on a task that required PSTs to identify the vowel and syllable types for pseudowords, they performed at 14% accuracy on the pretest, whereas they performed at 87% accuracy on the posttest, further suggesting that these PSTs could not identify the basic syllable types in early reading instruction (open, closed, CVC, CVCe, R-control, vowel digraphs, vowel diphthongs) prior to their participation in the coursework and phonics intervention.

The greatest pretest–posttest differences, however, were found for the PSTs’ abilities to perform miscue analysis. On the pretest, the PSTs’ ability to identify and label the phonics elements missed in text words hovered near 0 (M = 0.25), indicating that they could not label or name the missed phonics elements in oral reading miscues. On the posttest, the PSTs averaged 40 points, and the difference between the means on the pretests and posttests was more than eight standard deviations. Overall, these results confirmed that PSTs’ entry-level knowledge for phonics, word structure, and phonological awareness was quite poor and created an insufficient foundation for phonics instruction using a diagnostic-prescriptive model of instruction. They could not diagnose the oral reading miscues of students. This would be problematic in early reading instruction without intensive teacher preparation intervention and literacy supports.

CORE Phonics Survey

In addition to evaluating changes in teacher’s knowledge, we performed analyses on students’ performance on the phonics probes and CORE Phonics Survey. First, we conducted an inter-rater reliability on PSTs’ scoring of the pretest and posttest phonics performance of their students on the CORE Phonics Survey. We randomly selected 18 PSTs (six PSTs from each of the three breakout groups) to represent approximately 38% of the students in the study. Then, we calculated the percent agreement between the PST and course instructor on three relevant dimensions (e.g., raw score, % accuracy, risk level) on the pretest and posttest. Average exact agreement was sufficient and large (94%).

Next, we analyzed pretest–posttest performance on two consecutive subtests where the students performed at the strategic level (67%-87% accuracy) or intensive level (0%-60% accuracy). As part of this analysis, we included two dimensions of performance: (a) the student’s percent accuracy on the subtest and (b) risk status on the subtest. The CORE Phonics Survey offered three risk levels: (a) benchmark/low risk, (b) strategic/some risk, and (c) intensive/great risk. Correspondingly, we examined the changes in the students’ accuracy and risk levels on the two subtests from pretest to posttest.

In addition, we analyzed the percent accuracy and fluency on the phonics probes administered at the beginning and end of lessons. Nearly 50% of the PSTs introduced a second element or skill, so there were multiple skills that they graphed and reported. Their lesson reports included both accuracy and fluency levels on the pre-lesson test (administered prior to lesson) and post-lesson (administered following the lesson) phonics probes. Consequently, we compared the pretest and posttest data from the lesson probes in a paired-samples t test analysis.

Table 3 reports the means, standard deviations, t test results, and standardized differences from pretest to posttest for the accuracy and risk levels for the two CORE subtests, as well as the accuracy and fluency on the phonics probes administered by the PSTs to measure performance on the two taught phonics skills.

Table 3.

T Tests on Student Outcomes on the Core Phonics Survey and Phonics Probes.

Knowledge type	Pretest		Posttest		df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
Knowledge type	M	SD	M	SD	df	t value	Signif.	Cohen’s d (ES)
CORE Subtest1: % Accuracy	61.5%	22.134	87%	14.99	48	8.654	.000***	1.34
CORE Subtest1 Risk Level^a	2.42	0.613	1.71	0.94	48	4.499	.000***	.892
CORE Subtest2 % Accuracy	45.4%	22.60	72%	23.06	46	9.095	.000***	1.17
CORE Subtest2 Risk Level	2.83	0.383	2.04	0.759	45	7.006	.000***	1.31
Phonics Probe Skill1 Accuracy	62%	26.42	84%	18.07	47	6.367	.000***	0.97
Phonics Probe Skill1 Fluency	18.27	15.26	27.63	19.31	47	7.215	.000***	0.54
Phonics Probe Skill2 Accuracy	73%	18.93	92%	9.40	22	4.845	.000***	1.4
Phonics Probe Skill2 Fluency	22.17	14.99	34.04	18.00	22	9.155	.000***	0.716

Note. CORE = Consortium on Reading Excellence; ES = effect size.

