Journal Article

Expert reading coaching via technology

Sheils, Ashley Parker, Buss, Carolyn, Weiser, Beverly, Murray, L. Robin, Gallegos, Elisa

2019

Overview

While qualitative research has shown great benefits for teachers who receive coaching, there is a paucity of experimental research examining students’academic outcomes after their teachers received ongoing support from a knowledgeable and experienced coach. Thus, a quasiexperimental design investigated the literacy outcomes of 452 students experiencing reading learning disabilities in grades K–8th whose special education and/or resource room teachers (n = 44) received student data-focused coaching support through on-site coaching, on-demand coaching (teachers could request support if needed), or through technology-based coaching. Specifically, researchers wanted to investigate if technology-based coaching was as effective as in-classroom support for increasing teachers’knowledge and implementation of researchbased reading instructional routines and ultimately, improving the reading, writing, and spelling outcomes of students with reading learning disabilities. Results yielded positive student academic growth for all three methods of coaching; however, coaching via technology, a more efficient, less time-consuming method of giving teachers ongoing professional development, produced larger statistically significant Cohen’s d effect sizes than the other two forms of coaching ranging from 0.22 to 1.01 in areas of phonemic awareness, decoding, comprehension, fluency, writing, and spelling. Other findings as well as the educational implications of implementing coaching via technology are also included.

• Publisher: Springer Science + Business Media,Springer US,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Achievement Gains / Child / Classrooms / Coaching / Coaching (Performance) / Comprehension / Comprehension - physiology / Computer-Assisted Instruction - methods / Computer-Assisted Instruction - standards / Decoding / Decoding (Reading) / Disability recipients / Education / Educational Technology / Effect Size / Elementary school students / Faculty Development / Female / Fluency / Grade 1 / Grade 2 / Grade 3 / Grade 4 / Grade 5 / Grade 6 / Grade 7 / Grade 8 / Humans / Kindergarten / Knowledge Base for Teaching / Language and Literature / Learning / Learning disabilities / Learning Disabilities - psychology / Learning Disabilities - therapy / Learning outcomes / Linguistics / Literacy / Literacy - psychology / Literacy - standards / Male / Middle school students / Neurology / Phonemes / Phonemic Awareness / Phonetics / Phonological awareness / Professional development / Professional training / Program Effectiveness / Psycholinguistics / Qualitative research / Quasi-experimental methods / Quasiexperimental Design / Reading / Reading Comprehension / Reading Difficulties / Reading Fluency / Research design / Resource Teachers / Scholarship / Social Sciences / Special Education / Spelling / Student Records / Students / Students - psychology / Students with disabilities / Teacher Competencies / Teacher education / Teachers / Teaching Methods / Technology / Technology Uses in Education / Writing / Writing - standards / Writing Skills