A Collaborative Effort to Enhance Reading and Writing Instruction in Inclusion Classrooms

A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The two schools had recently restructured their special education program to include students with LD in the general education class full-time. Teachers were taught four reading and writing practices (one during each nine-week grading block). All but two of the teachers partially or completely implemented the practices during the nine-week period. Sustained implementation during the school year was maintained by four of the seven teachers, and three of the seven teachers continued high implementation of the instructional practices during the next school year. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered. There is little question that if students with teachers consider many adaptations designed to learning disabilities (LD) are to be instructed efmeet the needs of students with disabilities as fectively in general education classrooms, condesirable to make in their classrooms, few view siderable effort is needed to alter traditional inthem as feasible (Schumm & Vaughn, 1991). structional practices, particularly in reading. When adaptations are made by teachers, they Recent reports on instructional practices in are largely incidental, inconsistent, idiosyncratic, reading in general education classrooms indiand not part of a systematic instructional plan cate that most instruction is for the class as a (Schumm & Vaughn. 1995b) . For the most whole, with little or no differentiated instruction part, teachers do not perceive that they have to meet the needs of special learners ( e .g . . the skills, knowledge, or confidence to meet the Baker & Zigmond, 1995 : Schumm, Vaughn, special needs of students with LD (Schumm & Haager. McDowell. Rothlein. & Saumell, 1995 ; Schumm. Vaughn. & Moody, 1 9 9 6 ; Vaughn. SHARON VAUGHN, Ph.D., is professor, UniMoody. & Schumm. 1998 ; Zigmond & Baker. versity o f Texas at Austin. 1990). Even when extensive effort is exerted to boost instruction for students with LD in the MARIE TEREJO HUGHES, Ph.D., is research general education classroom, students' progress associate professor, University of Miami. is less than adequate (Jenkins & Leicester, JEANNE SHAY SCHUMM, Ph.D., is professor, 1 9 9 2 ; Simmons, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Mathes, Uniuersity of Miami. 1995; Zigmond. Jenkins . Fuchs. D e n o , & JANETTE KLINGNER, Ph. D., is assistant proFuchs, 1 9 9 5 ; Zigmond et a l . , 1 9 9 5 ) . While fessor, Uniuersity of Miami. Volume 21. Winter 1998 57 son. 1995). (b) coaching in their classroom by a partner who was employed by the research team and not a member of their school setting (Gersten, Morvant. & Brengelman, 1995) . (c) providing demonstration lessons in their classroom for each of the instructional practices provided by their partner (Vaughn & Schumm, 1996).and (d) arranging ongoing meetings with other teachers who were in the process of implementing the same instructional practices (Englert & Tarrant, 1995: Little, 1990). All participating teachers volunteered and agreed t o implement the four instructional practices during a nine-week period. Teachers were encouraged to continue implementation if they perceived tha t t h e instructional pract ice was effective. Through this year-long researcher-teacher group, we were interested in documenting: (a) the extent to which teachers implemented the instructional practices in their classrooms during the year the program was conducted and during the next year as part of a follow-up, and (b) teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of the instructional practices. Our primary interest was the extent to which teachers would implement instructional practices when provided an intensive program that included coaching, in-class demonstration lessons, and a supportive community of other teachers and professionals who are implementing the same instructional prac-