Implementation of the Guided Reading Approach With Elementary ...

Implementation of the Guided Reading Approach With Elementary School Deaf Students Barbara R. Schirmer Laura Schaffer American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 155, Number 3, Summer 2010, pp. 377-385 (Article) Published by Gallaudet University Press

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GUIDED READING APPROACH WITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DEAF STUDENTS

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BARBARA R. SCHIRMER AND LAURA SCHAFFER

SCHIRMER IS A PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT, MI. SCHAFFER IS PRINCIPAL OF THE ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL, MICHIGAN SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF, FLINT.

H E R E S E A R C H E R S investigated the effects of the Guided Reading approach (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996) on the reading development of elementary school deaf students over a period of 2 school years. A singlesubject experimental research designed was used. Qualitative analyses of observations of instruction and interviews with the teachers were conducted to determine fidelity to the Guided Reading protocol. Visual display of graphed Running Records scores during the 2-year implementation showed that all students improved during intervention, all participants except the oldest group experienced a drop in scores from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next, and that it took months for most students to regain their previous year’s scores; some had not done so even by the end of fall term.

Instructional practices for developing reading in deaf children were grounded historically in comprehension at the sentence level, so that instruction might be concentrated on English grammatical structures. This was done because it was believed that it was English grammar that presented the greatest barrier to proficient reading and writing. For example, Reading Milestones (Quigley, McAnally, King, & Rose, 1991), a basal reading series that was developed specifically for deaf readers, was based on research conducted by Quigley and associates in the 1970s (e.g., Quigley, Power, & Steinkamp, 1977; Quigley, Wilbur, & Montanelli, 1974) to highlight particular sentence structures that had been found to be most problematic for deaf

readers. The series controls the appearance of language structures so that structures considered to be easier are presented in the earliest materials; as the child gains skill, stories with increasingly more complex sentence structures are presented (Quigley et al., 1991). When LaSasso (1987) conducted a survey of educational programs for deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States, she found that the majority used basal readers and the most popular was Reading Milestones. The general shift to whole language approaches in the 1990s was paralleled in deaf education. When LaSasso and Mobley (1997) replicated LaSasso’s 1987 study a decade later, most educational programs characterized their reading program as whole language, 377

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GUIDED READING APPROACH though the majority reported using basal readers, the most popular still being Reading Milestones. Within the past decade, there has been considerable research to support the importance of phonemic awareness and phonic analysis in learning to read (e.g., Allor, 2002; National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The result has been a shift to reading programs that emphasize developing these skills, and, indeed, federal Reading First grants were largely distributed to early reading instruction programs that incorporated direct and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and phonic analysis (Office of the Inspector General, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2008). This particular shift in general education has not yet seen a parallel shift in deaf education, though one reason may be that in the past, practices in deaf education trailed practices in reading education; when particular approaches are at peak interest in deaf education, interest in applying the same approaches is waning in general education (Schirmer & Williams, 2010). Furthermore, this particular shift presents a dilemma in deaf education because phonemic awareness and phonic analysis are dependent on ability to hear, although approaches such as Visual Phonics are attempts to circumvent the auditory process (Narr, 2008; Trezak & Malmgren, 2005; Trezak & Wang, 2006; Trezak, Wang, Woods, Gampp, & Paul, 2007). Conclusions of the National Reading Panel (2000) emphasized the importance of five key areas for reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. When Schirmer and McGough (2005) conducted a synthetic review of the research literature on the reading development and reading instruction of deaf students,

and compared findings to the review of research literature done by the National Reading Panel, they found that in the areas for which there was sufficient research with deaf readers, these same areas were important for deaf readers. However, they also found a very small body of research on instructional strategies identified by the panel as effective with normally developing readers and readers with disabilities. Schirmer and Williams (2010) similarly found little research on effective instructional strategies, and no research on effective instructional models (i.e., the framework for the reading program as a lesson structure). In spite of the absence of research on instructional models for teaching reading to deaf readers and the limited research assessing the effectiveness of instructional strategies with this population, classroom instruction clearly cannot wait for the establishment of evidence-based models and strategies. In seeking a model for reading instruction at a school for the deaf in the Midwest, the literacy specialists and classroom teachers certainly needed one for which there was some evidence of effectiveness, but also they sought an approach that was likely to be accepted by the teachers for their instructional repertoire. In other words, they needed a model with the potential for social validity— that is, significance of goals, acceptability of instructional procedures, and importance of outcomes (Lane & Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004). The Guided Reading approach had been developed a decade earlier, by Fountas and Pinnell (1996), and it quickly become popular among general education teachers working with hearing readers. Indeed, during the previous several years, Fountas and Pinnell had developed lists of reading materials categorized across a range of difficulty levels to support reading instruction.

