md. 97 56p. - ericdocument resume ed 405 569 cs 012 757 author wharton-mcdonald, ruth; and others...

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 405 569 CS 012 757

AUTHOR Wharton-McDonald, Ruth; And OthersTITLE Outstanding Literacy Instruction in First Grade:

Teacher Practices and Student Achievement. ReadingResearch Report No. 81.

INSTITUTION National Reading Research Center, Athens, GA.;National Reading Research Center, College Park,MD.

SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.

PUB DATE 97CONTRACT 117A20007NOTE 56p.PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Beginning Reading; Classroom Research; Classroom

Techniques; Elementary School Teachers; *Grade 1;Interviews; *Literacy; Primary Education; ReadingAchievement; *Teacher Attitudes; *TeacherEffectiveness; Teaching Styles; WritingAchievement

IDENTIFIERS Beginning Writing; Direct Instruction; Scaffolding

ABSTRACT

Classroom observations and in-depth interviews wereused to study nine first-grade teachers who were nominated bylanguage arts coordinators as being either outstanding or typical intheir ability to help students develop the skills of beginningliteracy. Based on observational measures of year-end student readingand writing achievement and on ongoing measures of studentengagement, three groups of teachers emerged from the original set ofnine. Among the three teachers in the highest achievement group, thefollowing cluster of beliefs and practices were found to distinguishtheir instruction from that of their more typical peers: (1)instructional balance of skills and high-quality reading and writingexperiences; (2) a high density of instruction; (3) extensive use ofscaffolding; (4) encouragement of student self-regulation; (5) athorough integration of reading and writing activities; (6) highexpectations for all students; (7) masterful classroom management;and (8) an awareness of purpose. Results complemented earlier surveydata that highlighted the complexity of primary literacy instruction.These data and the previous survey results provide convergent supportfor the conclusion that truly outstanding primary-level literacyinstruction is a balanced integration of high-quality reading andwriting experiences and explicit instruction of basic literacyskills. (Contains 66 references and 3 tables of data. Appendixespresent interview protocols, sample questions asked of teachers, anda sample model presented to a teacher during an interview.)(Author/RS)

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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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Outstanding Literacy Instruction inFirst Grade: Teacher Practices andStudent Achievement

Ruth Wharton-McDonaldMichael PressleyJennifer Mistretta-HampstonState University of New York at Albany

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Educational Research and Improvement

EDU ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

This document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationoriginating it.Minor changes have been made toimprove reproduction quality.

Points of view or opinions stated in thisdocument do not necessarily representofficial OERI position or policy.

NationalReading ResearchCenter

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 81

Winter 1997

IV EST COPY AVAILABLE

NRRCNational Reading Research Center

Outstanding Literacy Instruction in First Grade:Teacher Practices and Student Achievement

Ruth Wharton-McDonaldMichael Pressley

Jennifer Mistretta-HampstonUniversity of New York at Albany

READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 81Winter 1997

The work reported herein is a National Reading Research Center Project of the Universityof Georgia and University of Maryland. It was supported under the Educational Research andDevelopment Centers Program (PR/AWARD NO. 117A20007) as administered by the Officeof Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The findings andopinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the NationalReading Research Center, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, or the U.S.Department of Education.

3

NRRC NationalReading ResearchCenter

Executive CommitteeDonna E. Alvermann, Co-DirectorUniversity of Georgia

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Publications Editors

Research Reports and PerspectivesLinda DeGroff, Editor

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NRRC - University of Georgia318 AderholdUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, Georgia 30602-7125(706) 542-3674 Fax: (706) 542-3678INTERNET: [email protected]

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About the National Reading Research Center

The National Reading Research Center (NRRC) isfunded by the Office of Educational Research andImprovement of the U.S. Department of Education toconduct research on reading and reading instruction.The NRRC is operated by a consortium of the Univer-sity of Georgia and the University of Maryland CollegePark in collaboration with researchers at several institu-tions nationwide.

The NRRC's mission is to discover and documentthose conditions in homes, schools, and communitiesthat encourage children to become skilled, enthusiastic,lifelong readers. NRRC researchers are committed toadvancing the development of instructional programssensitive to the cognitive, sociocultural, and motiva-tional factors that affect children's success in reading.NRRC researchers from a variety of disciplines conductstudies with teachers and students from widely diversecultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in pre-kinder-garten through grade 12 classrooms. Research projectsdeal with the influence of family and family-schoolinteractions on the development of literacy; the interac-tion of sociocultural factors and motivation to read; theimpact of literature-based reading programs on readingachievement; the effects of reading strategies instructionon comprehension and critical thinking in literature,science, and history; the influence of innovative groupparticipation structures on motivation and learning; thepotential of computer technology to enhance literacy;and the development of methods and standards foralternative literacy assessments.

The NRRC is further committed to the participationof teachers as full partners in its research. A betterunderstanding of how teachers view the development ofliteracy, how they use knowledge from research, andhow they approach change in the classroom is crucial toimproving instruction. To further this understanding,the NRRC conducts school-based research in whichteachers explore their own philosophical and pedagogi-cal orientations and trace their professional growth.

Dissemination is an important feature of NRRCactivities. Information on NRRC research appears inseveral formats. Research Reports communicate theresults of original research or synthesize the findings ofseveral lines of inquiry. They are written primarily forresearchers studying various areas of reading andreading instruction. The Perspective Series presents awide range of publications, from calls for research andcommentary on research and practice to first-personaccounts of experiences in schools. InstructionalResources include curriculum materials, instructionalguides, and materials for professional growth, designedprimarily for teachers.

For more information about the NRRC's researchprojects and other activities, or to have your nameadded to the mailing list, please contact:

Donna E. Alvermann, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center318 Aderhold HallUniversity of GeorgiaAthens, GA 30602-7125(706) 542-3674

John T. Guthrie, Co-DirectorNational Reading Research Center3216 J. M. Patterson BuildingUniversity of MarylandCollege Park, MD 20742(301) 405-8035

NRRC Editorial Review Board

Peter AfflerbachUniversity of Maryland College Park

Jane AgeeUniversity of Georgia

JoBeth AllenUniversity of Georgia

Janice F. AlmasiUniversity of Buffalo-SUIVY

Patty AndersUniversity of Arizona

Harriette ArringtonUniversity of Kentucky

Marna BanningUniversity of Utah

Jill BartonElizabethtown College

Eurydice BauerUniversity of Georgia

Janet BentonBowling Green, Kentucky

Irene BlumPine Springs Elementary School

Falls Church, Virginia

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John BorkowskiNotre Dame University

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Rockville, Maryland

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Michelle ConuneyrasUniversity of Georgia

Linda CooperShaker Heights City Schools

Shaker Heights, Ohio

Karen CostelloConnecticut Department of Education

Hartford, Connecticut

Jim CunninghamGibsonville, North Carolina

Karin DahlOhio State University

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Washington, Georgia

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Bernardino

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Minnesota

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James KingUniversity of South Florida

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Bert ManginoLas Vegas, Nevada

Susan MazzoniBaltimore, Maryland

Ann Dacey McCannUniversity of Maryland College Park

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Veda McClainUniversity of Georgia

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Mike McKennaGeorgia Southern University

Barbara MichaloveFourth Street Elementary School

Athens, Georgia

Elizabeth B. MojeUniversity of Utah

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John O'FlahavanUniversity of Maryland College Park

Marilyn Ohlhausen-McKinneyUniversity of Nevada

Penny OldfatherUniversity of Georgia

Barbara M. PalmerMount Saint Mary's College

Stephen PhelpsBuffalo State College

Mike PickleGeorgia Southern University

Amber T. PrinceBerry College

Gaoyin QianLehman College -CUNY

Tom ReevesUniversity of Georgia

Lenore RinglerNew York University

Mary RoeUniversity of Delaware

Nadeen T. RuizCalifornia State University-

Sacramento

Olivia SarachoUniversity of Maryland College Park

Paula SchwanenflugelUniversity of Georgia

Robert SerpellUniversity of Maryland Baltimore

County

Betty Shockley-BisplinghoffBarnett Shoals Elementary School

Athens, Georgia

Wayne H. SlaterUniversity of Maryland College Park

Margaret SmithLas Vegas, Nevada

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County

Bernard SpodekUniversity of Illinois

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Steve StahlUniversity of Georgia

Roger StewartBoise State University

Anne P. SweetOffice of Educational Research

and Improvement

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Louise WaynantPrince George's County Schools

Upper Marlboro, Maryland

Dera WeaverAthens Academy

Athens, Georgia

Jane WestAgnes Scott College

Renee WeisburgElkins Park, Pennsylvania

Allan WigfieldUniversity of Maryland College Park

Shelley WongUniversity of Maryland College Park

Josephine Peyton YoungUniversity of Georgia

Hallie YoppCalifornia State University

About the Authors

Ruth Wharton-McDonald is a postdoctoralresearch associate in the department of EducationalPsychology and Statistics at the State University ofNew York at Albany. She has worked with chil-dren experiencing reading difficulties in hercapacities as a reading specialist and as a schoolpsychologist. Her research has addressed variousaspects of school learning and, in particular,literacy learning. Currently, she is studying effec-tive literacy instruction at the elementary levelwith the National Research Center on EnglishLearning and Achievement

Michael Pressley is a Professor of EducationalPsychology and Statistics, State University of NewYork at Albany, and a principal investigatcir withthe National Reading Research Center. He haspublished extensively in the areas of reading,memory, and cognition and instruction. His cur-rent work is diverse, including studies of exempla-ry primary-level reading instruction, comprehen-sion strategies instruction, and student use ofgraphing calculators in postsecondary mathematics.

Jennifer Mistretta-Hampston obtained herdoctorate in educational psychology and statisticsfrom the State University of New York at Albany.Her research focuses on the beliefs and practicesof parents regarding their children's educationaldevelopment. Her dissertation focused on parentalbeliefs about early literacy development. She iscurrently as assistant professor at YoungstownState University in Ohio.

National Reading Research CenterUniversities of Georgia and MarylandReading Research Report No. 81Winter 1997

Outstanding Literacy Instruction in First Grade:Teacher Practices and Student Achievement

Ruth Wharton-McDonaldMichael Pressley

Jennifer Mistretta-HamptonState University of New York at Albany

Abstract. Classroom observations and in-depthinterviews were used to study nine first-grade teach-ers who were nominated by language arts coordina-tors as being either outstanding or typical in theirability to help students develop the skills of begin-ning literacy. Based on observational measures ofyear-end student reading and writing achievementand on ongoing measures of student engagement,three groups of teachers emerged from the originalset of nine. Among the three teachers in the highestachievement group, the following cluster of beliefsand practices were found to distinguish their instruc-tion from their more typical peers: (a) instructionalbalance of skills and high-quality reading andwriting experiences, (b) a high density of instruc-tion, (c) extensive use of scaffolding, (d) encourage-ment of student self-regulation, (e) a thoroughintegration of reading and writing activities, (f) highexpectations for all students, (g) masterful classroommanagement, and (h) an awareness of purpose. Theoutcomes reported here complement earlier surveydata that highlighted the complexity of primaryliteracy instruction. These data and the previoussurvey results provide convergent support for theconclusion that truly outstanding primary-levelliteracy instruction is a balanced integration of high-

1

quality reading and writing experiences and explicitinstruction of basic literacy skills.

