Researchers have received a $340,000 grant to investigate the effectiveness of intensive reading instruction for third-graders from the Lebanon (New Hampshire) School District.
Dartmouth Department of Education and the Stern Center for Language and Learning in Williston received the three-year award last week from the National Science Foundation. The grant will provide funds for research on the neuroscience of learning to read as well as on reading intervention in the classroom.
Starting this fall, teachers in the Hanover Street and Mount Lebanon elementary schools will recommend third-grade students for participation in the study, those who have trouble reading, but do not qualify for special education. With parental permission, the students will receive reading instruction for an hour a day for 10 weeks with the Stern Center, a nonprofit learning center.
“These are kids who often fall through the cracks,” Donna Coch, associate professor of education at Dartmouth, said in a news release. The Stern Center will accept students on a rolling basis and hopes to work with 12 children a year.
This is the fourth time Dartmouth and the Stern Center have applied for the grant.
Before and after the 10-week period, Coch and her undergraduate students will conduct tests — standardized exams and brainwave analysis — to gauge progress in students’ reading abilities.
The researchers will be looking at three processing systems: a phonological system, ie, the ability to rhyme; working memory; and single word processing. Those three skills, Coch said, are key in building reading fluency and comprehension.
“We’re teaching these children how the language works, how to have automatic decoding skills so they can read fluently,” said Blanche Podhajski, founder and president of the Stern Center.
Third-graders were targeted specifically for the study. After third grade, classrooms transition from “learning to read to reading to learn,” Podhajski said. About 60 percent of third-graders nationally need additional reading instruction, she added.
At the end of the allotted three years for the study, the Dartmouth Department of Education will compile the results.
“There’s two big things we’re interested in — a neuroscience perspective and education perspective,” Coch said. The study will evaluate the neuroplasticity — the malleability — of the brain pathways involved with reading.
“We’re hoping to learn is whether we see these changes and whether they correspond to actual changes in reading behavior. It may be that we see changes in neuroplasticity before you see the changes in reading ability,” Podhajski said.
Researchers will also use the study to investigate the effectiveness of intensive intervention. After meeting for 50 hours over 10 weeks, the study will evaluate the effectiveness of short, “intensive dosing” or more long-term, year-long reading support.
Included in the award are funds to share their findings with teachers across Vermont and New Hampshire.
“With this kind of research you want to impact practice,” Podhajski said.
