An Investigation of the Impact of the Teacher Study Group as a Means to Enhance the Quality of Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Instruction for First Graders in Reading First Schools - Technical Report

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Damian

Randomized field trials examined the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG), a professional development model, on first grade teachers’ reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction, their knowledge of these areas, and students’ comprehension and vocabulary achievement. The multi-site study ran during 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 in three urban districts across California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The analytic sample included 81 teachers and 468 students from 19 Reading First schools. Classroom observations showed significant improvements for TSG teachers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages59

Reading Time2 h 29 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Method

Results

Summary and Conclusions

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

An Investigation of the Impact of the Teacher Study Group asa Means to Enhance the Quality of Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Instruction for First Graders in Reading First Schools: Technical Report (2009) Russell Gersten Instructional Research Group Joe Dimino Instructional Research Group Madhavi Jayanthi Instructional Research Group Jimmy Kim Harvard Graduate School Lana Santoro Instructional Research Group 2 This Teacher Quality Project was funded by U.S. Department of Education (Award No. R305M030052) . Preferred citation: Gersten, R. , Dimino, J. , Jayanthi, M. , Kim , J. , & Santoro, L. (2009) . An investigation of the impact of the Teacher Study Group as a means to enhance the quality of reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction for first graders in Reading First schools: A Technical Report. Los Alamitos, CA: Instructional Research Group. To download a copy of this document, [visit www.inresg.org](visit www.inresg.org). 3 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………4 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..5 Method………………………………………………………………………………..7 Results…………………………………………………………………………….…29 Summary and Conclusions………………………………………………………...42 References…………………………………………………………………………..49 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………..55 Appendix B…………………………………………………………………………..58 4 Abstract Randomized field trials were used to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group, a professional development model, on first grade teachers’ reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction, their knowledge of these areas, and on the corollary comprehension and vocabulary achievement of their students. The multi-site study was conducted during the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 school years in three large urban school districts from three states: California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. A total of 81 first grade teachers and their 468 students from 19 Reading First schools formed the analytic sample in the study. Classrooms observations of teaching practice showed significant improvements in TSG schools: TSG teachers scored .86 standard deviations higher on the comprehension measure and .58 standard deviations higher on the vocabulary measure than control teachers. TSG teachers also significantly outperformed control teachers on the teacher knowledge measure of vocabulary instruction (ES = .73) . Confirmatory analysis of student outcomes focused on passage comprehension, reading vocabulary, and oral vocabulary; of these only the latter was marginally significant ( .44) . Implications for teacher practice and future research are discussed. 5 Introduction For almost two decades, research on professional development has suggested that commonly used one or two day trainings, that is, one-shot in-services, are ineffective (Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1991) . Large-scale case study research (e.g. , Huberman & Miles, 1984) and survey research (Garet, Porter , Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001) suggest that teachers value continuous coherent training opportunities that integrate teacher learning into daily classroom instruction. Fundamentally absent in the short term , and typically large scale, professional development workshops are opportunities for teachers to collectively reflect on the relevance of something before they learn it, obtain new knowledge in real contexts, and connect new ideas and skills to their already diverse teaching experiences (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2005) . Although professional development that contains solid conceptual and theoretical material tends to be viewed more positively, teachers crave training opportunities that contain concrete examples relating to their current curricula (McLaughlin, 1990) . In recent years there has been an increased interest in the use of the Teacher Study Groups (TSG) or the Teacher Work Group as an approach to professional development (Carroll, 2005; Lambert, 2002; Meyer et al. , 1998; Murphy, 1992; Saunders et

FAQs

What does the Teacher Study Group (TSG) aim to improve in first grade classrooms?

TSG is designed to help first grade teachers use research-based instructional strategies by integrating TSG content into their existing curriculum. The study focuses on reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction quality.

How was the study conducted and what was the sample size?

Randomized field trials were conducted across three states in three large urban districts during the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 school years. The analytic sample included 81 first grade teachers and 468 students from 19 Reading First schools.

What were the key findings regarding teachers’ outcomes?

Classroom observations showed significant improvements for TSG teachers, including higher scores on comprehension and vocabulary measures compared with control teachers. TSG teachers also significantly outperformed controls on vocabulary instruction knowledge.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Damian