Risk Level: Benchmark = 1; Strategic = 2; Intensive = 3.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

On the CORE subtest variables, the t test analyses revealed statistically significant growth and large effect sizes for all student variables (p = .000, d > .80). These results suggested that students’ accuracy on the CORE Phonics Survey improved from pretest to posttest. Because the CORE subtests included more elements beyond those directly taught by PSTs, it is notable that students showed improvements on a more generalized measure of phonics performance that went beyond the specific skills taught in their phonics lessons. Furthermore, performance on the second subtest increased the most, which is surprising because we considered this to be the most distant level from the student’s entry-level performance. In fact, the students’ percent accuracy on the second CORE subtest was only 45% on the pretest, but they had improved their performance to 72% at the time of the posttest. Thus, they had progressed from the intensive (frustration) to the strategic (instructional) level of performance on the most difficult and advanced subtest. Likewise, on the first subtest, they improved from 62% to 87% accuracy, progressing from frustration on the first skill to within range of benchmark levels (93%-100%).

Students’ accuracy and fluency on the phonics probes

In addition, we performed a paired-samples t test to compare students’ performance on the phonics probes for the two skills that were the focus of the semester-long intervention. The probes were administered before the lesson was taught (pretest) and after the lesson was taught (posttest). This was repeated in successive lessons with new words on the next probe until the student met criterion and a second skill was introduced.

Students’ accuracy and fluency on the pretest and posttest phonics probes are reported in Table 3. The results revealed statistically significant changes in students’ accuracy and fluency from pretest to posttest (p < .0001) for the two skills assessed on the two probes. For both probes, effect sizes were greater for accuracy than for fluency. One reason for this might be the tendency for students’ accuracy to improve first when acquiring new skills, followed by increasing fluency and automaticity with repeated exposures to the skill in different contexts. This is consistent with a stage model of skill development.

Teachers’ Adherence to the Phonics Intervention Protocol

The final question that was addressed in the study was how successfully the PSTs were able to follow the intervention protocol in planning and teaching their lessons. We examined whether the PSTs followed the 10 steps in the lesson template, as outlined in Figure 1. We randomly selected 18 PSTs, which represented approximately 38% of the teachers in the class and coded their 30-minute videos.

On average, the PSTs included 94% of the steps and stages of the template protocol. Their lessons and videotapes contained the dialogic elements and the literacy routines that had been established for effectively “talking about” and “doing phonics” with their at-risk readers. They successfully modeled the new phonics elements and provided guided practice by employing the multiple literacy routines in their lesson plans. Both their lesson plans and videos reflected the sound-blending and word-building routines on the template, and they incorporated the visual scaffolds and manipulatives to support students’ learning. Although the PSTs were still somewhat reliant on the instructional script, they adhered closely to the plan that had been set forth. We considered them to be successful in implementing the phonics intervention.

Discussion

One of the primary purposes of this study was to examine the effects of the phonics intervention and lesson framework on the knowledge and performance of the PSTs. Most tutoring programs are not implemented by PSTs as part of their regular coursework, so little is known about the impact of such programs on the development of teaching expertise. We were especially interested in the effects of PSTs’ participation in their knowledge and feelings of preparedness to teach reading.

The findings suggested that the PSTs improved in their phonics knowledge over the course of the semester. They developed greater awareness of phoneme-grapheme mapping rules, irregular words, and the classification of words by vowel and syllable types. In addition, the greatest gains were evident in their ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving work as they performed miscue analyses. At the beginning of the semester, PSTs could not diagnose or name the missed phonics elements in reading miscues, whereas they were highly accurate at the end of the semester. Remarkably, the PSTs’ posttest performance on the miscue analysis measure exceeded their pretest performance by more than eight standard deviations. Furthermore, it was apparent that teachers did not automatically transfer their knowledge of phonics elements to perform reading diagnoses without specific attention to this skill. That is, PSTs needed to study and consciously memorize the phonics elements, apply their knowledge to diagnose oral reading miscues, and receive feedback on their decisions. As suggested by Brownell et al. (2009), PSTs may have some knowledge about teaching reading, but they did not know how to operationalize it. Without explicit attention to this component in the course, the phonics knowledge of PSTs seemed to lie superficial and inert.