This list of leveled books has grown continuously since it was first published (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996, 1999), and it is now available on a website to accommodate the constant additions (Fountas & Pinnell, 2008). This list of leveled books serves to increase the ease of adoption and implementation by teachers. Guided Reading is recommended by the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center (2009) for use with deaf students, though to date no research on efficacy has been published. Though lacking a body of research on efficacy even with hearing readers (though it is included among effective instructional approaches, such as by Reutzel, 2007, and Cunningham and Allington, 2007), the Guided Reading approach incorporates the evidencebased practices for which there is current consensus. According to Gambrell, Malloy, and Mazzoni (2007), these practices include creating a classroom culture that fosters motivation to engage in literacy activities, teaching reading as an authentic activity (for pleasure, for information, for completing a task), providing students with scaffolded instruction in the five key areas of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension), giving students ample time to read in class, providing children with high-quality literature across a range of genres, using multiple texts that link and expand vocabulary and concepts, connecting new concepts to background knowledge, balancing student- and teacherled discussions of texts, using the new literacies of the Internet and technology-based instruction, and using a variety of assessment strategies and techniques. Guided Reading was thus selected as the main instructional model for teaching deaf students at the elementary level. The purpose of the present

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Methodology

Participants The participants in the present study included a convenience sample of students who were deaf and enrolled in grades 1–5 at the outset of the study, plus these students’ classroom teachers, who were certified as teachers of the deaf with a range of experience from 2 to 30 years. During the duration of the study, there were a few personnel changes among the teachers, with a teacher leaving in the fall during both school years and long-term substitutes hired. The setting was a state school for the deaf. The school describes its curriculum as a regular public school curriculum with modifications in terms of presenting information via American Sign Language (ASL) and written English. Students, teachers, and staff are assessed regularly with the Sign Communication Proficiency Interview; teachers and staff are provided training as needed to ensure that the campus is barrier free in terms of communication. School size was approximately 180 students during the first year and 160 students during the second year of intervention; class sizes per grade at the elementary level ranged from 4 to 9 students. Besides the teacher of the deaf, most classes had at least one teacher aide. ASL was the language of instruction, and so teachers and students communicated in ASL throughout the school day. Speech and language ser-

vices were conducted in pullout sessions with the speech-language clinician. Guided Reading instruction was conducted in ASL. All of the students in the elementary school were instructed with the Guided Reading approach, but not all of the students were included in the study. We included only those students for whom we had baseline data and who had no concomitant disability that affected cognitive functioning. We also excluded one student for whom we had only one data point beyond baseline for the first school year. Demographic information on the 19 participants is provided in Table 1. Instruction was done within each classroom, students were grouped by reading level, and the classroom teacher conducted the lessons. Guided Reading lessons were conducted three to four times each week during each academic year of the study.

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study was to investigate the effects of the Guided Reading approach on the reading development of students who were deaf in grades 1–5 over a period of 2 school years. The study was designed to answer the question, Does the Guided Reading approach improve the reading achievement of elementary school students who are deaf?

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Design The study used a single-subject experimental research design. Qualitative analyses of observations of instruction and interviews with the teachers were conducted to determine fidelity to the Guided Reading protocol.

Variables The independent variable was the Guided Reading protocol, which has four steps: selection of leveled books, introduction of the book, silent reading, and discussion.