The nature of effective primary literacyinstruction has been the topic of heated debatein education for most of this century (Adams,1990; Balmuth, 1982; Chall, 1983a; Huey,1908). In part, the task of teaching beginningreading effectively receives so much attentionbecause the failure to develop basic readingabilities during the first few years of schoolportends a host of later academic, economic,and even social-emotional difficulties (e.g.,Athey, 1976, 1982; Dunwant, 1982; Lloyd,1978; Snider & Tarver, 1987).

As a result of the intense interest in earlyliteracy development, a variety of models andtheories have been proposed to explain howchildren learn to read, with each theory offer-ing its own recommendations for instructionalpractice (e.g., whole language, sight word,phonics, linguistic approaches). In its currentrendition, the debate focuses on the importanceof literature and composing versus an emphasison skills development. At one extreme are theproponents of the whole language model, who

2 Wharton-McDonald, Pressley, & Mistretta-Hampston

place the reading of fine literature and thecomposing of meaningful messages at thecenter of literacy instruction. At the otherextreme are those who advocate phonics-firstapproaches. For discussions of this debate seeAdams (1990), Milligan (1988), Nicholson(1992), Smith (1994), Stahl (1992), and Stahl,McKenna, and Pagnucco (1994).

According to whole language advocates,children can acquire the skills of written lan-guage as they do oral language. That is, just asoral language develops as a product of chil-dren's natural interactions with the linguisticenvironment, so the skills of literacy willdevelop naturally if a child is surrounded by anenvironment rich in print and opportunities touse print in authentic situations, including forexample, the composition of meaningful texts(Goodman, 1989; Goodman & Goodman,1979).

In contrast, the skills-based approach ispredicated on a hierarchical model of learningto read in which children must learn to "breakthe code" of written language (Chall, 1983b;Flesch, 1955; Gough, 1972; Gunning, 1995).According to Chall and others, the ability toread is not a defining human trait, as is lan-guage. That is, humans have not evolved sothat they are neurobiologically prepared tolearn to read from mere exposure to print.Typically, humans must be taught to read.Advocates of skills-based approaches argue thatchildren require explicit instruction in thesubskills of readingespecially decodinginorder to become proficient readers (e.g., Ad-ams, 1990; Chall, 1983b; Henry, 1993).

There exists already a vast literature de-scribing reading development and the various

aspects of these approaches (and others) fromthe perspective of university researchers. Ingeneral, the existing literature falls into threebroad categories: (1) theoretical models ofreading development (e.g., Chall, 1983b;Goodman & Goodman, 1979; Gough, 1972;Roswell & Natchez, 1989); (2) comparativestudies of early reading improvement, usuallyfocused on two contrasting approaches (seeStahl & Miller, 1989; Stahl, et al., 1994 forreviews); and (3) testimonials of those favoringa particular perspective (e.g., Shannon, 1994;see Fry, 1993 for a discussion of such testimo-nials). Theoretical models of reading develop-ment typically have been derived from experi-mental studies of the visual, perceptual, cogni-tive, and motivational processes involved inlearning to read. The focus, thus, has been onstudent processes, and the role of the teacher inthese studies has been minimized. The secondgroup of studiesthose comparing instruction-al approachesaddresses teacher practice, butalmost always from the standpoint of generalprogram components as measured by brief,objective, classroom observations. Again, thevoices of the teachersincluding their personaltheories and specific patterns of practicehavebeen omitted. Finally, instructional testimoni-als, while presenting the teachers' points ofview, typically focus on the benefits of a singleaspect of one teacher's classroom practice,such as the use of big books, and do not at-tempt to present any systematic analysis ofother critical aspects of instruction. Thus,despite the breadth of the existing literature onbeginning reading, the research contains adisturbing gap: There is a lack of systematic

NATIONAL READING RESEARCH CENTER, READING RESEARCH REPORT NO. 81

0

Outstanding Literacy Instruction in First Grade 3

study of effective teachers, a lack of under-standing of their practices and perspectives.

This is a puzzling omission. Research onprofessional expertise has established thatcompetent professionals are able to providevalid and accurate information about the con-scious decisions they make as they do theirjobs. Indeed, experts in a profession typicallyhave a privileged understanding of what theydo. As such, they are often consulted as theprimary source when the goal is to understandexpert performances, with observations andinterviews used to illuminate their detailedunderstandings of the tasks they perform (Chi,Glaser, & Farr, 1988; Diaper, 1989; Ericsson& Smith, 1991; Hoffman, 1992; Meyer &Booker, 1991; Scott, Clayton, & Gibson,1991).

Because of the potential of excellent teach-ers to provide insights into the nature of effec-tive primary reading instruction, our groupdecided to study the beliefs and practices ofthese teachers. The first effort in that directionwas an interview study of a sample of primary-level (K-2) teachers who were nominated bytheir supervisors as outstanding in promotingthe literacy acquisition of their students (Press-ley, Rankin, & Yokoi, 1996). A national

- sample of such teachers responded to twosurveys. The first consisted of open-endedquestions about their literacy instruction withgood, average, and weak readers. Teacherswere asked to list the ten most important thingsthat they did with each reader type. Theseresponses then were used to generate more than400 questions in a second questionnaire, onwhich teachers indicated whether they used aparticular practice and/or the extent to what

they did. Any practice nominated by even asingle teacher on the first questionnaire ap-peared as a question on the second question-naire.

The teachers in the Pressley et al. (1996)study reported that they (a) offered qualitative-ly similar instruction to students of all abilities,(b) developed literate environments in theirclassrooms, (c) modeled and taught decodingand comprehension skills, (d) required exten-sive and diverse reading by their students, (e)taught students to plan, draft, and revise aspart of writing, (f) did much to motivate theirstudents to read and write, and (g) monitoredcarefully their students' progress in readingand writing. In short, with only a few excep-tions, the teachers reported using both skillsinstruction and immersion in a literate environ-ment in their literacy programs. This studysensitized us to the possibility that excellentprimary level teaching might not reflect eitherof the extremes in the current debate aboutliteracy instruction. Rather, the teachers in thisinitial study reported a balance of skills instruc-tion and whole language practices. Thesereports are consistent with an emerging themein the language arts education community thatbalancing whole language and skills instructionhas great potential for developing broadlycompetent readers and writers (Adams, 1990;Cazden, 1992; Delpit, 1986; Duffy, 1991;Fisher & Hiebert, 1990; McCaslin, 1989;McIntyre & Pressley, 1996; Pressley, 1994).

Of course, one limitation of the Pressley etal. (1996) study was that, as a survey, it wasconducted at something of a distance fromactual teaching. A second problem was thatonly teachers believed to be very strong in the


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Wharton-McDonald, Pressley, & Mistretta-Hampston

Table 1District Characteristics

District A District B District C District D

District Type suburban suburban suburban suburban

% Free/Reduced 17% 5% 16% 12%Lunch

% Minority 1.8% 3.7% 7.9% 1.6%

area of literacy were surveyed, so that theperspectives held by outstanding teachers couldnot be differentiated from the perspectives ofmore average teachers. The present study,therefore, took a different approach in which asmaller sample of teachers believed to vary ineffectiveness were observed over time andinterviewed in depth.

As in Pressley et al. (1996), we identifiedteachers who were perceived by supervisors asbeing outstanding in promoting their students'literacy in this investigation. At the same time,we identified a second group of teachers con-sidered to be more average in their effective-ness. Because of the particular focus on firstgrade in the great debates on beginning readinginstruction, grade one instruction was the targetof this study. All of the teachers were observedteaching over the latter two-thirds of the schoolyear (December-June). They were also inter-viewed in depth about their beliefs about teach-ing, with the interviews being informed by theongoing observations.

The goal of this study was to develop anunderstanding of first-grade literacy instructionfrom the dual (but hopefully converging)perspectives of the researchers and of theteachers themselves. From the outset, we

recognized the limitation of being able to studyonly a small number of teachers as intensely asteachers were studied here. The depth of ap-proach taken here was complemented by thebreadth of the earlier survey (Pressley et al.,1996), however. Thus, we believed that anyconclusion emerging both in this study and theprevious survey would be highly credible, as itwould be supported by converging data fromstudies using very different methodologies. Thedegree of convergence is one focus of thediscussion that concludes this article.

Methods

Participants

Four suburban school districts volunteeredto participate in the study. Three describedthemselves as serving primarily middle- tolower-middle class families; one served pri-marily upper-middle class families (see Table1 for the percentages of children receiving freeand reduced price lunches in each district). Inparticipating districts, language arts coordina-tors were asked to nominate one or moreteachers in each of two categories. The firstcategory consisted of first-grade teachers who


12


were considered to be truly exceptional athelping their students achieve literacy. Asecond category consisted of first-grade teach-ers who were perceived to be otherwise similarto their outstanding peers and who servedsimilar populations, but who were much moretypical or average in promoting student litera-cy. Importantly, these were not to be weakteachers, but rather teachers who representedtypical literacy instruction in the district. Onedistrict (District C) nominated two outstandingteachers and one typical teacher. The remain-ing three districts each nominated one outstand-ing and one typical teacher.

Specific criteria for nominating outstandingteachers were left up to the nominators. How-ever, coordinators were asked to make asstrong a case as possible, using whateverevidence was available that these teachers weretruly exceptional. The criteria cited most fre-quently in this category were (a) observedteacher behaviors (cited for all five of theteachers nominated as outstanding), (b) teacherenthusiasm (cited for all five teachers), (c)students' reading achievement at the end of theyear (cited for four of the five teachers), (d)students' writing achievement at the end of theyear (cited for four of the five teachers), (e)teacher involvement in improving his or herown practice (cited for four of the five teach-ers), (f) students' enthusiasm for reading (citedfor four of the five teachers), (g) the desire tohave their own child (i.e., the supervisor's)placed in these classrooms ("This is the teacherI would want my child to have for firstgrade.") (cited for four of the five teachers),(h) the teacher's ability to reach students witha wide range of abilities and backgrounds (cited

for two of the five teachers), and (i) positivefeedback from parents (cited for two of the fiveteachers). Only one district administered stan-dardized tests in first grade, which accounts forthe supervisors' general neglect of test scoresduring the nomination process.

There was a wide range of teaching experi-ence in the sample of teachers. Among theoutstanding teachers, the average (mean) num-ber of years teaching was 8.2 with a range of2 to 25 years. Among the typical teachers, theaverage number of years teaching was 12 withan identical range of 2 to 25 years. All fiveteachers nominated as outstanding were wom-en. Three of the four teachers nominated astypical were women.

Data Collection

In studying a classroom culture, there aregenerally three types of information that can bestudied: what teachers and students do (behav-ior), what teachers and students say (language),and what teachers and students create (artifacts)(Spradley, 1980). Each of these types of infor-mation was recorded throughout this study.The primary means of data collection includedclassroom observations and teacher interviews.The data consisted of field notes from theobservations and discussions with teachers,verbatim transcripts from the ethnographicinterviews, sample instructional materials, andrepresentative student work products.

