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April 2008 research briefs
Not all children respond to PALS intervention Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), the popular buddy system in reading, has helped many students increase reading achievement. But, about 20% of low-achieving non-disabled students and more than 50% of students with disabilities do not respond to PALS, according to a recent review of the research in Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal. In one study that examined non-responders, researchers explored several ways to increase response rates with one of three methods: 1) more time with PALS, 2) modified version of PALS, 3) one-to-one tutoring. After 13 additional weeks of these interventions (following a 7-week PALS program), researchers found that of those students who continued to receive PALS, 81% remained unresponsive. Of those who received a modified version of PALS, 75% remained unresponsive and of those who received one-to-one tutoring, 50% remained unresponsive. The results of the study suggests that simply providing students with more time in PALS is not likely to improve their response, the researchers write. "As with any instructional approach, it is critical to frequently monitor students' progress to determine whether they are making sufficient progress in reading," they write. Reading performance of twins stable over time Cognitive and reading performance were highly stable for twins with and without a history of reading disabilities over 5-6 year period during which their progress was tracked, according to a recent article in the Annals of Dyslexia. Calling the study the first longitudinal twin study in which subjects (at least one of the twins) were specifically selected for a history of reading difficulties, the researchers say these initial results point to the overall stability of cognitive and reading performance. The study followed 106 identical twins and 172 fraternal twins from age 8-16 at initial assessment to age 13-24 at follow up. From 27 school districts, a total of 124 twins had a history of reading difficulties and 154 had no history of reading difficulties. Some studies have indicated that children with reading difficulties continue to fall farther behind their normal-achieving peers, but this study found that not only was the gap fairly stable but that twins with reading difficulty showed slight improvement. The study provides the opportunity to illuminate the influence of genes and environment and how they interact to affect reading difficulties and behavior problems, the researchers say. (Developmental Neuropsychology, Volume 32, Number 3, pp. 847-860) Poor visual memory does not seem to be to blame for arithmetic learning problems, according to a recent study in Developmental Neuropsychology. Memory functioning is being investigated by neuropsychologists as a cause of arithmetic disabilities since memory retrieval is a critical part of successful arithmetic calculation, researchers say. But in this study of children ages 9-13, researchers conclude that children with isolated arithmetic disabilities do not have poorer visual memories than children with both arithmetic and reading disabilities. The researchers had hypothesized that children with isolated arithmetic disabilities would have poorer visual short-term memory than children with both types of disability. One group of children with isolated arithmetic disabilities and another with both verbal and math disabilities completed the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML) test battery at a hospital-based learning disability evaluation clinic. Since there was no clear deficiency in visual memory in children with arithmetic disabilities, educators should bear in mind that the neuropsychological profiles of these students is likely more mixed. More Grade 2 coding instruction "Generally, second-grade TM (teacher-managed) code-focused instruction accounted for greater student letter-word reading score growth variability overall compared to first-grade TM code-focused instruction," they write. Effective 2nd-grade instruction that includes enough TM code-focused instruction offers a 2nd chance for children who enter 1st grade with weaker reading skills or who do not receive adequate amounts of this instruction in their 1st-grade classrooms, the researchers write. Based on observations of 41 1st-grade and 33 2nd-grade classrooms in the five schools in the study, researchers found that the amount of TM code-focused instruction decreased from about 7 min to about 4 min per day between 1st and 2nd grade. The amount was also highly variable among classrooms, ranging from 4-16 minutes per day. "Code-focused instruction tends to be brief and embedded within meaning-focused activity," the researchers write. "Although these may seem to be narrow ranges, consider that our metric is minutes per day." Multiplied by the days in a school year, the difference between 4 minutes per day and 16 minutes per day grows from 6 hours to 27 hours total in 2nd grade, the researchers note. High school math students score higher when parents sign off on monitoring sheets High school math students who had to obtain parental signatures on monitoring sheets of daily homework and test grades, performed better in their algebra classes, reports a recent study from American Secondary Education. While many studies have examined the role of parental involvement in the performance of elementary school and middle school students, few have examined its role in the performance of high school students, writes researcher Hosin Sirvani of the University of Texas--Pan American in Edinberg, TX. The researcher tested the use of twice-weekly monitoring sheets with four algebra classes of one teacher. Students in two of the classes brought home the monitoring sheets home for parental signatures and students from the other two classes did not. Of the 52 students in the study, the 30 students in the experimental group averaged a grade of 75.64 for a total of 30 homework assignments and the 22 students in the control group averaged 49.51. Students in the experimental group also had higher average scores for the seven tests and one exam. The control group had an average score of 69.68 for the exam and the experimental group had an average score of 75.87. No gender effects were found in the results. The researcher said the students in the experimental group outperformed students in the control group because parental involvement motivated the students to improve achievement. Measuring the effects of principals on student achievement There's no question that principals affect the quality of education, staff morale, and school climate, but researchers are increasingly interested in measuring principals' impact on student achievement, according to a recent article in the Peabody Journal of Education. "Although these relationships typically account for a small proportion of the total student achievement variability, they are of sufficient magnitude to be of interest and additional investigation," write the authors. But, because a principal can be responsible for thousands of students, better understanding of what actions increase their impact can potentially have widespread benefit. Recent evidence suggests that principals may have a significant direct relationshiop on the reading achievement of students with disabilities and students who are not yet proficient in English, two of the most challenging in education. Further research could substantiate other direct effects on subgroups. "For many schools, small improvements within and among student subgroups can be the difference between making Adequate Yearly Progress or not." Web Site Design By Flying Change Webs & Graphics |