Step 1: Selection of Leveled Books The teacher selects a book that the students can read with greater than 90% accuracy but is not so easy that there is no opportunity to build problemsolving strategies. Guided Reading requires that a selection of books along a continuum of difficulty levels has been identified. Each student is

Table 1

Student Participant Demographics

Student BD CR DE JS CS MD BR HY LD LE OL CE CI CN DN GS LI PR RT

Chronological age Grade (years: months at start of year 1– Guided Reading instruction) year 2 Gender 6:3 7:9 8:9 6:6 7:2 7:4 9:0 9:9 8:2 8:2 9:3 10:0 9:0 9:3 11:10 10:5 10:4 12:5 11:0

1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2 2–3 2–3 3–4 3–4 3–4 3–4 3–3 3–4 4–5 4–5 5–6 5–6 5–6 5–6 5–6

M F F M M M F M M F F M F M F M M M M

Level of hearing loss

Parents’ hearing status

Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Mild mixed Moderate / profound Mild / severe Mild / severe Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound Profound

Deaf Hearing Hearing Deaf Hearing Hearing Hearing Hearing Hearing Deaf Hearing Hearing Deaf Hearing Hearing Hearing Hearing Hearing Hearing

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GUIDED READING APPROACH provided with a copy of the book to be read.

teachers were expected to use ASL exclusively.)

Step 2: Introduction of the Book

Step 4: Discussion

The teacher introduces the book by having the students look at the cover, read the title and the name of the author, and talk about the topic. Vocabulary words crucial to understanding the story are briefly discussed, but the teacher does not do vocabulary instruction per se and does not teach new sight words. We modified this step to involve the direct teaching of new words, as deaf students typically have smaller vocabularies than sameage hearing peers and the vocabulary load of reading material is based on vocabulary norms for hearing readers.

After reading, the students discuss the book. The teacher has the students revisit the text to find evidence of interpretations and to discuss strategies for problem solving. The students might also be asked to re-read a passage independently or with a partner. In the interactive Guided Reading modification we implemented, the “teacher encourages students to reflect on the strategies they have used and to discuss how those strategies have helped them construct meaning” (Cooper & Kiger, 2009, p. 35). The dependent variable was reading achievement level as measured by Running Records (Clay, 2000). In carrying out Running Records assessment, the teacher asked the student to read aloud/in sign a new passage at the same reading level as the material used for instruction in sign. During reading, the teacher made a check mark for each word the student read correctly, notated when the student did not know a word, and wrote the word used by the student when it was a substitution, repetition, omission, or incorrect pronunciation. The teacher also notated the student’s reading fluency. The student was then asked to retell the story, and the teacher appraised the student’s inclusion of setting, characters, events, and important details. Running Records is a criterion-referenced assessment tool, and trustworthiness of scores depends on two key factors: (a) the teacher’s skill in recording the student’s reading errors (or miscues) and (b) materials that are accurately differentiated by difficulty level. Even when scores are trustworthy because the teacher’s assessment is reliable from student to student and the materials are accurately graded,

Step 3: Silent Reading The students read the book independently and silently. The teacher observes, notes student behaviors during reading, and provides support with word recognition, understanding unfamiliar sentence structures, and comprehension when needed. We made two modifications to this step. One modification, “interactive Guided Reading,” is a technique in which “the teacher carefully guides, directs, or coaches students through the silent reading of a meaningful chunk of text by asking them a question, giving prompts, or helping them formulate a question that they then try to answer as they read the designated section of text. Sometimes the teacher helps students make predictions” (Cooper & Kiger, 2009, p. 35). The other modification was to have the students read aloud or in sign language (depending on individual preference) for the first reading of the story so that the teacher could notate problems with word recognition and assist when needed. (Because the school was bilingual, some students did use their oral skills routinely, though the

scores do not provide a comprehensive assessment of reading abilities, most particularly because word recognition is emphasized at the expense of comprehension. Recently, Denton, Ciancio, and Fletcher (2006) found support for the validity of Running Records, noting that it has practical usefulness as a progress-monitoring tool, but cautioned that it does not provide comprehensive information on reading ability. Given the two key factors that influence trustworthiness, the issue of teacher skill in our study was mitigated by the training provided to the teachers in administering Running Records, the use of single-subject design which compares the student’s performance only against himself or herself, and the consistency in having the same teacher assess the same students. The issue of accuracy in ascertaining the difficulty level of the reading materials was mitigated by using the same set of graded materials for assessment as were used for instruction, so variations between levels should be equivalent whether used for assessment or instruction.

