Reading for Understanding Research Initiative

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Reading for Understanding Research Initiative

• Elizabeth Albro
• National Center for Education Research

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The Challenge

• Too many students cannot understand what they
  read.
• Reading with understanding requires BOTH
• Word level skills
• Comprehension-related skills and knowledge

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What Do We Know?

• How word level skills develop
• How to provide instruction to support initial
  mastery of word level skills
• How to assess students mastery of word level
  skills

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What Do We Need to Know?

• How to support oral language development in
  context of school
• How to support the development of text processing
  skills
• How to measure comprehension

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Breaking Out of the Old Shell
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A New Approach

• Create a tightly linked RD Network of Core
  Research Teams and Assessment Team(s)
• All focused on reading comprehension across
  multiple grades and across content areas
• Together will cover the PK-Grade 12 continuum

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Reading for Understanding RD Network
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Goals of RD Network Core Teams

• Examine underlying processes of reading
  comprehension and identify malleable processes
  that may be targets of intervention for enhancing
  reading comprehension
• Develop and test interventions intended to
  improve reading comprehension

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Research Tasks of Core Teams

• Examine underlying cognitive processes necessary
  for comprehension
• Develop interventions to support comprehension
• Evaluate impact of developed interventions on
  student outcomes

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Goals of Assessment Team(s)

• Advance theoretical understanding of reading
  comprehension
• Conduct research examining the underlying model
  of the development of reading comprehension from
  PK-12
• Develop and test a set of summative reading
  comprehension assessments

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Reading for Understanding Applications include 5
Sections

• Significance
• Research Plan
• Personnel
• Management Plan
• Resources

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Core Team Applications Significance
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Significance of basic research on cognitive
processes

• Rationale for proposed research on underlying
  cognitive processes
• Potential contribution of the proposed line of
  research to advancing understanding of reading
  comprehension

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Significance of interventions

• Theoretical and empirical rationale for proposed
  set of interventions for enhancing oral language
• General theory of change for set of interventions
• Description of the interventions
• Potential contribution of proposed research to
  advancing understanding of oral language

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Core Team Methodological Requirements (Research
Plan)
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Basic research on underlying cognitive processes

• Rationale
• Methodological approach
• Research questions and/or hypotheses
• Sample
• Measures
• Procedures for data collection
• Study design
• Detailed data analysis procedures

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Development of a set of interventions

• Intervention, theory of change, theoretical and
  empirical rationale
• Iterative development process
• Simultaneous development of multiple
  instantiations of the basic intervention across
  grade levels and content areas
• Describe role of teachers or other school
  personnel in the design of the interventions

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Iterative development process

• Define operating as intended for proposed
  intervention
• Data to be collected to determine how
  intervention (or component) is operating
• How this data will be used to revise intervention
• What criteria will be used to determine if
  intervention is operating as intended

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Evaluation of the efficacy of an intervention

• Describe how team will evaluate efficacy of the
  comprehension intervention(s)
• Sample
• Detailed research design
• Power to detect effects
• Measures to be used procedures for data
  collection
• How implementation will be documented measured
• Description of instruction delivered in
  comparison groups
• Detailed data analysis procedures

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Core Team Personnel

• Expertise in
• understanding underlying cognitive processes
• developing interventions
• evaluating the impact of interventions
• working with schools or other education agencies

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Core Team Management Plan

• Coordination of work of the various subgroups
  within the Core Team
• Facilitation of ongoing communication between
  Core Teams and Assessment Teams

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Core Team Resources

• Support at the research institution
• Technological support
• Letters of agreement from participating schools
  and/or teachers

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Core Team Award Amounts

• 2 million to 4 million total cost per year
• Maximum length 5 years
• Size of award depends upon scope of project

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Assessment Team Applications
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Assessment Team Significance

• Rationale
• Present and justify theoretical model of reading
  comprehension, and its development from PK-Grade
  12
• Description of the summative assessments
• How the theoretical model is instantiated in
  proposed assessments
• What constructs will assessments measure

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Assessment Team Methodological Requirements

• Testing the underlying theoretical model(s)
• Describe how the model will be tested
• Assessment development
• Describe iterative development process
• Assessment evaluation
• Discuss how validity and reliability of
  assessment(s) will be determined

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Assessment Team Other Proposed Research
(Optional)

• Teams may propose to develop formative reading
  comprehension assessments to use in any grade
  from PK to Grade 12
• Teams may propose to test efficacy of using the
  formative assessments for improving reading
  comprehension

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Assessment Team Personnel

• Expertise in
• Reading comprehension, oral language development,
  and text processing
• Assessment
• Implementation of, and analysis of results from
  proposed research design
• Working with teachers, schools, or education
  delivery settings

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Assessment Team Management Plan

• How will work of various groups within the RD
  Network Assessment Team be coordinated?
• How will Assessment Team facilitate coordination
  of use of the summative assessment across the
  Core Teams?

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Assessment Team Resources

• Institutional resources, including access to
  schools
• Statistical measurement resources

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Assessment Team Award Amounts

• 1 million to 3 million total cost per year
• Maximum length 5 years
• Size of award depends upon scope of project

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Appendix A

• Letters of agreement from schools
• Supporting tables and figures

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Appendix B

• Examples of curriculum materials, proposed scope
  sequence, fidelity or other observational
  materials

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Preparing the ApplicationContents

• Project Narrative
• Bibliography and References Cited
• Biographical Sketches of Key Project Personnel
• Narrative Budget Justification
• Subaward Budgets

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Preparing the Application Contents

• Appendix A (letters of agreement tables
  figures)
• Appendix B (curriculum materials examples of
  items for measure development projects)
• Additional forms for applicants selected for
  funding

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Formatting Requirements

• Abstract is 1 page single-spaced.
• Research narrative is no longer than 40 pages
  single-spaced.
• Bibliography has no page limit.
• Each biographical sketch is limited to 4 pages.
• Budget justification has no page limit.
• Appendix A can be no longer than 15 pages.
• Appendix B can be no longer than 10 pages.

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Finding Requests for Applications

• FY 2010 Requests for Applications and the IES
  Grants.gov Submission Guide are available on
• http//ies.ed.gov/funding
• Sign up for the IES Newsflash
• http//ies.ed.gov/newsflash/

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Application Due Dates

• Reading for Understanding Research Initiative
• October 1, 2009
• 43000 pm Washington, DC time

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• Elizabeth Albro
• elizabeth.albro_at_ed.gov