Observations

Approximately twice a month from Decem-ber to June of the 1994-1995 school year,


13


researchers observed literacy instruction ineach classroom being studied. Observationswere timed to coincide with scheduled languagearts periods, and typically lasted between oneand two hours. Most of the observations wereconducted by the first two authors. In addition,the third author conducted a smaller number ofobservationsat least one in each classroom.Most of the observations were consistent withwhat Spradley (1980) terms passive participa-tion or what Wolcott (1988) refers to as privi-leged observer status. That is, in most instanc-es, the observer sat in an unobtrusive spot inthe classroom during periods of language artsinstruction and did not interact with the stu-dents or teacher to any great extent. Theamount of interaction with students and teach-ers that occurred while students were workingwas largely dependent upon the comfort anddistractibility levels of the participants. Duringobservations, observers were frequently able toask the teacher brief questions during instruc-tional breaks. As the year progressed, theobservers increasingly interacted with thestudents, asking brief questions about theactivities in which they were engaged (forexample, "What are you writing?", "How didyou know how to spell that?", or "What doyou do when you don't know a word?"). Inaddition, the observers regularly documentedthe types and levels of materials used as well asvarious characteristics of student writing.

Information culled from the observationswas recorded as written field notes throughoutthe observation periods. Two complete sets offield notes were maintained, and at frequentintervals, the two primary observers reviewedeach other's notes and discussed similarities

and differences in their observations of thesame classrooms. In order to maximize theaccuracy of the notes and facilitate later analy-ses, the three language principles recommend-ed by Spradley (1980) were followed in takingfield notes. For each entry, the languageusedwhether it was the observer's or theteacher'swas noted (the language identifica-tion principle). Whenever possible, the lan-guage of the teachers and students was record-ed verbatim (the verbatim principle). Wheninteractions or events were recorded, they weredescribed using concrete language; observersmade a conscious effort to keep abstract jargonfrom being used in field notes (the concreteprinciple). In addition to the field notes, mapswere made of each classroom indicating therelative space and location of students, teacher,desks, chairs, books, and other available mate-rials.

Interviews

Twice during the year (in March and inJune), in-depth ethnographic interviews wereconducted with each participating teacher.Teachers each received $25 for each interview.The primary purpose of the remuneration wasto communicate to the teachers an appreciationand respect for the value of their time.

Interviews were recorded on audiotape andtranscribed verbatim. Consistent with ethno-graphic methods, the first interview was semi-structured in format, following an outlinedeveloped from the information emerging fromongoing observations. Teachers were encour-aged to speak at length about topics they feltwere important, and were permitted to pursue


14


tangents not covered by the outline. The pur-pose of the first interview was to clarify ob-served practices and explore teachers' beliefsand purposes for the methods and approachesthey used in literacy instruction. The questionsthat were presented to all participants arerecorded in Appendix A. Because teacherpractices differed somewhat and the interviewspermitted some flexibility to pursue points thatseemed important or in need of clarification, notwo interviews were identical. Appendix Bincludes a sampling of questions posed tospecific teachers.

When the first ethnographic interviews wereconducted, approximately halfway through thestudy (in March), the transcriptions weresubjected to the same type of coding applied tothe field notes (see data coding below). Ingeneral, the information provided in the inter-views was consistent with the informationemerging from the observations, and thusserved as a source of triangulation (Lincoln &Guba, 1985). In instances where informationoffered in the interviews conflicted with infor-mation obtained during observations, theseinstances were probed to determine whetheractual differences existed or whether perceiveddifferences were actually a matter of differentdefinitions among researchers and teach-ersdifferences between the etic and the emicperspectives (Wolcott, 1988). This processinvolved going back to the teachers and class-rooms for clarification and, ultimately, finetuning of emerging patterns and hypotheses.(Instances in which researchers and teachersdiffered in their interpretations of classroompractice were, in fact, rare.)

The second interview also included thetypes of questions included in the first inter-view. However, the primary purpose of thesecond interview was to serve as a member-check on the individual models of instructionemerging from the data. Thus, each teacherwas presented with an individualized model ofliteracy instruction developed from the obser-vations, interviews, and artifacts collectedthroughout the school year. Each teacher wasasked to review the model and critique it fromhis or her perspective. Specifically, teacherswere asked to search for inconsistencies,gaps, errors, or misrepresentations in themodels. One teacher's model is included inAppendix C.

Artifacts

Throughout the observations, classroomartifacts were noted, collected, and examined.Observers recorded titles and reading levels ofbooks used for read aloud, reading groups, andindependent reading. Writing journals spanningthe school year were examined and pagesperiodically xeroxed for closer study. Moreformal samples of student writing were collect-ed and examined throughout the year. Otherartifacts noted and collected included posters,charts, available books (on shelves, in desks,in the library, available for take-home), studentprojects, and a wide variety of teaching devicesand classroom materials. Information aboutartifacts was integrated into the classroommodels emerging from the observational data.Furthermore, samples of student work productsand records of their reading materials wereultimately used to assess levels of students'


15

Wharton-McDonald, Pressley, & Mistretta-Hampston

reading and writing achievement in each class-room.

Data Coding

The process of condensing vast quantities ofqualitative data into manageable, meaningfulunits and assigning labels to the informationcompiled during a study is the process ofcoding. Specifically, the coding process in thisstudy was described by Strauss and Corbin(1990). Initial data from observations andinterviews were reviewed line by line, andbeside each line or paragraph, categories orlabels were generated to describe the data.After each observation session, the field noteswere reviewed and coded and details and gapswere filled in. Again, the three principlesdescribed above were used to guide these edits.Thus, consistent with the method of constantcomparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), analysesand data collection intermingled throughout thecourse of the study.

For each classroom, each observer built amodel of instruction, identifying categories ofexperience and relating those categories to oneanother. During subsequent observations andduring the first interview, investigators lookedfor information confirming or refuting emerg-ing categories. Gaps were filled in as well,with new categories added to the model asneeded. Questions and gaps that became obvi-ous during analyses were used to focus subse-quent observations. By the conclusion of obser-vations, for both observers and for all class-rooms, the emerging models had stabilized sothat no new categories or important relationsbetween categories were being detected during

final visits. As described above, these modelswere then presented to the teachers for consid-eration during the second interview.

Validity and Reliability

The criteria for validity and reliability in aqualitative study are necessarily different fromthose applied to a study using quantitativemethods. Lincoln and Guba (1985) discussvalidity and reliability in terms of four basiccriteria: truth value, applicability, consistency,and neutrality. They compare these to thetraditional criteria of internal and externalvalidity, reliability, and objectivity.

Validity

A number of techniques were employed inthis study to ensure its validity, or to useLincoln and Guba's term, its credibility. Thesetechniques included three types of triangula-tion: data triangulation, methodological trian-gulation, and investigator triangulation (Den-zin, 1989). Data triangulation was accom-plished by collecting data in nine differentclassrooms and on a number of different occa-sions in each classroom. This technique en-abled us to compare data collected from vari-ous sources and times, increasing the likeli-hood that emerging themes and hypotheseswere truly representative of the phenomenastudied. Methodological triangulation wasobtained by using both observational andinterview methods. That is, data were collectedthrough more than one method, and the dataemerging from the two methods were thensearched for consistencies. Finally, three


16


investigators were involved conducting class-room observations. The two primary investiga-tors met regularly to compare emerging codesand findings in the data. Data from the thirdinvestigator were compared less formally andserved as a validity check on emerging find-ings. The information emerging through theseprocesses was constantly cross-checked toensure that what one investigator observed wasnot simply a fluke, and that all investigatorswere aware of the findings emerging in the dataof the others. This technique was intended toreduce bias on the part of any one investigator.Denzin refers to this as investigator triangula-tion.

In addition to the technique of triangulation,negative case analysis was employed to refinethemes and hypotheses so that ultimately theycould account for all known cases in the data.This process involves searching the data forexamples that disconfirm emerging themes.Thus, the process of data analysis in this studywas continuously (and consciously) self-criti-cal.

One of the criticisms of much of the existingeducational research is that it lacks ecologicalvalidity. That is, in an effort to control allpossible variables, researchers carry out unnat-urally brief, contrived studies outside of theclassroom. We attempted to counter this criti-cism by using prolonged engagement in theclassrooms. Lincoln and Guba (1985) describedthis technique as the investment of sufficienttime to learn a culture, test for misinformation,and build trust with informants. By spendingthe better part of a school year in the class-rooms being studied, we were able to becomevery familiar with their classroom cultures and

build what seemed to be trusting relationshipswith the participating teachers.

A final technique intended to maximizevalidity of this study was the technique ofmember checking, in which emerging themodels were presented to the members of theoriginal groups from whom the data werecollectedin this case, the teachersfor con-sideration during the second interview. Ourgoal in asking teachers to participate in modeldevelopment in this way was to produce mod-els of literacy instruction that would reflect notonly the researchers' (etic) perspective, but avalid emic perspective of the classroom cultureas well. By constantly comparing the twoperspectives and searching them for similaritiesand differences, we were able, ultimately, todevelop a single coherent model of outstandingfirst-grade reading instruction that includesboth the researchers' and the teachers' perspec-tives.

Reliability

Reliability is somewhat more difficult toestablish in qualitative research, because theinstruments of data collection are the investiga-tors themselves. A number of techniques havebeen recommendednone without criticism. Inthis study, the principle approach to reliabilitywas through triangulation (of data, methods,and investigators) and through the establish-ment of interrater reliability during each stageof the coding and model-building processes.Initially, interrater reliability was obtained toensure that the three investigators were in factrecording the same types of information in theclassrooms. Where differences were found,


17


agreement was reached so that all observerswere recording the same basic events, activi-ties, and interactions. Later, as coding schemesbegan to emerge, interrater reliability wasagain established and then checked periodicallyto ensure that the same or conceptually similarcodes were being used consistently acrossobservers. Finally, the models of individualteachers and eventually of outstanding readinginstruction were drafted individually by each ofthe primary investigators and then checkedagainst one another to ensure reliability acrossinvestigators. Throughout this process, therewas very little disagreement between the ob-servers, with all of the conclusions offered heresupported by multiple observations in eachobserver's field notes and analyses of fieldnotes.

Results

Measures of Student Achievement

Once the individual teacher models had beenconfirmed by the teachers during the secondinterviews, then attention shifted back to theanalysis of outstanding versus more typicalteaching. We did not, however, simply analyzethe teaching of nominated-outstanding versusnominated-typical teachers. During the courseof the study, achievement differences betweenclasses became obvious, with several types ofdata used to differentiate the relative capabili-ties of the teachers. Three types of informationwere obtained over the course of the year thatwere informative about the academic progressof students: reading levels, writing levels, andstudent engagement.

Reading Levels

It became obvious, as the year progressed,that in some classes students were readingmore challenging texts on average than in otherclasses. The observers systematically recordedtitles and reading levels (when available) oftexts read during lessons and during freechoice reading periods. The variability on thisdimension was high by the end of the year,with most students in some classes consistentlyreading at or above a beginning second-gradelevel and with most students in other classestypically reading materials below a beginningsecond-grade level. Students in these low-achievement classes were frequently observedreading from primer-level basals or from smallbooks with highly predictable text and limitedvocabulary.

Students in most classes had opportunities toread words and sentences in isolation, as partof lessons in decoding or grammar. Thesetypes of exercises were recorded and are de-scribed below. However, determinations ofstudents' reading levels were based solely ontheir reading of connected text (stories, poems,and nonfiction pieces).

