Qualitative inquiry, according to Erickson (2011), “seeks to discover and to describe in narrative reporting what particular people do in their everyday lives and what their actions mean to them” (p. 43). Since qualitative research is “a situated activity that locates the observer in the world” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 3), qualitative researchers are committed to viewing the social world through the eyes of their subjects (Bryman, 1984). Qualitative researchers, as a result, provide thick description of the phenomenon from their participants’ perspectives (Yilmaz, 2013). Accordingly, qualitative studies are “highly context and case dependent” (Yilmaz, 2013, p. 315) and warrant a description of the research setting and participants to help readers contextualize the findings.
This chapter focuses on providing the context for this qualitative study. First, I provide a description of the Reading Recovery tenets and framework according to Marie Clay. I then describe the context of the professional development specifically outlining the characteristics and content of the professional development. Also included in this chapter is a description of the teachers who participated in the study specifically highlighting significant life experiences that impacted their beliefs and teaching practices. I then include details of each teacher’s current school and their role at that school. Lastly, each teacher’s focal students are described, including home language, family life, and academic progress.
Reading Recovery Origins of Reading Recovery
As a researcher, Marie Clay has been described as “fiercely persistently, absolutely ethical, and always open to new possibilities” (Askew, 2009, p. 101). Clay’s research was revolutionary because she drew from different disciplines to create an “unusual lens” to observe emerging literacy behaviors. Her background in developmental psychology influenced her methodological and theoretical decisions. Developmental research allowed her to focus on “what, when, and how to begin teaching” (p. 101) and how changes occur over time. Her research focused on detailed descriptions of children’s literacy behaviors, abilities, and processes as they changed over time. She argued her research in early literacy development needed to begin with descriptive mapping, rather than a logical experimental question. In her 1963 study, she used strategies from biological science to explore what children were learning in their first year of school and how their behaviors changed over time. She used carefully controlled direct observation in the students’ natural setting to record what happened as children learned to read and write. Later, her unusual lens would derive what she coined as grounded theory of literacy. Clay combined both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in her research. For her
quantitative research, she “used appropriate techniques for sampling, data collection, and analysis; appropriate statistical analyses ensure reliability and validity” (Askew, 2009, p. 102). On the other hand, for her qualitative research, she systematically collected data using reliable and standard methods for observing and recording.
In 1976, Clay embarked on a two year research study aiming to answer her research question, “Can we use the collective expertise of good teachers to develop and describe some teaching procedures that can be used with failing children in school” (Clay, 1979, p. 1). Clay, as
a result, began the Development Project in which she conducted detailed observation with the intention of recording how teachers worked with struggling readers in one-on-one situation (Ballantyne, 2009; Clay, 1993; Clay, 2009). In the second year, Clay assembled a team of six practitioners who agreed to teach two struggling readers behind a one-way screen and to discuss their teaching decisions before and during the lesson. Over a two year period, “a large number of techniques were piloted, observed, discussed, argued over, related to theory, analysed, written up, modified, and tried out in various ways, and, most important, many were discarded” (Clay, 2009, p. 37). The procedures outlined in Clay’s guidebook were derived from “the responses of experienced teachers to children as they tried to read and write” (Clay, 2009, p. 37). The process to refine these teaching procedures continued for several years as drafts of the teaching
procedures were written, debated, and revised by practicing teachers. Consequently, Reading Recovery procedures are rooted in practice and theory.