On a second measure of the PSTs’ self-confidence in teaching struggling readers, they showed growing confidence from pretest to posttest in their ability to plan and implement lessons, improve reading fluency, teach comprehension, explicitly instruct struggling readers, and collect/use data in a decision-making process. Generally, ratings improved more than one standard deviation from pretest to posttest in all areas, with the exception of their self-confidence in using data, which approached one standard deviation. Although this was still a large effect size, we felt this showed a slight reservation on their part, perhaps because PSTs had developed a growing awareness of the technical knowledge that is required to progress monitor and graph data. Although it is not possible to attribute the outcomes to particular components (coursework, fieldwork, templates), we suspect that the regular practice of involving PSTs in planning phonics lessons and administering the data collection probes enhanced their feelings of self-efficacy and their ownership of the reading outcomes. In fact, the real “aha” moment for PSTs came at the end of the semester when they collected the posttest data because they realized their own agency and success in teaching their students based on actual reading outcomes. Thus, we surmise that the confluence of structured lessons, practicum experiences, instructional feedback, and student data are necessary to produce high levels of teaching self-efficacy.

Regarding the question about the reliability of PSTs in following the intervention protocol, the results were quite clear. Given a template for the phonics lesson with scripted components, PSTs were able to follow the dialogic framework. It offered a scaffold sufficiently strong that they were able to implement the teaching routines, and the teaching script allowed them to step into more proficient and competent dialogic roles in the lesson. Analyses of randomly selected videotapes showed that PSTs were able to enact the teaching moves with high fidelity. This level exceeded our expectations and showed that dialogic supports can be developed that enable PSTs to “talk about” and “do phonics” with their struggling readers before they have fully mastered all the teaching moves and content on their own. In other words, university instructors can strengthen the practicum experience by offering a structured literacy program that scaffolds and benefits PSTs before they can perform the routines independently. We recommend that the structured literacy program should include a teaching toolkit that contains the symbol systems, mnemonic techniques, and dialogic routines that make visible the metalinguistic properties of the written register within the context of the phonics lesson. With these tools, it is feasible and possible to move the endpoint (mature teaching) to an earlier point so that the distance between novice and expert teacher is decreased. The teaching template, however, must be intensive, explicit, and scaffolded; otherwise, it will not be successful. Furthermore, without a teaching practicum to implement the template and student data to evaluate the instructional outcomes, the content is likely to seem meaningless and senseless to PSTs because instructional discourses must be acquired and practiced in culturally relevant settings where teachers can witness the relationship between their actions and student outcomes.

Naturally, the big question is whether the phonics intervention delivered by PSTs was effective for the children in the tutoring program. Our findings supported those found by Spear-Swerling (2009) and indicated that both PSTs and their students benefited from the relatively brief tutoring program. Tutoring was an effective means to address the reading needs of students who are at risk for reading disabilities (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 2000). Furthermore, the reading gains were possible when the intervention was delivered by PSTs as part of their regular coursework and given the time constraint limits imposed by the semester. Students’ performance improved on near- and far-transfer skills on the CORE Phonics Survey, lowering students’ risk status to a significant degree. Furthermore, tutored students were more accurate and fluent on the phonics probes administered by PSTs during the lessons. Despite juggling the learning and teaching needs of PSTs and their students, the field experiences were generally beneficial to both teachers and students (Al Otaiba & Lake, 2007; Spear-Swerling, 2009). The PSTs whose coursework included research-validated tutoring sessions were able to implement effective teaching practices to such an extent that they positively influenced the reading outcomes of their struggling readers.