As would be expected, there was a range ofreading levels, not only between classes, butwithin each classroom as well. Although noformal measures were used to assess students'reading achievement in September, teacherreports indicated a wide range in all class-rooms. Interview data indicate that in eachclassroom, there were one to three childrenwho began the year not knowing all of theirletters. In addition, there were several childrenin each classroom who began the year reading



fluently at least at a late-first-grade level. Thenumber of these children was greatest in Dis-trict B, where parents tended to be well educat-ed and only 5 % of students received free andreduced price lunches. The numbers werelowest in Districts A and D, where parentaleducation was more variable and more childrenreceived free and reduced price lunches (seeTable 1).

The disadvantages of not having pretestmeasures are acknowledged below in the dis-cussion section. It is our contention, however,that valid, objective measures of literacy devel-opment would be extremely difficult to collectat the beginning of first grade, because teachersand parents (justifiably) oppose testing duringthe first few weeks of school. Moreover, by theend of the first month or two, differences inteachers have already created measurabledifferences in student performance that wouldconfound the results of any pretest measures.For example, observations now being conduct-ed by one of us as part of another projectreveal significant differences in teacher expec-tations and student-written products as early asthe seventh week of school.

Writing Levels

By the end of the year there were clearbetween-class differences in length and coher-ence of writing as well as correlated differencesin the use of mechanics. In some classes, manystudents wrote compositions from one to threepages long on the same topic with many wordsspelled correctly and much of the punctuationcorrect. The following is a writing sample froma student in one of these classes who was ratedas average by his teacher (H3):

My best friend is my brother, we go to camptogether. We go swimming off the dock. OurGrampa takes us fishing in a boat. We rideour bikes on the camp roads. We get upearly in the momig and go for a ride to getchocolate milk and donutes. Then, we go fora ride around the lake. We go for a ride toSand Island and play on the island. We havecampfires at night and roast marshmellows.(spelling as in original)At the other extreme were classes in which

most compositions were a few sentences longat most, with spelling and punctuation general-ly unconventional. For example, an averagestudent in one of these classes (L3) wrote, "Ilov my mom I lov my dad I lov my dog he ismy bets frend." Much of the writing in theseclasses consisted of single-sentence responsesto questions posed by the teacher or on a work-sheet.

Engagement

For the purposes of this study, a studentwas coded as engaged if he or she was activelyinvolved in a learning activity. Thus, reading,writing, listening, or talking about a relevanttopic would be coded as "engaged." Staringout the window, engaging in idle chatter, orfiddling with the contents of one's desk wouldall be coded as "non-engaged." Early in theyear, observers noticed striking differences instudent engagement between classes and beganrecording them systematically. Specifically,observers surveyed the classroom every five toten minutes and counted the number of chil-dren who appeared to be engaged. Duringcoding, these numbers were converted topercentages. In some classes, most students


19


were engaged most of the time. Typical en-gagement rates in these classrooms rangedfrom 80 % to 100% . In contrast, other classeswere much more variable, including someclasses in which low attentiveness was com-mon. For example, in one such classroom,typical engagement rates ranged from 50 % to65 %.

Teacher Groupings as a Function of StudentAchievement

By the end of the year, three clusters ofteachers emerged from the sample. In thecluster of teachers with highest-achievingstudents, most students were reading at orabove grade level, and most students werewriting compositions that were typically a pageor longer with accurate punctuation and capi-talization. Furthermore, while we focused onthe progress of the majority of students in eachclass, we also noted that the low-achievingstudents in these classes had made considerableprogress and, with the exception of one studentwith Down Syndrome, were all reading materi-als at a mid- to late-first-grade level. Except forthe student noted above, all of these strugglingstudents were writing coherent, fairly well-punctuated compositions of at least a page inlength. Typically, in the classes with the high-est-achieving students, all or nearly all of thestudentsincluding the low achieverswereengaged in ongoing activities and at no timewas engagement observed to be less than 60 % .

In general, the teachers with highly engagedstudents were those who were able to meetstudents' individual learning needs. However,each of the three teachers in the high-achieve-

ment group had his or her own approach foraccomplishing this. One taught reading andwriting in two ability-based groups that metdaily. Within each group, students sometimesworked on independent assignments or in pairsor small groups. The other two teachers gener-ally had some whole group activity followed byvariable groupings. The first teacher indicatedthat she did not use whole group instructionbecause it required the teacher to "target somegroup" (H2, Il, p.1). She also believed that"it's really boring and really horrible for thekids who already know ... the things you'reteaching to have to sit there and listen to themagain." In contrast, the second teacher in thisgroup believed strongly that all students bene-fited from interacting with the whole group:

I think ... that the whole group discussionthat we have in the beginning ... lets every-body be part of the group. And not, "Well,I gotta go over here 'cause I'm a bluebird,and I'm not as good as the other birds in thegroup. I'm more on equal ground being ableto share with the rest of them. And, I'mprivy to their strengths in language. I canhear what they're saying. And, when I leavethat meeting ... a lot of things have beenbrought to my attentionthat are going tohelp me or set me up for success in the nextthing I'm going to do...." I think they needthat warm up discussion: "What do youknow about a subject?" To get everybody totalk about it. Talk about it, print it up on theboard, go back over it, and then move on toyour next activity. (H3, II, p.10)From the perspective of the observers, it

was clear that another factor contributing tostudents' high levels of engagement in theseclassrooms was the teachers' enthusiasm. Asone teacher put it, "You can never tell the


20


kids, 'Do as I say, not as I do.' You can't.They ... do what they see" (H1, Ii, p. 26).These teachers not only enjoyed children, theyalso loved learning, and it showed. Thus, wenever observed any of the top three teacherssaying, "This is the boring part, but we have toget through it," or "Wouldn't it be great if wehad a snow day tomorrow?" Rather, theypresented difficult tasks as exciting challengesand consistently gave the impression thatschool was the place to be.

At the other extreme in our measures ofachievement were three classes in which bothreading and writing were unimpressive relativeto the three strongest classrooms. Many stu-dents in these classrooms ended the year read-ing at an early- to mid-first-grade level; asignificant minority were still reading bookswith only one word per page. The writing inthese classrooms tended to be unorganized,poorly punctuated, and very brief (a few sen-tences at most). And engagement was eitherextremely variable (ranging from 20% to 85 %in one classroom) or consistently low (about65 % in another). In some cases, students wereunengaged because they did not understandwhat they were supposed to be doing. In othercases, they simply appeared to be uninterestedand, for some children, the activities and taskspresented were either too easy or too difficultand thus did not seem to merit their attention.Finally, achievement measures in the threeremaining classrooms were in the middle, andmore variable, with students performing betterthan those in the three weakest classrooms butnot as uniformly well as those in the threestrongest classrooms.

From the outset of the study, we viewed thesupervisor nominations as only a starting pointwith respect to evaluation of the quality ofinstruction being observed. From the begin-ning, observers were looking for potentialindicators of achievement that might provide abasis for more definitively determining thequality of teaching. In general, however, thesupervisors ratings mapped on to differenceswe observed between teachers. Thus, for threeof the four school districts, the teachers nomi-nated as excellent differed in achievementclassification, such that the students of thenominated excellent teacher were doing betterthan the students of the more typical teacher.Thus, School District A's nominated outstand-ing teacher was a high-achievement teacher,with the district's more typical teacher in thelower third of the sample. District B's out-standing teacher was in the middle third andthe district's more typical teacher was in thelower third. The two nominated outstandingteachers in District C were in the middle third,and the more typical teacher was in the bottomthird. In District D, both the nominated out-standing and more typical teacher were in thetop third of the sample. Both were very strongteachers. Notably, District D was not an eco-nomically advantaged district; thus, it does notappear that the placement of both teachers inthe top third was an artifact of socioeconomicadvantage of the students.

Excerpts from the interview transcripts andfield notes appear throughout the text of thispaper and are identified in the followingway: Teachers have been assigned a letter byachievement group (High, Middle, Low) and anumber (1,2,3). Interview data are identified as


21


Interview #1 or #2 (IL 12) and data from fieldnotes are identified by the date of the observa-tion and the page number of the field notes.Thus, "H2, I1, p.17" refers to a comment byone of the teachers in the high-achievementgroup made during the first interview andappearing on page 17 of the interview tran-script.

Characteristics of Teaching in All Classrooms

Once the three achievement groupsemerged, the next step in the analysis was tosearch the data again to identify the characteris-tics that most teachers had in common, as wellas a set of beliefs and practices that could beused to distinguish those teachers in the high-est-achievement group. Because we wereultimately more interested in the behaviors andperspectives that characterized the truly out-standing teachers and set them apart from theothers, more attention is given in this resultssection to the characteristics that distinguish thevery best teachers. Nevertheless, we cover thecommon characteristics briefly to make thepoint that grade one literacy instruction hadsome defining characteristics.

Table 2 lists the instructional characteristicsthat were observed in at least seven out of nineclassrooms. In short, a great deal went on inthe classrooms of all nine teachers. In theremainder of this subsection, we review someof that variation with respect to some of themain instructional characteristics in Table 2.

Skills and Authentic Literacy Activities

All of the teachers observed used somemixture of direct skills instruction and authen-

tic whole language type activities. They dif-fered in the proportion of instruction consistentwith each perspective; in the types of activitiesthey included; in the quality of books they usedin their programs; in the level of student in-volvement; and in the coherency of their ap-proaches. Thus, although one teacher mighthave a primarily whole language based pro-gram with high-quality books, and a moderatelevel of student engagement, another mighthave a stronger skills emphasis but still usehigh-quality books and have a. high level ofstudent engagement.

All of the teachers in the sample used sometrade books in their instruction. However,outstanding teachers consistently provided awide variety of high-quality books (i.e., award-winning books and children's classics), where-as some of the teachers in the middle- and low-achievement groups offered a much morelimited (and lower quality) selection. It wasmuch more common in these classes to seechildren reading Where's Waldo or flippingpages in an encyclopedia.

Writing Instruction

All of the teachers used the writing processmodel and included some type of writing on adaily basis. In all classrooms, students wereexpected to write drafts, make revisions, andcomplete final copies, at least some of thetime. However, there was considerable varia-tion in the consistency with which teachersadhered to the process and in the quality ofwritten products. Moreover, writing assign-ments in various classes differed in their pur-pose, their format, and their place in the cur-


22


Table 2Teaching Practices Common to Most or All Classrooms

Instructional characteristics observed in at least 7/9 Classrooms

Skills and Authentic Literacy Activities

Some direct instruction of decoding strategies or rules

Instruction and practice of decoding skills in the context of authentic literature

Trade books available for student reading

Time for independent reading

Teachers modeling a love of reading

Writing Instruction

Daily writing activities

Students writing primarily connected text

Writing process includes rough draft with revisions

Writing process includes teacher conferences

Writing topics chosen primarily by the teacher

Instruction in basic rules of punctuation and capitalization

Spelling programs

Use of some worksheets

Classroom Arrangement

desks arranged in small groups

rug area with easel for group instruction

small table for groups and teacher conferences

information posted around the room on commercial and teacher-made posters

Instructional Groupings

Both whole group and small-group teaching configurations

At least some cooperative learning activities

Students read or wrote in pairs

Some independent seatwork (most often expressive writing activities)

Reinforcement

Students received lots of positive attention throughout the day

Some verbal negative feedback used to address student misbehavior or inattention


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Table. 2 (continued)

Classroom Atmosphere and Teacher Dedication

Teachers dedicated to helping students grow and achieve

Classroom atmosphere consistently conveyed caring for students

Classroom atmosphere non-competitive

Students appeared to be comfortable with classroom routines

Instructional planning evident

Parent Participation

Recognition of the importance of parental participation and modeling in children's literacy develop-ment

Reported variation in parent participation from year to yearregardless of teacher practices

riculum. Finally, teachers had varying ex-pectations for the length of student writingand for the appropriate use of writing con-ventions. In eight out of nine classrooms,writing topics were determined primarily bythe teacher.

