The Efficacy of Comprehension and Vocabulary Focused Professional Development on English Learners' Literacy

This study reports the effects of a distributed professional development model emphasizing reading comprehension and vocabulary practices in social studies on the content knowledge, vocabulary, and reading comprehension outcomes of upper elementary students identified as English learners (ELs). Schools were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: researcher-supported professional development (PD), school-supported PD, or business as usual (BAU; typical instruction). Findings from a prior randomized control trial revealed significant effects for both treatment conditions when compared with the BAU group for content knowledge, vocabulary learning and reading comprehension in content (Capin et al., 2020). This analysis addressed three related follow-up questions: (a) Does treatment affect ELs and non-ELs differently? (b) Does treatment affect students differently depending on the school-wide percentage of ELs? (c) Does treatment affect EL students differently from non ELs depending on the school-wide percentage of ELs? Findings revealed that ELs in treatment conditions outperformed ELs in the BAU condition and school level percentage of ELs had an impact on EL vocabulary performance. Educational Impact and Implications Statement This study demonstrates that a distributed professional development model focused on developing fourth-grade teachers' use of integrated vocabulary and reading comprehension practices within social studies instruction significantly improves English learners' (ELs) and non-ELs' performance on measures of social studies knowledge and vocabulary. The study also reported that the effects of professional development on the performance of ELs and non-ELs varied on a general measure of vocabulary based on the school-wide proportion of ELs. These findings suggest that professional development for teachers focused on evidence-based practices for content-area vocabulary and reading comprehension demonstrates positive impact for students though the impact may vary for ELs and non-ELs based on the proportion of ELs at their school site.