Tenets and Beliefs of Reading Recovery
The origins of the Reading Recovery program were based on several key theoretical principles. First, learning to read is a complex, problem-solving process which changes over time. In effort to construct meaning from text, readers engage in perceptual and cognitive decision-making activities which become increasingly complex as they engage with more challenging texts. Second, students learn to read and write by reading and writing continuous texts. Students learn to integrate all sources of information, including visual, structure, and meaning, to develop working problem-solving systems as they tentatively construct the meanings of continuous texts. Third, students are not blank slates but are knowledgeable individuals with their own strengths and differences. Consequently, no one set of teaching sequences will meet the varying abilities of students. Successful literacy programs are guided by students’ existing
knowledge and experiences. This requires close observation from teachers to infer the underlying learning processes and to create learning opportunities to build on their prior
knowledge. Lastly, reading and writing are reciprocal processes that employ the same cognitive networks. Learning to read and write concurrently helps students to create valuable links
between the two interrelated processes. Teachers’ decision making is critical to providing a responsive and accelerated program for struggling readers and writers (Schmitt, Askew, Fountas, Lyons, & Pinnell, 2005).
Daily Lessons
The objective of Reading Recovery, according to the Reading Recovery Council of North America (2014), is “to promote the accelerated learning so that students catch up to their peers, close the achievement gap as quickly as possible, and can benefit from classroom instruction without supplemental help” (“Lessons”). To achieve this end, Reading Recovery students receive 30 minutes of daily instruction that has been individually designed and delivered by trained Reading Recovery teachers, who use a range of teaching procedures outlined by Clay to make “moment-by-moment decisions to support the unique needs of each student” (RRCNA, 2014, “Lessons”).
During the first two weeks of lessons, teachers begin a process of “roaming around the known” in which they intentionally “stay with what the child already knows how to do” (Clay, 2005a, p. 32) being careful not to teach them any new items or processes. The teacher and student collaboratively engage in the reading and writing of continuous texts, allowing the teacher to build rapport with the student, to observe the child’s ways of responding, to build the student’s confidence and fluency on familiar tasks, and to make the child feel like a reader and writer.
Teachers, after two weeks of Roaming, may begin moving into instruction using the Reading Recovery lesson framework. The typical daily lesson, according to Clay (2005a), includes each of the following activities, usually in the following order:
Reading two or more familiar books
Re-reading yesterday’s new book and taking a running record Working with letter identification
Breaking words into parts Writing a story
Hearing and recording sounds Reconstructing the cut-up story Listening to book introductions
Attempting to read the new book (Clay, 2005a, p. 37)
By the end of the lesson, Clay maintains, a student “should have revised easy reading, letter knowledge, links between letters and sounds, and his monitoring strategies in the cut-up story” (Clay, 2005a, p. 37). Therefore, Clay’s arrangement of the activities encourages the student to “actively engage in solving problems preparing him for the new book” (p. 37). While Clay allows for individual variations in the lesson format, teachers must have a “sound rationale based on a particular child’s response to lesson” (Clay, 2005a, p. 38).
The typical Reading Recovery lesson begins with the student re-reading familiar books. Familiar reading provides the student with a volume of reading practice exposing them to a range of texts, structures, and meanings. Since the student has read these books previously, the student has opportunities for speeded recognition and to practice the orchestration of processing. With each additional reading of a book, the student is freed up to discover new things about text.
During this time, the teacher supports the student’s tentative problem solving efforts, but limits his or her involvement to encourage the student’s developing independence.
Following familiar reading, the teacher takes a running record of the student
independently reading the previous day’s new book. Since the teacher provides no input during this reading, the student can demonstrate his or her range of strategic activities, including
“monitoring, choosing between alternatives, confirming, revising, and making appropriate links, clusters of letters embedded within words while remaining attentive to the meaning of the text, to the structure of the language, and to pace” (Clay, 2005a, p. 49). The running record allows teachers to specifically check on reading processes they have recently emphasized in their instructions. Once the student completes the running record book, the teacher selects one or two teaching points based on his or her immediate assessment of the running record. The teacher returns to the running record for further analysis of the student’s reading processing when planning.