Spelling Programs

Eight out of nine teachers had some formof weekly spelling program. In some classes,word selection was based on individual stu-dent interest or need; in others, it was en-tirely teacher determinedusually based ona common skill; and in still other classes,the weekly list combined the two formats.

Worksheets

Most teachers (seven out of nine) wereobserved using worksheets, at least occa-sionally. Some used them regularly for skillspractice (decoding, writing conventions orcontent themes), some used them occasional-ly to address a particular weakness, andsome gave them to students to help to settlethem down after a transition.

Classroom Arrangement

All but one classroom had desks ar-ranged in small groups that changed fromtime to time (some more regularly thanothers). In addition, all of the classroomscontained small tables that were used forteacher-student conferences or small-groupactivities. The walls of the classrooms dis-played information in the form of commer-cial and teacher-made posters, student art-work, and student- written work. The quali-ty and coherence of information varied asdid its accessibility to students. Some teach-ers regularly displayed student work; othersrarely did so, or when they did, it seemed tobe for lack of anything better to fill thespace (as, for example, when a teacherwould fill a bulletin board with examples ofa relatively trivial worksheet). In someclassrooms, the information displayed wasclearly linked to ongoing instructionalthemes and provided students with additionalinformation. In other classrooms, the same


24


commercial posters stayed up all year andteachers were never observed to refer tothem in instruction.

Instructional Groupings

All of the teachers conducted some les-sons in small groups and asked students toread and write independently on a regularbasis. Eight of the nine teachers incorporat-ed some form of ability grouping for instruc-tion. In addition, most teachers encouragedstudents to read or write with a partner atleast some of the time. In most classes,small-group activities were teacher-directed;six of the nine teachers asked students towork cooperatively in groups without theguidance or supervision of an adult. Eight ofthe nine teachers used whole group instruc-tion for a variety of purposes.

Reinforcement

Observers recorded as many teacher-stu-dent interactions as they could and codedthese interactions for their apparent purpose,their tone, and their effect on student behav-ior. In all but one classroom, students re-ceived a great deal of positive attentionthroughout the day. Teachers differed in thekinds of student behaviors they chose toreward with such attention. For example, inone outstanding classroom, students wereconsistently praised for their effort andattention as well as for correct responses. Inanother classroom in the middle group,students were praised for expressing interestand at times that appeared (to both observersand students) to be random. That is, thisteacher's praise did not appear to be tied to

any particular type of desired behavior.When questioned about this, this teacherindicated that she used this approach as partof her attempt to catch students being good.In another classroom in the lowest group,students were rarely praised at all and, whenthey were, it tended to be for the neatness oftheir written work or for being quiet duringinstructional time.

Negative feedback was observed at timesin most classrooms, primarily in response todisruptive or inattentive student behavior. Inall but one classroom, however, the tonewas predominantly positive. The one excep-tion was a teacher in the low group whorarely praised students and often gave publicnegative feedback in response to studentwork products as well as in response toundesired behaviors.

Classroom Atmosphere and TeacherDedication

Throughout the interviews and observa-tions, it was obvious that all of the teacherscared for their students and were dedicatedto helping them grow and achieve in theirclassrooms. Even in instances where teacherbehavior appeared to observers to be ratherharsh, the explanations expressed during theinterviews made it clear that each teacherbelieved that his or her behavior was in thebest interest of the students.

For the most part, teachers appeared tomake a conscious effort to create non-com-petitive atmospheres in their classrooms andencouraged children to get along with oneanother.


25


Parent Participation

Finally, all of the teachers recognized theimportance of parental participation in chil-dren's literacy development. Modeling literatebehaviors was reported by all teachers to be themost important role for parents. While mostteachers expressed some disappointment inactual levels of parents school involvement,they differed in their confidence that they couldovercome the effects of limited involvement.Outstanding teachers were more likely tobelieve they could foster literate behaviors evenin those students whose parents were not in-volved in their learning. Furthermore, allteachers reported year-to-year variation in thelevel of parent participation. Thus, it did notappear to be the case that outstanding teacherswere consistently able to induce high levels ofparent participation. Rather, it was their reac-tion to limited involvement that set them apartfrom their peers.

Summary

In every class, it was clear that teachingfirst grade is a complex panoply of strategiesand activities. Consistent with the survey datadescribed earlier (Pressley et al., 1996), all ofthe teachers made some attempt to combineauthentic reading and writing activities with atleast some direct instruction in basic skills.Their instruction included daily reading andwriting activities, although the focus and con-tent of those activities varied widely from oneclass to the next. Through their interactionswith students and their discussions with us, theteachers all demonstrated that they were dedi-

cated to their jobs and most worked hard tocreate positive, cooperative atmospheres intheir classrooms. Finally, all of the teachers weworked with noted the importance of parentinvolvement in students' literacy development.

Distinguishing Characteristics

In addition to the common practices ob-served in most, if not all of the classrooms, aset of characteristics was identified that, as acluster, distinguished the perspectives andpractices of the three teachers in the highest-achievement group. Table 3 lists this set ofcharacteristics. Importantly, these characteris-tics were not entirely absent among the teach-ers in the other two groups; in fact, all of themwere observed to some degree in other class-rooms. However, the three teachers found tobe truly outstanding exhibited consistently highlevels of all of the characteristics listed inTable 3.

Instructional Balance

As noted above, all of the participatingteachers used at least some combination ofhigh-quality literature with many opportunitiesfor authentic reading and writing (consistentwith the whole language perspective) as well asexplicit instruction in the basic skills of readingand writing (consistent with a more hierarchi-cal skills-based approach to instruction).Among teachers in the outstanding group,however, this combination was exceptionallywell integrated and balanced. Moreover, theintegration of the two approaches in theseclassrooms was deliberate and well thoughtout.


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Table 3

Distinguishing Characteristics of Teachers in the Highest Student Achievement Group

Instructional balance

Instructional density

Extensive use of scaffolding

Encouragement of self-regulation

Thorough integration of reading and writing activities

High expectations for all students

Masterful classroom management

Awareness of Purpose

According to one of the three teachers withhighest achievement, teaching beginning read-ing,

is a fine balance between immersing thechild in whole language and teachingthrough. . . . sounds, going back to usingskills. . . . If you don't have a balance, it'skind of like trying to fit a square through acircle. It doesn't work. You don't connectwith everyone if you don't use a variety of[teaching] strategies. (H1, II, p.13)

Another teacher in this group indicated that"any one of those specific [approaches] is notenough for the children. They need to beintroduced to, or made aware of, other kinds ofreading besides just that specific program"(H3, II, p. 2).

The three strongest teachers taught decod-ing skills explicitly. They had lists of the basicreading skills students should master in firstgrade, and planned instruction to address thoseskills. They varied considerably in the ways

that they presented those skills, however. Oneteacher used a basal series in ability-basedreading groups. Another followed the scopeand sequence from a basal, but generallycreated his own lessons and activities forpresenting and practicing the skills. He gener-ally taught skills in a whole group format andhad students practice them in small groups, inpairs, or independently. And the third teacherhad a continuum of skills, which she incorpo-rated into authentic literacy activities. Thisteacher rarely taught skills in groups, prefer-ring to teach individual students who demon-strated a need for instruction. All three teach-ers provided individualized instruction andreview for students who needed it, with thefirst teacher described providing the least(possibly because she had ability-based groups,and thus introduced skills at different rates tobegin with), and the last teacher providing themost.



In addition to planned, explicit instruction,all three of the teachers with high-achievingstudents were highly skilled at incorporatingminiskill lessons into ongoing lessons as oppor-tunities presented themselves. For example, onthe day before Valentine's Day, one teachermanaged to insert minilessons on shapes andphonemic awareness as she introduced an artproject:

T: Miss (X) thinks of things when shethinks of Valentine's day, too, and I wrotethem down. What shape did I write themon? (students are quiet) Is it a square? Acircle? A rectangle? A triangle? What shapeis it?52: A heart.T: Can anyone try to spell "heart"?52: H-E-A-R-T.T: My goodness. If I wanted to use mysounds to spell heart, what would I startwith?S3: H.T: And what would it end with?S3: T.T: So right away, you know some of theletters in "heart."In addition toand often as part ofexp-

licit skills instruction, the very best teachersprovided many opportunities for students toengage in authentic reading and writing activi-ties. Students in these classes read many booksalone, in pairs, and with the teacher. Theyheard good literature read aloud. They usedbooks to search for information on topics ofinterest. They wrote letters and notes, recordedplant growth in their gardens, and describedthe growth and development of the chickshatching in their classrooms. All of theseactivities were meaningfully linked to ongoingthemes and specific skills instruction.

In contrast to the integrated, balancedapproach displayed by teachers in the topgroup, the other teachers tended to presentinstruction that was either heavily skills-basedor heavily whole language, or they attemptedto combine the two approaches but did so in adisjointed or inconsistent way. Thus, oneteacher in the middle group whose instructionwas heavily influenced by the whole languagephilosophy also had a weekly spelling programbased on basic decoding skills. Studentslearned to spell word families and practicedwords each week but were not necessarilyexpected to be responsible for their spellingwords when they wrote stories or compositionsin their journals. Another teacher in the lowgroup used a basal series for both reading andwriting, and students rarely had the opportuni-ty to read and write for authentic purposes.This teacher supplemented her reading groupswith learning centers, which only sometimesrequired literacy behaviors. In many instances,when students were asked what they weresupposed to be doing at a center (for example,copying a poem or gluing together parts of asnowman), and why they thought they weredoing it, their responses were simply, "I don'tknow," or "Because Mrs. X told us to."

Instructional Density

One of the most striking characteristics ofthe outstanding instruction was its density. Theteachers in this group were able to integratemultiple goals into a single lesson. As noted,they frequently inserted minilessons on topicsthat arose in the course of their lessons. Itseemed that these teachers never did just onething at a time. For example, in the excerpt


28


below, a teacher used a lesson on the long osound to build on children's vocabulary andconcept development:

(Students were seated at their desks thinkingof long o words spelled with the letterso-a.)T: How about something that mom puts inthe ovena kind of meat?Si: Meat loaf!T: I was thinking of something else, butthat's a good one too.S2: Roast beef!T: Yes. Roast. Put that on your list. Tom,can you spell that for us?S3: R-O-A-S-T.T: (teacher writes "roast" on an easel pad)Does that look right?Ss: Yes.T: O.K. Now, I like that word that Kevinthought of. What was that?S,: Loaf.T: O.K. Put that on your lists. Kevin, howdo you spell "loaf"?S1: L-O-A-F.T: (writes "loaf" on the easel pad) O.K.Now, how about something small thatcomes in a bar?Ss: Soap! (A student spells "soap" and theteacher writes it on the pad.)T: What happens when you put wood inwater?Ss: It floats!T: What's something you wear when it'schilly outside?S4: A coat!T: And what did Anthony wear in the storywe read yesterday?S5: A cloak.T: What's the difference between a coat anda cloak?S5: A cloak doesn't have any sleeves. (H3,2/2, p.!)