Procedure In May of the year preceding implementation of the Guided Reading approach, the elementary-level students were assessed with Running Records by their respective classroom teachers. During a teacher in-service day before the start of school in September, the first author, who is a university professor, presented a half-day workshop encompassing explanation and discussion of the essential reading tasks (i.e., word recognition, fluency, comprehension), how to determine the deaf student’s reading level, how to select a reading lesson structure, and strategies to use before, during, and after reading. The second author, who was the school’s literacy specialist, then presented a half-day work-

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Measures The measures included (a) Running Records, as described above, assessed monthly, with the first assessment taking place at the end of the previous school year to develop baseline, and (b) observation notes taken during formal observations in spring term of each of the 2 years and interviews conducted informally throughout the school year and formally once during spring term. The possible range of Running Records scores is 1–19, with the following breakdown by grade level: kindergarten (1–3), grade 1 (4–8), grade 2 (9–11), grades 2–3 (12), grade 3 (13–14), grade 3–4 (15–16), grade 4 (17–18), and grade 5 (19). The teachers were asked to conduct a monthly Running Records assessment on each student. However,

school events and student absences caused several months to be missing from the assessment data. For example, no Running Records data were collected in December of the first year. It would have been preferable to conduct a more regular schedule of observations and interviews. However, the role of literacy specialist was not full-time, and therefore did not allow for such a schedule. Analysis and Results The predominant feature of single-subject experimental research is its focus on intrasubject comparisons rather than the intersubject comparisons that characterize other quantitative designs. A visual analysis is employed rather than a statistical analysis for each participant’s graphed data (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007; Kazdin, 2010). Figure 1 displays the Running Records scores for the 19 elementarylevel student participants per grade level. Graphed results of the Running Records data show several major patterns. The first pattern is the improvement in scores during the Guided Reading instruction. As the graphs show, progress ranged from a half year to 1 year of progress for grade 1 students the first year, and half a year to 2 years of progress the following year, when they were second graders. Of the two students in grade 2 during the first year of intervention, one made almost 1 year of progress and the other half a year, but the following year both made almost 2 years of progress. Of the five students in grade 3 the first year, progress ranged from one quarter of a year to 21⁄2 years, but the following year, when they were fourth graders, achievement was bifurcated, with three students making no progress and two making about 2 years of progress. Two of the students made approximately half a year of

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shop specifically on the Guided Reading approach with deaf students at the elementary level. The teachers were then coached throughout each academic year to use the Guided Reading approach with their students and to conduct a Running Records assessment monthly to assess student progress and adjust instruction accordingly. When personnel changes occurred, the second author provided ad hoc training on Guided Reading. The second author observed the teachers periodically, offered feedback, provided reading materials as needed, and met informally with them on a recurring basis. The first author identified articles and books that provided the second author (i.e., the literacy specialist) with evidence-based strategies that were then shared with the classroom teachers. The first author also observed several teachers during the year and provided feedback to the classroom teachers and to the second author in her role as literacy specialist.

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progress as fourth graders and, similarly, half a year of progress as fifth graders; a third student made half a year of progress in fourth grade but more than 1 year of progress in fifth grade. The fewest assessments were conducted with the students in grade 5, though even with these fewer data points, the pattern of improvement is fairly comparable to those of the other grade levels. Progress ranged from approximately half a year to more than 1 year when they were fifth graders, and half a year to 2 years when they were sixth graders. A second pattern that is apparent in the visual display of graphed data is the drop in scores from the end of one school year and the beginning of another school year, particularly for students at the earlier grade levels and particularly between the end of the first year of Guided Reading instruction and the beginning of the second year. During baseline, this drop is demonstrated with the two data points to the left of the dotted line in Figure 1, the first of which is May and the second of which is September. The second line on the graph is meant to separate visually the data collected during the first year of intervention from fall of the second year. Though the second line does not represent an official second baseline phase, it could be argued that it represents a de facto baseline insofar as the students received no formal reading instruction during the summer months. As such, these two baseline phases demonstrate a lack of progress or a decline in performance during baseline versus improvement in performance during Guided Reading instruction for most of the participants. It is interesting that this holds for students in grades 1–4 during year 1 and 2–5 in the fall of year 2, but not for students in grade 5 during year 1 and grade 6 in the fall of year 2, whose performance declined

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GUIDED READING APPROACH Figure 1

Changes in Running Records Scores, Grades 1–5, Years 1 and 2 Grade 1, year 1 / grade 2, year 2 Grade 2, year 1 / grade 3, year 2 Summer

