Hi Betsy,

 

I agree that the results were astonishing. We were surprised, too. I
also have experience in working with adult reading students and I know
this is unusual. My first response is to remind you that these are
averages, so no one is saying that such results should be expected of
every individual. 

 

The students who participated were those who agreed to be part of the
project. Although I'm sure that other students may have participated in
some of the instruction, we have the assessment data only for those who
chose to participate. They were an extremely varied group; it was not
necessarily those who had serious reading difficulties/disabilities. We
had a wide range of readers, with the average around 5th grade (as
measured by TABE grade-equivalent scores).

 

The rest of the answer lies in the training and other support activities
and materials we (the project staff) provided and the very real changes
teachers made. The teachers chose to participate in this project. It was
not imposed upon them. They received intensive training on
research-proven instruction, and they had very specific diagnostic
information on many of the students. Even those who did not need the
vocabulary and decoding tests did read short passages aloud to the
teacher and shared a lot of information in a detailed interview. These
teachers knew much more about individuals' reading history, strengths,
and needs than the typical adult education teacher or tutor would have.
In fact, in most cases the teachers would never have heard the learners
read aloud, and there is obviously much one can learn from hearing aloud
reading, even without the other test results. 

 

The teachers were, for the most part, in regular ABE-type settings (a
couple in family literacy programs), which means most of them weren't
doing any explicit reading instruction. What they began doing in the
classroom during this project represented a real change in practice.
Some of our results may be attributed to this important shift to
explicit reading instruction. 

 

For example, several of the teachers said they had learned not to assume
so much about adults' understanding of the terms used in their classroom
texts. These teachers learned they should directly teach vocabulary. And
they had both commercial materials and project-developed materials to
support this kind of instruction.

 

I know it's amazing! I hope this helps to explain it.

 

Susan

 

Susan McShane

National Center for Family Literacy

502-584-1133, Ext. 175

 

 

 

________________________________

From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Betsy Rubin -
Literacy Works
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:56 PM
To: The Family Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1123] Re: Family literacy
findingsreleasedtodayshowone grade level gain for every 10-13 hoursof
instruction

 

Hello,

 

I have to say that I am flabbergasted at these results and wonder if I
am completely misunderstanding them!  

 

I have taught ABE and worked with many ABE programs and - with very rare
individual exceptions - I have never seen such rapid gains among adult
literacy learners.

 

Let's take an ABE program that offers 2-hour class sessions 5 days a
week--in other words, a program in which a student can attend 10 hours
per week of reading instruction. In such a program, I can't imagine an
adult who "TABES" at, say, 3.0 rising to a 4.0 after a single week of
class!  Or... to extend it... rising to a 12.0 reading level after just
a couple of months in the program.  It just doesn't happen.

 

Perhaps I am embarrassing myself by misunderstanding what you are
reporting.  However, I am sure that I represent other confused persons!


 

Can you clarify further?

 

Thanks much!

 

Betsy Rubin

Chicago IL

 

 

	----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Gail Price <mailto:gprice at famlit.org>  

	To: The Family Literacy Discussion List
<mailto:familyliteracy at nifl.gov>  

	Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:59 PM

	Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1122] Re: Family literacy
findingsreleasedtodayshow one grade level gain for every 10-13 hoursof
instruction

	 

	The following message is  posted on behalf of Laura Westberg
	
	 
	
	Dr. Sticht:
	
	I am happy to clarify our findings in regard to the questions
you have raised. 
	
	The mean grade equivalent reported in the table is the
calculation of change in TABE score from pretest to post test.  We
determined a reasonable benchmark for post testing on the TABE and asked
teachers to test students after approximately 20 hours of reading
instruction. However, in reality, this is not what always occurred.  In
fact, reading instructional hours for adult students ranged from 1 to 74
hours as reported by the teachers and 49% of the students had less than
20 hours of reading instruction. 
	
	Therefore, to better understand the types of gains that students
were making in relation to the amount of reading instruction they
received, we calculated a gain per instructional hour based on the total
reading instructional hours reported by the teachers for the students.
Year 1 students had an average gain per instructional hour of .10 and
Year 2 students had an average gain of .08.  Thus, in year 1 for every
one hour of reading instruction, they gained an average of .10 grade
levels and in year 2 for every one hour of reading instruction they
gained an average of .08 grade levels.  This translates into an average
of 10-12.5 hours of reading instruction to raise a student's score on
the TABE by one grade level. 
	
	Please let me know if any further clarification would be
helpful.
	
	 
	
	Laura Westberg
	
	Director, Research/Special Projects
	
	National Center for Family Literacy
	
	325 West Main Street, Suite 300
	
	Louisville, KY 40202-4237
	
	Phone: 502-584-1133 x172
	
	Fax: 502-584-0172
	
	Email: lwestberg at famlit.org
	
	Web: http://www.famlit.org
	
	 
	
	________________________________
	
	From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of
tsticht at znet.com
	Sent: Sun 6/15/2008 10:53 AM
	To: familyliteracy at nifl.gov
	Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1120] Re: Family literacy findings
releasedtodayshow one grade level gain for every 10-13 hours of
instruction
	
	
	
	combined, for the 82 students the pre-test score was 4.96 and
the post-test
	score was 5.89 for a gain of 1.03 years.
	
	Where I get puzzled is when the report states, Quote:" For adult
learners in
	Year 1 these results translate to an average of one grade-level
gain for
	every 10 hours of reading instruction. For Year 2 students it is
an average
	of one grade-level gain for every 12.5 hours of reading
instruction." End
	Quote  If, as stated in the report,   pre-and post-tests were
separated by
	20 hours of reading instruction how was gain in 10 hours or 12.5
hours of
	instruction determined?  And how does the phrase "for every"
enter in if
	only one set of pre- and post-test scores were obtained for each
student,
	presumably after 20 hours of reading instruction?
	
	Help please!!
	Tom Sticht
	
	----------------------------------------------------
	National Institute for Literacy
	Family Literacy mailing list
	FamilyLiteracy at nifl.gov
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to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/familyliteracy
	Email delivered to gprice at famlit.org
	
	

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