During another class, this same teacherbegan a lesson on potatoes that tied into both ascience unit on plants and a miniunit on Ire-land. In this excerpt he manages to insert aminilesson on using the encyclopedia:

T: Where else might we get more informa-tion about potatoes?Si: A potato book!T: (laughs) A potato book. Where elsemight we look up information about some-thing like potatoes?S2: An encyclopedia!T: An encyclopedia. What would we lookup?S3: Potato.T: Under what letter?S3: P!

T: (returns to a discussion of the book he'sintroducing) (H3, 3/16, p.3)In another classroom, even filling the

stapler became an opportunity for teaching:T: What color are staples?Si: Gray.Si Silver!T: Silver. Why did you change your mindsfrom gray to silver?S3: It sparkles.S4: It reflects the light.T: Yes. What does that meanreflects? Itmeans the light bounces off itso it spar-kles. (H1, 2/13, p.10)This teacher frequently dismissed children

from an activity by saying, "When I spell theword (bird, Santa, heart ...) you may go backto your seats."

Clearly these teachers are able to think wellon their feet. However, their ability to incorpo-rate many goals into a single lesson was notmerely a sign of quick thinking. In many cases,these teachers were not only aware of the


29


multiple goals they were meeting, but hadplanned them intentionally. For example, whenasked about the intended purpose of journalwriting, one teacher indicated that she used itfor diagnostic purposes; as a medium forchildren's free expression; as an opportunity topractice capitalization and punctuation; and toteach specific reading and writing skills toindividual students.

In contrast, another teacher in the lowgroup explained the purpose of her readinggroups in this way:

Well, basically when we read out of thebasal books, it's pretty much reading thenext story, whatever that may be, and thenthere are some ... workbook pages ... theworkbook page itself is an assessment ofwhat they readand how they follow, evendown the page.... But just orally listening tothem read; watching them to see if they'repaying attention; following along whileothers read. You know, you can tell somuch just in that short timehow they'recoming along. (L 1 , I 1 , p . 17)

Overall, students' mornings in the class-rooms with outstanding teachers were filledwith a density of high-quality reading andwriting experiences. In contrast, in the moretypical classrooms, students spent significantportions of time in activities that were notnearly as intense or literacy relevant (such ascopying or asking each other rote questions).They also tended to spend more time in transi-tions or waiting for teacher direction (seeManagement below). Their lessons typicallyconsisted of a single instructional goal and oneor two types of activities used to present it. Themore average teachers rarely strayed fromintended lessons to insert minilessons, with the

result being many missed opportunities forlearning.

Extensive Use of Scaffolding

One characteristic of outstanding teachersthat contributed greatly to the density of theirinstruction was these teachers' use of scaffold-ing to help students learn. Scaffolding is theprocess whereby a teacher monitors students'learning carefully and steps in to provideassistance on an as-needed basis (Pressley &McCormick, 1995). Effective scaffolding istailored to individual needs and provides justenough informationnot too much or toolittleto enable a student to make progresstoward a learning goal. Often this meanssimply directing the child's attention to impor-tant dimensions of the problem (e.g., "Whatletter do you see at the end of that word?");providing clues so that the child can then solvethe problem on his or her own. The theory(e.g., Vygotsky, 1962, 1978) is that, eventual-ly, the child will internalize the thinking pro-cesses modeled or cued by the adult and will beable to solve the problem independently.

The teachers in the outstanding group wereextremely skillful at scaffolding their students'learning. They seemed to be able to monitorstudent thought processes as they taught andinterceded with just enough help to facilitatelearning, but not so much that they lost theflow of the lesson. Scaffolding very often tookthe form of questioning.

In discussing a student's spelling, for exam-ple, one teacher gave the following example:

I say to him, "Well, what's the rule thatmakes the long sound?" And he says, "Oh,I need a silent e at the end." When [Wye


30


drawn it back out of him instead of saying,"The rule is: put an e at the end." When he[gives] the proper answer, you're movinghim to anothera higher level. (H3, I1,p. 2)In another high-achieving classroom, a

weak reader was observed asking the teacherhow to spell "duck," resulting in the followinginteraction:

T: D-U- what's at the end?S: I don't know.T: (writes on the board: "duk") Does thatlook right?S: No.T: No. What's missing?S: (No response)T: How do you spell "back"?S: B-A-C-K.T: So, how are you going to spell "duck"?S: D-U-C-K.T: Good. (Writes "duck" on the board.)(H2, 3/27, p.7)The students had just completed a choral

reading of a chart poem about bugs when thisinteraction was observed in the third high-achievement class in our sample:

T: O.K. I need my detectives. Can you finda compound word that's a bug? (A numberof students raise their hands.) When I'mlooking for a compound word, what am Ilooking for?SI: It's a word ... (student gives a long-winded, somewhat confusing explanation)T: How can I be sure it's a compoundword?Si: Two wordsT: Any two words? What's special aboutthem?S2: Two words put together.T: What compound word was I looking for?S3: Firefly.T: What two little words make up firefly?

S4: Firefly.T: Are there any other compound words [inthe poem]?S5: Themselves. (H1, 5/22, p. 3)In each of these examples (and in many

others), the outstanding teachers were able tohelp their students move forward and acquirecertain academic skills that they were not quiteable to acquire on their own. These teachersconstantly made use of potential learningopportunities as they arose. The other sixteachers in the sample, who were less skilled atscaffolding, were more likely to stick closelyto intended lessons and did not appear to be asaware of student thinking. Thus, they were lesslikely to anticipate problems and areas ofconfusion, with the result being many missedopportunities for learning.

Encouragement of Self-Regulation

In order for students to develop into goodreaders and writers, they must learn the skillsand behaviors of literacy. But there is more tobeing a good reader or a good thinker thanbeing able to decode the words on a page orknowing how to punctuate a sentence correctly.Good thinkers have the metacognitive aware-ness to know when and where to apply theskills they have learned. They are able tomonitor themselves and they know when theyneed to use a different strategy or speed thingsup or slow them down. Throughout theirinstruction, the outstanding teachers in thisstudy encouraged students to monitor theirprogress and understanding, and taught stu -.dents what to do when they found themselveshaving difficulty.

One outstanding teacher described it thisway:


31


In the beginning of the year, I always writethe parents a letter about, "My goal is tohelp your child become more independent."Because I think being independent fosterseverything else. It's the basis for every-thing. (HI, II, p. 30)

In regard to reading, she explained,I think you need to provide the kids with thestrategies that they need to be good readers.You have to make sure that they know whatthose strategies are. Like, if they do get toa word they don't know, they have to knowtheir options. What am I going to do next?Can I skip over the word? Can I use thepicture clues to help me figure out what thisword is? Can I know the words around it tohelp me figure out what the word is? Soyou have to provide them with all those ...it's like a problem-solving ability al-mostin math. But geared toward reading.(H1, I1, p. 2)The outstanding teachers encouraged meta-

cognitive thinking in their students by frequent-ly asking them to explain how they had arrivedat a particular answer. What strategies did theyuse? What clues did they have? Furthermore,they often asked these questions in front of agroup, giving the student an opportunity tomodel his or her thought processes for the restof the class. During one observation when astudent self-corrected during a read-aloudactivity, the teacher asked, "When Kevin madea mistake, what did he do?" (S: "He wentback.") "He went back over it. Is it O.K. tomake mistakes?" (Ss: "Yes"). (H3, 5/4, p. 3)These teachers also encouraged students tomonitor the quality of their work products byasking frequently, "Is this your best work?"

In addition to teaching students readingstrategies and the conditional knowledge to

apply them, the outstanding teachers encour-aged students to monitor their behavior aswell. They gave time warnings so that studentswould be able to finish their work, or at leastreach a comfortable stopping point. For exam-ple, warnings such as this one were common:"We've got about 10 minutes to work. That'snot very much time. I'm going to set the timerto remind us." (H3, 3/16, p. 13) Later, whenthe timer went off, the teacher asked the class,"How many of you are thinking you're goingto need more time to work on this?" Simplereminders such as this one helped studentsmonitor their work time and plan effectively.This teacher also had a device which emitted asignal when the noise level of a group got toohigh, and he sometimes videotaped groups atwork so that he and his students could watchthe tape and observe how well they wereworking.

Thorough Integration of Reading and WritingActivities

In the classrooms with outstanding teach-ers, reading and writing were interwoven, withstudents frequently writing about what theywere reading and using books to further devel-op topics they chose for writing. According tothese teachers, writing, "is an integral part" ofreading development. (H2, Il, p.2) They fre-quently used writing to teach specific readingand writing skills as well as a means of expres-sion for their students. One teacher had herstudent write reports: a project that includedlibrary research, notes on notecards, and afinal illustrated product. All of the teachersused the writing process (Graves, 1983) in


3.2


some form. That is, they all had students writedrafts, conference with a teacher or peer, andedit their early draft(s) into final copyat leastfor some assignments. In the classes with theoutstanding teachers, this process typicallyseemed to be better understood and used moreproductively by students. That is, students inthese classes made more revisions and morefrequently wrote a final copy that included arelatively high level of organization, vocabu-lary, grammar, and punctuation. Their confer-ences were more substantive, resulting inmeaningful revisions in their drafts.

When we commented in an interview on therelative sophistication of student writing in oneclass where students regularly used story websto map out their ideas, the teacher's responsewas,

Well, yes. They can write a whole page.But if I just said, "Go write about your bestfriend," they weren't going to write a wholepage. O.K.? There is a lot of preliminarydiscussion that happens before they go anddo that. I mean, we sit down and we makea little web. Best friends. What are somethings we know? You fill out several thingson the web. Then you can go andwritewhat appears to look like a para-graphlooks more like a paragraph than asingle sentence kind of thing. Some ofthem, if I just said, "Go and write about abest friend," they'd come backsome ofthem would come back and they'd have apage filled. But, I would never see the kindof successful long-term writing from thenumber of kids that I do if they didn't havethat kind of writing process. (H3, I1, p. 11)In contrast to the writing conferences ob-

served in the top three classes, conferences inother classes were often much less productive.

In one class, for example, students met in agroup to give each other feedback on storiesthey had written about bunnies. The studentswere instructed to ask the author questions toclarify parts they did not understand and, whenpossible, to make suggestions for changes.What actually happened was that after eachstudent read his or her story, another studentasked, "If you had a bunny, what would youname it?" : A question that had nothing to dowith any of the stories presented. Apart from afew spelling errors corrected by the teacher, noediting was observed during the 20-minutegroup conference. (L3, 6/5, p. 9)

In addition to integrating reading and writ-ing activities, the outstanding teachers alsointegrated reading, writing, and the contentarea curricula. For example, if the science unitwas on plants, students would be reading aboutplants, growing a garden, measuring theirvegetables, recording the measurements in anotebook, and writing about their classroomexperiences and related fiction. Put simply,literacy was a part of virtually everything thatwent on in the top three classrooms. When weasked one teacher to estimate what percentageof her students' day was spent actively reading,she replied,

I would say everything we do in here ... isso integrated that, to do any activity inhere, they need to read something. So Iwould say for everything we do in herethere is a reading portion. So most of theday.... They are immersed in that text!Sowell, you just find ways to incorporateit. It can't be separate. You can't be drivingalong and say, "Oh! I've got to read thatsign. So, I better stop, read the sign, andthen go on." It's just there. It's a part of


33


your day. And that's how it is in here, too.(H1, II, p. 25)

High Expectations for All Students

Research has long explored the relationshipbetween teachers' expectations and studentaccomplishments. While the phenomenon ofself-fulfilling prophecies (Rosenthal & Jacob-son, 1968) is not strongly supported (Rauden-bush, 1984), teacher expectations have at leastthree effects on students: They influence theway in which teachers treat students (e.g.,Brophy & Good, 1986; Harris & Rosenthal,1985); they tend to perpetuate themselves (e.g.,Cooper & Good, 1983); and they can ultimate-ly affect students' self-concepts (e.g., Grant,1985). The teachers in the top group of thisstudy displayed consistently high expectationsfor all of their students. In a representativecomment, one teacher indicated,

I truly believe that you take every kid fromwhere they are and move them forward ...I do expect really high levelI think areally high level of achievement from kids.And I tend not to look at grade level partic-ularly at all ... I tend to just move themalong in books. (H2, I1, p. 2)Asked to consider his philosophy of literacy

development in first grade, another of the threebest teachers, began by saying, "I think that allthe kids ... who come to me ... are capable oflearning to readwhen they're given an ap-proach to reading that they are comfortablewith, and they're going to feel successful with"(H3, Il, p.1). In contrast, the typical teacherswere more likely to cite readiness theories anddifferences in home environments in explainingwhy they expected less of some students.

