Model Demonstration Projects, Focus Area 1: Instructional Models to Improve
the Early Reading Results for Children with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

A disproportionate number of children in inner-city schools who are poor, culturally diverse, and who have learning disabilities fail to make expected progress learning to read and subsequently enter special education programs and drop out of school. However, an extensive knowledge base exists indicating that reading success or failure has its roots in early parenting and development prior to schooling. The probability of reading failure is further increased by instruction that too often fails to address early literacy and critical reading skills, putting these students on a life-long trajectory of failure due to poor instruction. This alterable problem is clearly a failure to bridge the gap between research and practice.

A powerful strategy known to accelerate the basic academic skills of these children is the Class Wide Peer Tutoring program or CWPT (Delquadri, Greenwood, et al., 1986; Greenwood, 1997). CWPT has been the object of more than 35 experimental evaluations generated by its originators or by others who have successfully replicated (Maheady & Harper, 1987) or adapted its procedures (Mathes, Fuchs et al., 1994). This body of work has shown that students at-risk and with mild disabilities accelerate their acquisition of skills, retain more of what they learn, and make greater advances in social competence when using CWPT compared to conventional instructional methods. However, least developed in this research is the use of CWPT in the teaching of beginning reading.

Increasingly, research has identified the early literacy and reading skills (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) necessary for eventual reading success. These include oral language, story retelling, phonemic awareness, and concepts of print among others. And, when through curricular design, these skills are taught using principles of explicit instruction and well-connected knowledge structures (Rosenshine, 1997), student learning is accelerated. Least developed however, are curricula that support CWPT forms of instruction. Taken together, these curricular and instructional knowledge bases represent a major asset in our efforts to accelerate the literacy of culturally diverse children with learning disabilities. By combining recent CWPT research with new research on early reading skills, the aim of this project is to develop, demonstrate, evaluate, and disseminate a version of CWPT-Beginning Reading (CWPT: BR) for use in primary reading instruction.

This project addressed at least 7 national priorities in the education of children with disabilities: literacy, inclusion, accelerated learning, high standards, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and research into practice. The benefits for potential CWPT: BR users will be in terms of improvements in the quality and efficiency of CWPT, and thus, CWPT's wider-scale use with increased benefits to literacy. Benefits were directly realized by the 185 students and 11 teachers who participated in the CWPT: BR research studies. The benefits to others will be the knowledge and lessons learned concerning demonstration of the broader notion of how existing effective practices may be established, sustained, and evaluated in local schools.

CWPT – Beginning Reading (CWPT: BR) is a set of curricular and instructional interventions built on principles of curricular design in reading, reciprocal-peer-teaching, integration with other ‘teacher mandated reading programs’, behavior management, and instructionally relevant measurement. Based on the research and direct participation of administrators and teachers, CWPT-Beginning Reading has become a comprehensive, effective, and sustainable approach to teaching reading. The participants were the Kg and first grade general and special education teachers and administrative staff in two elementary schools who serve children who are at risk, are culturally diverse, have mild disabilities, and are included within the general education program for reading instruction.

CWPT: BR is very flexible and adaptable, thus it can be used with any primary level curriculum for teaching pre-reading skills in any given classroom. The CWPT: BR teacher’smanual provides a stand-alone set of classwide peer tutoring implementation instructions for 16 different beginning reading skills modules.

The individual CWPT: BR teaching modules can be selected and used in any order and reused for reviews and mini refresher sessions. Each of the modules has the accompanying computer software capabilities to create visual/picture flashcards, specific to each module. The classroom teacher has full control and selection for creating the flashcards needed to effectively implement any and all of the 16 modules.

The CWPT: BR program CD software was designed to link directly to each of the program modules in the teacher’s manual. The software provides computer technology to expedite a teacher’s use of visual aids and teaching support materials through its 4 distinct programs. The three CWPT: BR software programs are as follows:

1. the Flashcard Generator
2. the Assessment Generator, and
3. the Tutoring Templates Catalog Generator
4. the Cut-and-Paste Tool

The CWPT: BR Flashcard Generator allows the teacher to create/generate both picture or word flashcards and a combination of the two. It can generate three distinct types of flashcards; a module based flashcard with pictures and correct responses on the backside of the flashcard for each individual reading skill module; a standard basic learning flashcard which includes number words/numerals/ counting dots, color words /colors, shapes (geometric)/shape words, punctuation marks/ words, directional arrows /words, instructional words, the days of the week, the Dolch Sight Word list, alphabet letters (upper case/lower case/and the combination of each), and pictures and words for the most common kindergarten picture/word list . The CWPT: BR Flashcard Generator also has a “customize” feature that allows the teacher to create combinations of various module flashcards and even create other flashcards more specific to the content/skills they are teaching.

The CWPT: BR Assessment Generator has two specific functions. The first is to provide 2 assessment forms that can only be printed off for use for individual student assessments at the beginning of the year, during the middle of the year (optional), and again at the end of the year to document student acquisition and mastery progress. One of the two tests is a basic or standard test form called the “Student Global Assessment” form and it contains all of the items contained in the Basic Learning Flashcard module listed above. The second test is an assessment document for assessing the various levels of the Dolch Sight Words. These two assessment forms cannot be modified in any way and are available for printing a universal assessment form that can be used with all students multiple times.

The second function of the CWPT: BR Assessment Generator is to allow the teacher to create other assessments specific to the content being taught, curriculum based assessments (CBMs). This customized assessment feature has the ability to link back to any and all of the basic pictures and visuals of the Flashcard Generator, as well as having the capacity to allow teachers to create, develop, and/or utilize more specific reading content vocabulary. Teachers can control the number and placements of the assessment items they would like by pre-specifying the dimensions of the assessment grid they are creating.

The CWPT: BR Tutoring Templates Catalog Generator is provided on the CD to allow teachers access to all of the forms and materials needed to implement the classwide peer tutoring program including the tutoring placemat, help card, comprehension prompt card, the smiley face point sheet, the numbered point sheet, tutoring worksheets, one for both kindergarten and first through third grades, test scores chart, and the oral reading/comprehension assessment form. These forms are available for printing only and cannot be modified.

The fourth and final feature of the software program is the CWPT: BR Cut-and-Paste Tool. This function is provided to allow the user to import words and word lists from other computer sources outside the CWPT: BR program itself.

The “standard” ClassWide Peer Tutoring has been proven effective with students from pre-school age to high school age levels, and has been successfully used with regular, special education, limited English proficient students, attention deficit disordered students and students at risk for academic failure, regardless of ability levels. The primary goal of the CWPT: BR programwas to facilitate students’ achievement, acquisition, and mastery of the basic skills needed to learn to read. It incorporates a stimulus-response, error correction, tutoring technique and game format that benefits both the tutor and the tutee.

For further information and cost of the CWPT: BR program and implementation materials, please refer back to the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project’s site map under products, ClassWide Peer Tutoring: Beginning Reading (CWPT: BR).