Harvard Graduate School of Education will work with the Strategic Education Research Partnership and other partners to complete a
program of work designed to a) investigate the predictors of
reading comprehension in 4th - 8th grade students, in particular the role of skills at perspective - taking, complex reasoning, and academic language in predicting deep comprehension outcomes, b) track developmental trajectories across the middle grades in perspective - taking, complex reasoning, academic language skill, and deep comprehension, c) develop and evaluate curricular and pedagogical approaches designed to promote deep comprehension in the content
areas in 4th - 8th grades, and d) develop and evaluate an
intervention program designed for 6th - 8th grade students
reading at 3rd - 4th grade level.The HGSE team will take responsibility, in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions, for the following components of the proposed work: Instrument development: Pilot data collection using interviews and candidate assessment items, collaboration with DiscoTest colleagues to develop coding of the pilot data so as to produce well - justified learning sequences for perspective - taking, complex reasoning, academic language skill, and deep comprehension.Curricular development: HGSE investigators Fischer, Selman, Snow, and Uccelli will contribute to the development of a discussion - based curriculum for 4th - 5th graders, and to the expansion of an existing discussion - based curriculum for 6th - 8th graders, with a particular focus on science content (Fischer), social studies content (Selman), and academic language skills (Snow & Uccelli).
From a total of 19 schools, the three or four most similar schools were identified within each of the five urban
areas and randomly assigned to one of three conditions were 1) GBG, 2) the Mastery Learning (ML)
program (designed to improve poor
reading achievement), and 3) an external control condition with no experimental
intervention.
Dr. Armistead's specialty
areas include early
intervention for
reading disabilities, positive behavior support
programs and the use of technology in school psychology.