Contrary to current conventional wisdom,all of the teachers shared the belief that matura-tion plays some role in reading development.According to one teacher in the lowest group,

So much of ii seems so much predestinedby their own little beings. You know, theyjust seem ... for a kid who's not ready toread, I don't care what you do, if they'rereally not ready, they're not going to read.You can give them so many exposures, butuntil things click, you know, they justyoucan help them, you can build the readiness,but I really feel strongly about that. That,developmentally, there need to be things setin order for them to take off. (LI, I1, p.16)

The belief that maturation plays an impor-tant role in learning to read was expressed bythe outstanding teachers as well. In discussingthe needs of the weaker readers in his class,one outstanding teacher suggested that some-times what they need is ...

time. Maturation. They're just not gonnaget it. You could sit there and go throughthat for five or six weeks working with thatsame sound and they just don't see how itfits together. And, suddenly, the light bulbturns on. And it fits. The pieces fit. (H3,

p. 5)The difference between this teacher and

some of those in the other two groups seemedto be his reaction to the situation. This teacherwent on to explain that as a teacher, "you needto be able to try to find materials, stories thatgive them more opportunities to make the lightbulb turn on. You know? Interesting reading.Reading at their level." Thus, while all of theteachers believed that sometimes studentsneeded time to enable them to read, the out-standing teachers believed they had a responsi-


34


bility to continue providing individualizedinstruction and materials during that timeandthat by doing so, they had the power to influ-ence a child's maturationat least a little.

Masterful Classroom Management

Outstanding teachers were masterful class-room managers. These teachers managed notonly student behaviorpreventing misbehaviorbefore it could occurbut time, activities,student interactions, and outside resourcepeople as well. Their management effortsclearly involved both planned and on-linedecisions.

The top three teachers were consistentlywell-prepared. They knew what it was theywanted to teach, their lessons were well-planned, and they always had their materialsready and close at hand. This was done notonly to make their own jobs easier but to helpshape student behavior as well. As one teacherput it, "Modeling is the most important thing.So if they see someone who is organized, thatcan rub offa little bit" (H1, I1, p. 18). Con-sistent with the research on teacher effects(e.g., Brophy & Good, 1986; Kounin, 1970;Leinhardt, Weidman, & Hammond, 1987),each of the teachers in the top group noted theimportance of routines: predictable patterns ofactivities and expectations. For example, oneteacher explained,

I have a pattern. I do the same thing everydayso the kids know what's going on. It'sfairly predictable ... in the morning wecome back [from the school-wide assembly]and I take attendance and lunch count in asnap and say, "O.K. Everybody go wherethey're supposed to go." And everybodygoes. (H2, Il, pp. 8, 25)

In contrast, in the other six classroomsmore time was lost as the teachers struggled tocomplete morning routines and get down toinstruction. Two teachers (one in the middleachievement group, one in the low group)greeted observers each time by explaining thattheir morning was fairly "chaotic," oftenattributing this to some unexpected change inroutine. In describing the decision-makingprocess she used in determining her roomarrangement, one of these teachers said, "So Ijust keep moving things around. I'm neverhappy. I'll find something that works and thena week later, I'll change it ... [I] keep them ontheir toes like that" (L3, I1, p. 16).

Although the outstanding teachers followedpredictable patterns of activities and expecta-tions, they were not rigid in their adherence toplanned lessons. Within the overall structure ofa lesson, they maintained the flexibility topursue topics that arose in discussions or toinsert minilessons when the need becameapparent. They did not, however, allow alesson to drift completely away from its intend-ed purpose. Thus, they were able to enrichtheir lessons based on student input withoutlosing sight of the goals they had planned toaddress.

In addition to instructional routines, whichhelped to manage students' behavior and facili-tate learning, the outstanding teachers wereable to minimize disruptive behavior, again, byproviding a predictable and consistent set ofexpectations and consequences. Only one ofthese top teachers had a formalized behavior .

management system. However, students in allof these classes knew what was expected ofthem and what to expect if their behavior was


35


inappropriate. For the most part, teachersminimized disruptive behavior by preventing itbefore it could occur. Very often, these teach-ers were able to redirect students' behavior ina positive way without ever resorting to criti-cism or punishment. For example, during oneobservation, students were playing at a sandtable during a break time and started to getrambunctious. Rather than warning or punish-ing the students, the teacher simply asked oneof the boys, "[Alan], do you remember what Isaid about where the sand goes in the sand-box?" (H3, 2/2, p. 10). With this comment,any potential problem was averted. (In over 20hours of observations, this teacher was seen touse a negative redirection once.)

In addition to managing behavior, the out-standing teachers were adept at managing time.Transitions in these classrooms were quick;interruptions by other teachers and adults werekept brief; and time spent engaged in instruc-tional activities was maximized.

Finally, and perhaps most notably, theoutstanding teachers were markedly goodmanagers of outside resource teachers. Theaides and specialists who pushed in to theseclassrooms were always involved with studentsin instructional situations. In contrast, resourcepersons in other classrooms were frequentlyobserved sitting and watching on-going grouplessons, with little or no student contact.

Awareness of Purpose

The final characteristic to emerge from ouranalysis of the outstanding teachers was theirawareness of purpose. Not only were theseindividuals skillful and engaging teachers,

models, facilitators and managers, but theywere highly aware of both their practices andthe goals or purposes that drove those prac-tices. This was in rather stark contrast to mostof the other teachers. When asked to describewhat they intended as the purpose of variousactivities (see Appendix A), the outstandingteachers as a group were clear about theirintent. For example, when asked about thepurpose for having students write in journals,one outstanding teacher related the following:

Journal writing ... I use it for a lot of diag-nostic purposes: Where are they in theirwriting? I use it so they can express them-selves freely. I don't give them topics towrite in their journal about. It's free choice.It's used mainly as a tool for expression....And, I've used itI've attached skills to itas skills come [up].... It's used for edit-ing....They'll be reading their sentence,and I'll notice that their sentence didn'tstart with a capital. And I'll tell them, "Oh,I love what your sentence is about, and thisand that." And I'll say, "But, I alwaysknow that a sentence starts a special way."And, they'll pick right up on it. Then,when I give them a clue like that, theyknow to look at their punctuation too. Soit's used for writing skills too. [Skills] thatdon't have to be taught whole class, up onthe board. "This is where we put the peri-od. This is where...." So I use the journalfor personalized instruction. I know exactlywhere a child's at. (HI, II, p. 21)

In contrast, intent was less obvious in thisresponse to the same question from a teacher inthe low group:

Maybe if they get in the habit of writing, itwill become something they can use moreas they get older. And start writing down


36


story ideas. [The other teachers] are talkingabout that a lot in first grade, but ... I don'tknow how they can. They just don't havethat yet. Eventually, I hope they will. (L2,II, p. 17)

Discussion

The question of how best to teach youngchildren to read and write is one of the mostimportant and widely debated topics in theprofessional education literature. What hasbeen lacking in this discussion is the systematicstudy of those individuals who are directlyresponsible for this instruction: effective teach-ers themselves. The purpose of this study wasto tap the knowledge and expertise of highlyeffective teachers in an attempt to determinewhat makes their instruction so effective.Specifically, we used observation and interviewmethods to identify a cluster of characteristicsthat distinguished truly outstanding literacyteachers from their more average colleagues.

The outcomes obtained through these meth-ods are substantially convergent with existingresearch on teacher effects as well as with theoutcomes reported in the earlier survey ofnominated-outstanding teachers (Pressley et al. ,

1996). When that survey study was first re-viewed for publication, the reaction of severalreviewers was that the list of instructionalpractices cited by the respondents was simplytoo long to be credible. At that time we tendedto believe the teachers over the reviewers, butwere unable to provide observational evidenceto support our beliefs. The data reported here,however, provide ample evidence that, in fact,most of the instructional practices cited in thesurvey do occur in the classrooms of competent

first-grade literacy teachers. Given the com-plexity of grade one instruction, it is not sur-prising that the methods described here led notto a single critical variable in defining out-standing literacy instruction, but rather to acluster of practices and beliefs. All the charac-teristics listed in Table 3 were present in atleast one other (more typical) classroom. Thus,rather than a single factor, it was the compositecluster of teaching characteristics that could beused to distinguish the exceptionally goodteachers.

Among the defining characteristics thatemerged in this study, some seem to be associ-ated with effective teaching in general (and,indeed, have been consistently reported else-where), while others appear to be specificallyrelated to the development of early literacy.For example, one of the critical factors toemerge from our data was teachers' ability tomanage time, behavior, resource personnel,and student learning in the classroom. Manage-ment in the best classrooms was so effective, infact, that it was often difficult to perceive thatthese classrooms were being managed at all.This finding, while important, is not unique toliteracy instruction. The literature in teachereffectiveness consistently cites classroommanagement as a critical predictor of studentlearning, regardless of the subject (e.g., Bro-phy & Good, 1986; Emmer, 1987; Emmer,Evertson, & Anderson, 1980). Similarly, theencouragement of students' self-regulationincreases the time students spend on taskafactor that has been linked consistently tostudent learning (Davis & Thomas, 1989).Thus, the following factors listed in Table 3are viewed as characteristics of effective teach-


37


ing in general: extensive use of scaffolding, en-couragement of self-regulation, high teacherexpectations, classroom management, andawareness of purpose. These factors appear tobe important variables in predicting studentlearning, regardless of the subject. Notably,some of these characteristics have been exten-sively researched (i.e., the use of scaffolding,teacher expectations, and classroom manage-ment), while others are less well-established, orvirtually absent from the teacher-effects litera-ture.