Students then spend a couple of minutes working with letters and words in isolation. Work on letter identification facilitates the fast identification of letter shapes and features allowing the reader to make faster decisions about words in continuous text. During this time, the teacher may ask the student to trace, form, or sort letters, varying the positions, sizes, and means of making letters. The teacher supports by modeling, verbally prompting, or guiding the student’s hand. Students also work on words in isolation. Although students will learn about taking words apart and constructing words throughout their lesson, Clay (2005b) proposes “the aim of this work with words in isolation is to have him know about how words work and be able to use this awareness while reading texts and while writing” (p. 138). Using words that have emerged from current work in the lesson, the student learns ways to break words into parts, ways
to construct and reconstruct known words, and ways to solve unfamiliar words through analogy. While this work is done in isolation, Clay advises that links must be made between word work and the reading and writing of continuous text to ensure “what is learned in one place is transportable to another place” (Clay, 2005b, p. 47).
The writing portion of the lesson is next. The teacher first engages the student in a “genuine, but short conversation” (Clay, 2005b, p. 55) to elicit a topic for his story. The student composes the message for the story with the support of the teacher. Once the story is
formulated, the student and teacher share in its production. The student writes what he or she can independently while the teacher writes the portion of text that is deemed to be too hard for the student to attempt. The story is recorded in the bottom portion of an unlined exercise book. The top portion is used as a work space for teaching and trial and errors. The student, for
example, may try out a word he thinks he knows, use Elkonin boxes to record sounds he hears in sequence, solve words through analogy, or construct letters or words with fluency. Initially, the teacher’s contribution is high, but gradually, the student will take over problem-solving of new words allowing the teacher to monitor the student’s performance, anticipate problem-solving difficulties, and/or teach through prompts.
The next activity, assembling the cut-up story, provides the student an opportunity to “relate reading to writing, writing to speaking, and reading to speaking” (Clay, 2005b, p. 81). The student first re-reads the completed story while the teacher rewrites the story on a cardboard strip. This story is then cut-up into language units manageable for the student. The message could be cut into “two or three phrases, whole words, and to emphasise a particular segment of a word” (Clay, 2005b, p. 82). The student then reassembles the message with or without a model depending on the child’s ability. Through the cut-up story, the student has opportunities to
practice self-monitoring, checking, one-to-one correspondence, and directionality. As a result, students “orchestrate many literacy activities on familiar material, slowed up, and constructed deliberately” (Clay, 2005b, p. 85).
Lastly, the student is given a new book to read that is facilitative, highly motivational, and “well within the child’s control” (Clay, 2005b, p. 90). The teacher first orients the student to the story before he or she is asked to read it. In the book introduction, the teacher and the student discuss the plot, vocabulary, and rehearse language structures attempting to take the “bugs” out of the text before the first read. This introduction must be well planned and executed so the child is prepared with the ideas and language needed to complete the reading. Prepared by the book introduction, the student then reads the new books as independently as possible. The new book can offer students an opportunity to read a simple text with fluency or understanding or to problem-solve at points of difficulty by searching the print, picture, or language. Teachers support students during the first reading of a new book through verbal prompting. The aim of these prompts is to support and/or improve the processing of information on continuous texts. Through teachers’ supportive teaching, students extend their ability to problem-solve in continuous text.
The aim of Reading Recovery is to produce independent readers and writers. Reading Recovery achieves this end by building the foundations for a self-extending system allowing students’ reading and writing to improve whenever they read and write. According to Clay (2005b), teachers foster the development of independent problem-solving by
prompting constructive activity working with new knowledge accepting the child’s initiatives
accepting partially correct responses playing with anticipation
developing attention to features asking the child ‘to learn’
praising the way a child worked towards the solution, whether it was reached or not
lifting the difficulty level revisiting the familiar (p. 42).