Limitations

There are several limitations of this study. First, we do not know the long-term effects of the phonics intervention and whether students’ reading gains are maintained beyond the semester. A question is what level of knowledge is retained by students, and what type of extended instruction may be necessary to close the achievement gap between struggling readers and typical readers. It is likely that a short-term intervention is not sufficient to accelerate growth in subsequent months or years once the intervention has been terminated. Furthermore, for students with significant and persistent reading difficulties, research suggests that continued remediation is often essential to maintain performance; otherwise, performance will decline (Vaughn et al., 2012). Future research might concentrate on the long-term effects of the intensive phonics intervention implemented by PSTs on their students.

Second, we do not know how well the PSTs might perform when they do not have access to the teaching templates. As long as PSTs can offload the cognitive demands of teaching phonics onto the tool, they can successfully implement a phonics lesson. This suggests that PSTs who act in collaboration with the mediational tool can improve their teaching performance to attain higher levels. Likewise, by providing mediational tools and frameworks that support thinking and dialogic routines, universities can improve the performative abilities of their special education prospective teachers when they lack formal experience in teaching phonics. We doubt that a full apprenticeship model (progressing from modeling to independent performance) can be attained within a single semester given the fact that even experienced teachers fall back on published curricula to lessen the cognitive demands of teaching. No more should be expected of PSTs, and we view lesson frameworks and guidelines as vital to support our novice teachers. Undoubtedly, PSTs would have been unsuccessful and lost in attempting to teach phonics to their struggling readers without strong teaching scaffolds and literacy supports.

Third, we recognize that a major limitation of this research is the lack of a control group of teachers and students. Until we can examine the performance of control PSTs and students, it is impossible to say how the experimental effects might be explained by normal growth and development. Although it will be difficult to make those arrangements in the current configuration of the course and practicum, this is an important measure to take to add more rigor to this body of work.

Conclusion

In summary, this pilot provides additional evidence that tutoring can be an effective means to address the phonics difficulties of struggling readers and that PSTs also may benefit from implementing a systematic and intensive phonics protocol. Furthermore, the lesson protocol was likely a critical component for both the struggling readers and PSTs. The combination of coursework and fieldwork that focused on the instruction of struggling readers in authentic settings was a powerful model for teacher preparation. In this study, we showed a strong link between special education teacher preparation in scaffolding novice teachers’ implementation of research-based practices in applied contexts and student achievement outcomes. In the end, in this study, we suggested that the principles taken from a sociocultural model might offer a conceptual basis for identifying tools and practices that might serve to close the gap between novice and proficient teaching performance.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

All of the instructional materials, teaching framework, and observation materials are available from the first author upon request.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Carol Sue Englert

Author Biographies

Carol Sue Englert is a professor of Special Education. Her research interests include literacy instruction for students at risk for school failure with a specific focus on the examination of discourse, text structures, cognitive strategies, and social mediation during reading and writing instruction.

Troy V. Mariage is an associate professor of Special Education. His research interests are in the areas of literacy instruction for students with mild disabilities in elementary classrooms. He has conducted work in early reading instruction, writing instruction, and cognitive strategy instruction that leads to self-regulated learning.

Adrea J. Truckenmiller, is an assistant professor of Special Education. A school psychologist by training (Syracuse University, 2011), Dr. Truckenmiller’s applied and research work involves screening, diagnostic, and progress monitoring assessment to inform instruction. Her research interests involve connecting teachers with evidence-based instruction through formative writing and reading assessments.

Julie Brehmer is a doctoral student in Special Education. Her research interests are in the area of literacy instruction for students with high incidence disabilities, with a specific interest in poetry. Ms. Brehmer is also a middle school special education teacher.

Karen Hicks is a special educator. She has worked in public education as a special education teacher, interventionist, and teacher consultant. Karen is currently an instructor of pre-service teachers in the areas of literacy and assistive technology.

Courtney Chamberlain is a doctoral student in school psychology at Michigan State University.

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