The Development of a Classroom Observational System for Studying the Quality of Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Instruction in First Grade Classrooms

The purpose of this professional development study was to examine the impact of Teacher Study Groups on the teacher practice, teacher knowledge, and student outcomes, specifically in the areas of reading comprehension and vocabulary. The multi-site study was conducted in three large urban school districts from three states: California (CA), Pennsylvania (PA), and Virginia (VA). A total of 19 Reading First schools were involved in the study (10 treatment, 9 control). The authors developed the "Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary (RCV) Observational Measure" (Gersten et al., 2007), a moderate-inference measure, to assess the quality of classroom reading instruction. The authors' findings indicate that the "RCV Observational Measure" (Gersten et al., 2007) is sensitive to the intervention, a key component of construct validity. This aspect of validity was particularly important to them in that they designed this measure to be one of several outcomes in a study of professional development for first grade teachers. The measure also has acceptable levels of inter-observer reliability and internal consistency. The "RCV Observational Measure" (Gersten et al.) presents a viable alternative to existing observational methodology that can be used to assess the quality of teacher practice in large scale up projects to yield consistently data that is objective and reliable. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)