When Reading Recovery teachers design a “superbly sequenced series of lessons” based on their students’ competences, select the “clearest, easiest, most memorable examples with which to establish a new response, skill, or principle” (Clay, 2005a, p. 23), and respond
tentatively, flexibly, and immediately to their students, the students’ reading and writing progress is likely to be accelerated allowing them to “take[s] over the learning process and work[s]
independently, discovering new things inside and outside the lesson” (Clay, 2005a, p. 23). Context of Professional Development
Qualities of Professional Development
The professional development was defined by four main qualities: common focus, safe environment, multiple routes for learning, and learning from others. Teachers, when reflecting on their positive experiences in learning communities, agreed maintaining a common focus was essential. As a result, participating teachers requested an agenda be created for each professional development to establish a clear purpose for our work and expectations for our participation. This line of thinking is reflected in our first ground rule, “Agenda to establish purpose and clear expectations” (PD 1, September 15, 2014). While I created the agenda and planned activities to meet our expressed goals, teachers were included in the decision making by selecting learning
opportunities and deciding on the ways and the extent they would enact these learning
opportunities. Consequently, the professional development provided teachers with structured flexibility allowing them to take “different paths to common outcomes” (Clay, 1998).
Teachers also recognized that a safe environment facilitated their positive learning experiences. Our ground rules established and maintained this idea of a safe learning
environment. They read, “Confidentiality and respect for different perspectives and learning styles to establish comfort level and relationships. Everyone can share at comfort level in a variety of sharing structures” (PD 1, September 15, 2014). As a result, we were intentional to create a safe learning environment for the professional development by inviting teachers to participate as they felt comfortable, honoring confidentiality, and maintaining positive personal relationships. As the facilitator, I also tried to support and guide teachers to take risks in their thinking and practices. To do so, I modeled my own reflective thinking, asked questions, rather than gave answers, varied the participation structure and activities, offered learning opportunities that stretched teachers outside of their comfort zone, and celebrated teachers’ efforts. Dana shared that she benefitted from “the encouragement to go out and be a part of their community” explaining the relationship building learning opportunities were “the impetus to get me going and get me out to do that more” (Dana, Final Interview, December 18, 2014). Our efforts yielded the intended result as demonstrated by Kara’s comment, “I think people were very transparent and risk takers” (Kara, Final Interview, December 10, 2014).
Teachers valued that the professional development offered flexibility allowing for multiple routes for learning. The menu of learning opportunities differentiated the learning experience for each teacher. Dana valued the flexibility within the menu of learning opportunities sharing, “I appreciate the inclusion of a menu for different assignments. For
example, ‘getting to know our cultural selves’ holds no interest for me. I’m glad that is not a requirement. However, the opportunities to read literature that I might not have been aware of is a big plus” (Dana, Reflective Journal, September 15, 2014). Having a choice in reading
materials was also valued by teachers. Amanda shared, “I love being able to choose what we read” (Amanda, Final Interview, December 12, 2014).
While the learning community framework was consistent through the professional development, the participating structures and activities varied during and across sessions. Amanda described the professional development, “It had a balance of everyone working together, different activities, sometimes we were writing, writing on the wall, or talking with somebody. So it was nice to have it changed up, but yet have the same structure” (Amanda, Final Interview, December 12, 2014). A variety of activities enabled teachers to participate in ways they were comfortable and encouraged them to remain engaged throughout each session. Amanda agreed, “We have plenty of flexibility in how we each participate and contribute to the group” (Amanda, Reflective Journal, September 15, 2014).
Offering time for reflection was valued by the teachers because it encouraged them to think deeply about their beliefs, new learning, and teaching practices. Kara shared, “Reflections were also helpful and having that built in time for reflection was important because it is so easy to let go” (Kara, Final Interview, December 10, 2014). The structure of the professional
development encouraged teachers to take multiple routes for learning.
The structure and the flexibility of the professional development encouraged teachers to learn from each other. Since each teachers’ knowledge and experiences were respected and valued, dialogue between teachers offered relevant and meaningful learning opportunities. Teachers were given time to dialogue about their professional reading allowing them to digest
the material, to consider different interpretations, to share related personal experiences, to