Baseline

Summer

Running Record scores

Running Record scores

Baseline

Test sessions

Test sessions

Grade 3, year 1 / grade 4, year 2 Baseline

Grade 4, year 1 / grade 5, year 2

Summer

Summer

Running Record scores

Running Record scores

Baseline

Test sessions

Test sessions

Grade 5, year 1 / grade 6, year 2 Summer

Running Record scores

Baseline

Test sessions

Note. Equivalent grade level scores are based on the leveled stories used as reading material for the present study. The leveling criteria used by Fountas and Pinnell (1996, 1999) result in broader spans (e.g., midgrade 1) than readability formulas typically provide (e.g., reading grade level 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6). Running Records score 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Equivalent grade level Fall, kindergarten Midyear, kindergarten Spring, kindergarten Early fall, 1 Late fall, 1 Midyear, 1 Early spring, 1 Late spring, 1 Fall, 2 Midyear, 2 Spring, 2 2–3 transition Fall, 3 Midyear, 3 Spring, 3–4 transition Fall, 3-4 transition Midyear, 4 Spring, 4 5

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3 was assessed at a grades 2–3 transition level in September, and though she had progressed month by month, had not regained grade 4 by the end of fall term. In order to determine fidelity, qualitative analysis of the data obtained from formal observations and interviews was carried out. We specifically conducted a content analysis, which involved coding the data based upon the components of the Guided Reading approach as a priori categories (in accordance with criteria for coding qualitative observational and interview data according to Patton, 2002). We found variation among teachers in fidelity to the Guided Reading Approach and changes in fidelity from year 1 to year 2. During both years, all of the teachers employed some features, but only one teacher employed all features of the approach. One component of Guided Reading is the selection of reading material that is at the student’s instructional reading level (i.e., word recognition is better than 90% but the material is difficult enough to offer an opportunity for strategy instruction). Content analysis showed that all of the teachers (with the exception of the grade 2 teacher) selected material that was at the students’ independent level rather than their instructional level during the first year. Given that the teachers themselves assessed the students monthly, it was clearly a concern that they selected material that was not at the students’ appropriate level for instruction. During the second year of implementation, the teachers were more consistent in selecting instructional-level material. A second component of Guided Reading is before-reading instruction that incorporates introduction of the book, discussion of the topic, and teaching of new vocabulary. We found that during the first year of instruction, all of the teachers incorporated

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slightly, remained stable, or improved slightly between May and September. A third pattern is seen in the length of time it took in the new school year for the students to recapture the level they had achieved at the end of the previous school year. It took most or all of fall term for the grade 2 students to regain the level they had achieved at the end of grade 1 the previous May. One of the grade 3 students regained his May score by October, but the other student did not, even by December. Three of the grade 4 students either just regained or did not regain the scores they had achieved when they were third graders, and one took months to regain his May score. The one student who regained his May score fairly quickly also had a relatively low dip between May and September. It took at least 5 months for the grade 5 students to regain the scores they had achieved at the end of fourth grade. The only students who diverged from this pattern were those who were in grade 5 the first year of the study. There was no dip in their scores between testing at the end of grade 5 and the beginning of grade 6. A fourth pattern is the low scores at the outset regardless of grade level. Of the 19 participants, none were at or close to grade level when Guided Reading instruction began. The disparity between reading level as assessed by Running Records and school grade level became increasingly greater from grade 1 through grade 5. At the end of the first school year, only three students had achieved scores higher than first-grade level—one student in grade 3 who attained a spring grade 4 level, one student in grade 5 who attained a spring grade 2 level, and one student in grade 5 who attained a grades 2–3 transition level. Only the latter two students maintained these gains by fall. The student who had achieved a spring grade 4 level at the end of grade

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introduction of the book in terms of topic. However, except for the grade 2 teacher, they commonly left out presentation of new vocabulary. During the second year of implementation, all but one of the teachers consistently included the preteaching of new vocabulary, and they all continued to employ the other before-reading activities. All of the teachers employed oral/ sign reading. However, during both years of implementation, they did not routinely chunk the material as the interactive Guided Reading modification would require. Because the students were reading aloud/in sign, teacher support with word recognition, sentence structures, vocabulary, and comprehension was fairly constant, providing little opportunity for the students to engage in extended reading of passages. Silent reading was rarely incorporated as a step after oral/sign reading. These patterns were noted in both years of implementation. After-reading discussion, the fourth component of Guided Reading, was often left out of instruction during the first year of implementation. When it was included, teacher questions focused on comprehension at the detail and inferential levels, but questions did not encourage students to reflect on the strategies they used for problem solving and understanding. During the second year of implementation, the teachers usually incorporated afterreading activities, though they tended to focus on vocabulary more than comprehension. Discussion Our findings indicate that the elementary-level deaf students, whose teachers used the Guided Reading approach as their regular classroom reading instruction model, made progress in reading achievement as measured by Running Records. For