Factors Specific to Literacy Instruction

Two of the factors to emerge from thisstudy are specific to literacy instruction: in-structional balance, and a thorough integrationof reading and writing activities. In this study,as in the survey (Pressley et al., 1996) de-scribed earlier, there was substantial evidencethat excellent primary-level literacy instructionis balanced with respect to whole languagepractices and skills instruction. Despite thecontinued intensity of the debate in beginningreading in politics, the media, and many educa-tional circles, excellent teachers seem to beproposing a "radical middle" position (LesleyMorrow, personal communication). Among therespondents to the survey cited above, 97 %described themselves as "at least somewhat"committed to whole language principles; abouthalf indicated that they were "entirely commit-ted" to whole language. Yet these same teach-ers also reported including a significant portionof skills instruction in their classrooms. Thepractices and beliefs of the outstanding teachersdescribed here are also consistent with this

position of balance. Instruction in these class-rooms was filled with high-quality literatureand many opportunities for authentic readingand writing experiences. It also containedlessons dedicated specifically to particularreading or writing skills; lessons that werefilled with reminders about how the skillsrelated to children's writing and their reading.These data contribute to a growing data basesuggesting that neither extreme of the currentgreat debate in beginning reading instruction islikely to lead to maximum student achievementin literacy (McIntyre & Pressley, 1996).

Related to the characteristic of balancedinstruction was the extent to which reading andwriting were integrated in the very best class-rooms. Students in these classrooms weretypically writing about what they had read andreading to further develop their writing top-icsall of which was often connected to socialstudies or science content. Concepts encoun-tered on one day were related to conceptsencountered on other days, so that learning wasconstantly rehearsed, reinforced, and mademeaningful.

Reading as a Dialectical Process

The integrated, balanced instruction ob-served in the classrooms of exceptional teach-ers provides support for the interpretation ofliteracy instruction as a dialectical process(Riegel, 1979). From this perspective, de-scribed elsewhere (Pressley, Wharton-McDon-ald & Mistretta, in press), it is not only possi-ble but necessary for literacy development toproceed at once from the parts to the whole(consistent with a skills-based, hierarchical


38


model of instruction), and from the whole tothe parts (consistent with the whole languageapproach to instruction). The simultaneousprogress of both of these processes was ob-served constantly in each of the outstandingclassrooms. Students in these classrooms read(and heard) whole texts and wrote whole com-positions, which motivated the learning ofparts. They also learned to process the parts(individual skills), which were then applied towhole texts and compositions. The fact thatoutstanding teachers orchestrated fluid transi-tions between the two processes throughout thecourse of single lessons permitted the simulta-neous development of both.

Future Research

Using qualitative data analysis techniques,we were able to distill the nearly 200 hours ofobservations conducted in this study into acluster of characteristics that could be used todistinguish the best teachers in our sample. Theobservational and interview methods used hereprovided important insights not permitted inour previous survey research (Pressley et al.,1996). However, a number of factors in thestudy's design serve to limit the generalizationswe can draw from our results and providedirections for future research in this area.Perhaps the most obvious limitation in general-izing our results is the population of studentsincluded in the sample. All of the participatingdistricts were classified as suburban and servedrelatively similar populations of students.Previous research in teacher effects has foundthat different populations of students sometimesbenefit from different types of instruction (e.g.,

Good & Brophy, 1991); thus, the type ofresearch done here needs to be replicated withother, more diverse populations. It is ourhypothesis that the characteristics in Table 3will generalize across other populations; how-ever, this remains to be demonstrated. Inaddition, the hypotheses presented here shouldnext be tested in experimental or quasi-experi-mental studies, which would permit statisticalcontrol of some of the many variables presentin first-grade literacy instruction. It is throughthis type of research that it would be possibleto determine which of the characteristics foundto distinguish outstanding teaching are mostimportant, and how the various characteristicsinteract with one another.

Two limitations in the design used here canand should be addressed in future research.The first is the absence of pretest measures inthe classrooms where we collected data. Withthe exception of one classroom that had adisproportionate number of at risk students, theclassrooms we observed were ostensibly bal-anced in September with respect to strong andweak students (this according to the administra-tors making the nominations). Parents were notallowed input in class placement in any of theschools, and administrators typically describedan effort to spread out the weaker studentsacross the first-grade classrooms in a school.We were confident, therefore, that no glaringdifferences in classroom achievement existed inSeptember. However, future findings would bestrengthened by having a definitive pretestmeasure by which to measure end-of-yearprogress.

The second design issue that should beaddressed in future research is the role that


39


school- and district-level policies may haveaffected both teacher practices and studentoutcomes. None of the participating schooldistricts or principals enforced a heavy-handedapproach to shaping teacher behavior. Teachersin all schools and districts had significantfreedom to choose their materials and plantheir instruction (thus the wide variation ob-served in practices within schools). At the sametime, however, each district had its own historyof reform (or lack thereof) and each school hada different principal. Future research is neededto determine the role these factors play inshaping teacher practices and beliefs, specifi-cally with respect to beginning literacy instruc-tion.

Conclusion

Although there is increasing understandingthat a balance of whole language and skillscomponents can result in excellent literacyinstruction, research to date has not beenrevealing about how teachers can be educatedto provide appropriately balanced experiencesto their students. Moreover, the developmentof such teacher education occurs in an atmo-sphere in which extremists on both sides con-tinue to clamor for instruction that is pure(e.g., purely whole language, Weaver, 1994;purely skills, back-to-basics movements). Webelieve that the work reported here and in thepreviously published survey (Pressley et al.,1996) provides some of the most powerfulammunition against such extremist arguments,for these data come from individuals withdemonstrated expertise in primary literacyinstruction. These teachers' grounding in

classrooms and schools gives them a credibilitynot possessed by some others in the currentgreat debate, which includes a variety of par-ties who are one to several steps removed fromclassroom teaching and student learning. Thestudy of experts has confirmed that individualswho are very good at performing complextasks can often provide a great deal of informa-tion about how to do such tasks, includinginformation that escapes other less-expertonlookers (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). We havebeen listening to such individualsexperts inteaching literacy in the primary gradesandobserving them as they teach. The excellentteachers we have studied have revealed a greatdeal about their practices and beliefs. Perhapsnow it is time to listen to them about how theycame to teach in the ways that they do as apotential guide to the development of teachereducation that will result in many more excep-tionally effective primary level teachers.

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Appendix A


44

First Interview Protocol

Name

School

Years teaching first grade

Other grades taught

Can you describe your philosophy of teaching reading?

What do you see as the most important components of reading instruction?

What is the focus of the children's kindergarten program?

What skills, knowledge, attitudes do they come in with?

How do you make decisions about things such as:

desk arrangement

allocation of time to various activities

when to go on to something else

whom to group for reading

Can you explain how your reading groups work (how grouped, how often, which activities,

differences among high/low groups)?

What role do you see writing playing in reading development?

How do parents fit into the program (in the school's view and also in your own view)?

Do you adapt instruction for weaker readers/stronger readers?

If so, how does that instruction differ from your standard instruction?

What do you intend as the purpose of:

45

read aloud (by teacher, by students)

journal writing

sentence copying

silent reading

reading in partners

centers

What do you see as your students' greatest strengths when they leave first grade?

What is your favorite thing about teaching first grade?

46


Appendix B


47

Sample Questions Asked of Individual Teachers During the First Interview

(in addition to those listed in Appendix A)

What kinds of things do you ask parents to do [in your classroom]?

Can you tell which kids read at home with their parents?

Are the [students'] parents all literate?

Do [the students] help each other?

Do you consider yourself a whole language teacher?

It seemed like when you were doing your reading group, you were doing some kind of ongoing

assessment of the kids ... what were you doing?

How do you know which kids are going to need more of one than the other (referring to literature

and phonics instruction)?

Do you get the sense that when you give all that homework on Monday that they actually do it

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdayor do they do it all Thursday night?

Do all the kids take home books?

Where do you take those [poems] from?

Your focus in writing, then, is really on ... content and story development?

How often do they write in their journals?

Do you correct their journals?

What [kinds of remediation] are kids pulled out for?

Is it your principal who makes the decision to put all the remedial kids in one [class]room?

What kind of grades do you give in first grade?

48


Appendix C


49

Sample Model Presented to Teacher H3 during the Second Interview

Sample 1: Teacher H3

Philosophy

All kids are capable of learning to read when given an approach they are comfortable with.

Not everyone will learn using one particular program. You have to recognize that, and come

up with materials that will meet the specific needs of each child.

Kids learn from their peers. Several students working together can build and find as much

information about something as possible, whereas one person working alone will be able to gather

only limited information.

All kids benefit from whole group activitiesso all children should have the opportunity to

listen to literature, interact through discussion.

Approach is not whole language per se. WL does not include enough phonics.

Areas of Reading Emphasized

decoding

comprehension

writing (including organization, capitalization, and punctuation)

spelling

listening (to stories, to peers)

oral language

vocabulary

making use of resources (other books, dictionaries)

parts of a book (title, author, illustrator, pictures, text)

Groupings

50

whole group

reading pairs (pairing done sometimes by teacher, sometimes by students)

small groups (with and without the teacher)

individualization

activities coordinated to move from whole group to smaller or individual and back again

Materials

trade books

basals (from many different series; primary is HBJ with supplemental phonics materials)

minibooks (part of HBJ series)

idea webs

minichalkboards

dictionaries

Frequently Observed Activities

lots of minilessons

read aloud (by teacher and by students) with student interaction

small groups working on projects

variable reading groups

independent reading

reading from a variety of materials

discussion with many questions

spelling tests

writing

use of semantic webs

51

teacher monitoring progress of small groups, redirecting when necessary

activities include going outside to do structured activities linked to writing activities

1/2 hour break in middle of morning

Teaching Strategies

scaffolds

facilitates metacognitive development

facilitates/models self-regulation, time management

integrates math, science into reading instruction

puts new material in context, makes frequent use of students' background knowledge

lots of student interactionin whole group and small-group activities

incidental learning (lots of minilessons)

lots of questions

gives clueshas kids guess words

lessons indicate lots of planningkids never run out of things to do; activities meaningfully

linked to theme, purpose, skills

lessons include entire range of readers

provides information in advance in order to avert errors

tasks consistently within reach of all students; all achieve success, none held back

individualization

reinforces use of multiple approaches/strategies

gets students to talk about the strategies they are using through questions, scaffolding

patience (waits for students to get out what it is they want to say)

positive redirection

52

Writing (the process)

whole group discussion

story webs

talk with partners

write/draw

teacher provides individual feedback, monitors student progress around the room

lots of scaffolding throughout

Written Products

students all familiar with use of idea websmake good use of them

most students can write a full page

lots of ideas, organized well (webs)

writing of high quality

spelling accuracy high

Student Engagement

consistently high, regardless of activity or grouping

teacher uses positive redirection to refocus kids who are off task

engagement frequently 100%; rarely less than 80% to 85%

General Classroom Atmosphere

very positive

caring

lots of positive feedback

lots of individual attention

teacher redirects behavior with positive or neutral comments, hands on shoulders

53

teacher and students enthusiastic

lots of student cooperation

teacher consistently respectful of students

teacher clearly likes students

"[H3], I wish I lived here!" (from lowest reader in the class)

kids behavior is well modulated; they respond quickly to teacher redirection

Time Management

time well-planned

students never without something to do

lots of cues to help students become better managers of their own time

lots of encouragement to plan their time, consider how much more time they need

schedule consistent

students never appeared to feel rushed to complete assignments

Room Arrangement

desks in small groups

rug area with easel

table at back used for reading groups

signs all around room (decoding rules, question words, writing checks)

Other Adults

used for reading groups, reading with individual children, xeroxing, making minibooks

adults never observed sitting and watching a lesson

Home/School Connection

homework (usually spelling and math) encourages parent participation

54

references to home received positively

students encouraged to take books home to read with parents

Reading Levels of Students

(to be discussed at interview)

55

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