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IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GUIDED READING APPROACH most of the students, progress was modest and inhibited by summer regressions. In comparing our results to findings with deaf students during the past two decades, which have shown that the average deaf student gains one third of a grade equivalent change each school year (Holt, 1993; Traxler, 2000; Wolk & Allen, 1984), we found that outcomes were better than this average for most of the students in our study. However, it is generally recognized that the goal for reading growth is 1 year of progress for each school year, and only a few students came close to this benchmark. The data indicate that three modifications are likely to strengthen outcomes. The first is to improve adherence to the steps of the Guided Reading approach by providing teachers with a greater amount of in-class coaching and offering regularized professional development sessions throughout the school year. The second modification is to add a summer reading program for the students. Research indicates that such programs are most effective when they involve parents, incorporate a well-defined reading curriculum as well as opportunities for recreational reading, and utilize a summer camp model as the context (Lauer, Akiba, & Wilkerson, 2006). Given that students attending a state school for the deaf do not live in proximity to one another, the summer reading program would need to be either residential for a 4- or 6-week period of perhaps 3 days per week, or involve web-based delivery. The third modification is to incorporate greater family involvement. One such program is the Shared Reading Project (Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, 2010), in which parents are taught to read effectively to their deaf children, using ASL.

Limitations of the Study It is important to note several limitations of the present study in the contextualizing of the outcomes. One of these is that baseline did not meet recognized standards for length, stability, and trend (Division 16, 2003; Horner et al., 2005). In order to conduct a field study that respected the integrity and autonomy of the educational setting, we needed to accommodate our methodological design to the decision made that all of the elementary school teachers would employ Guided Reading as their instructional approach and instruction would begin in the fall. We were therefore not able to withhold instruction from any student for any length of time, which a more extended baseline would have necessitated. Complicating the matter was that the teachers would only be assessing the students monthly, and the likelihood of the presence of intervening variables between monthly baseline assessment was high. Our selection of two data points for baseline represents recognition that such data might not represent stability of performance, as baseline is intended to show, but that it adequately measured performance prior to implementation of the instructional approach. Another limitation is the teachers’ fidelity to the Guided Reading approach. Our data on fidelity is narrow, as the lead teacher was only able to formally observe the teachers a few times during the 2 years of implementation, and the teachers’ self-reported adherence to the Guided Reading protocol may not have fully reflected their actual instruction. Fidelity was undoubtedly further influenced by changes in teaching personnel, the concomitant training of new teachers, and the reality that their ability to fully implement the approach would undoubtedly take time. In spite of the

limited data on fidelity, our qualitative analysis indicates that teachers did not regularly employ all components of the approach, with the exception of the grade 2 teacher. Related to fidelity to Guided Reading is that the teachers may have used other approaches to reading instruction in addition to or in place of Guided Reading some of the time. These intervening variables could have affected results positively or negatively; that is, outcomes may have been inflated or deflated because of these other approaches being used. Certainly, in future research, more regularized observation and coaching should be incorporated in order to assure that the approach being investigated is indeed the approach being used in instruction. Conclusion The present study was designed to assess the effectiveness of Guided Reading as an instructional approach to improving the reading achievement of elementary-level students who are deaf. Given the low scores at the outset for most of the participants, and the dip that typically took place each summer, progress for most of the participants was far below the benchmark of 1 year of progress per each year of school. So though the approach appeared to be effective, outcomes were modest. In carrying out this study, we learned as much about how messy it is to conduct classroom research, particularly as a schoolwide intervention, as we learned about implementing Guided Reading. The small body of classroom intervention research in deaf education clearly reflects the difficulties inherent in adhering to the standards of methodological design within the complex world of the school environment. Yet it is precisely

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