Phyllis Underwood

The ISI Classroom Observation System: Examining the Literacy Instruction Provided to Individual Students

The Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) classroom observation and coding system is designed to provide a detailed picture of the classroom environment at the level of the individual student. Using a multidimensional conceptualization of the classroom environment, foundational elements (teacher warmth and responsiveness to students, classroom management) and instructional elements (teacher-child interactions, context, and content) are described. The authors have used the ISI system to document that children who share the same classroom have very different learning opportunities, that instruction occurs through interactions among teachers and students, and that the effect of this instruction depends on children’s language and literacy skills. This means that what is effective for one child may be ineffective for another with different skills. With improving classroom observation systems, the dynamics of the complex classroom environment as it affects student learning can be better understood.

Teachers’ use of assessment to instruction (A2i) software and third graders’ reading comprehension gains

Using student assessment results to guide instruction is difficult, but accumulating evidence indicates that by making the links between assessment and instruction more salient, we can support more effective instruction. In this chapter, we describe Assessment to Instruction (A2i) online software, which uses algorithms to translate assessment results into specific recommendations for amounts and types of literacy instruction. A2i is a key part of the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention where teachers learn how to implement differentiated instruction for each student in their classroom using small groups and centers. Hierarchical linear models revealed that the more time third grade teachers spent using A2i, the greater were their students’ reading comprehension gains. Results also revealed that A2i use positively predicted the precision with which teachers provided the recommended amounts to each student in their classroom. Implications are discussed.

Back to the Future: Contrasting Scientific Styles in Understanding Reading:

In this rejoinder to Willis, Smagorinsky, and Douglas (this issue of Educational Researcher), the authors discuss how many of the points raised by Willis and Smagorinsky regarding their original article, which appeared in the March 2009 issue of Educational Researcher, are concerned less with the methods themselves than with different styles of science. The authors of this rejoinder examine their differing styles of science, using Stanovich’s 2003 framework, and call for consilience and the understanding that multiple perspectives and methods are needed to solve the important and perplexing problems that students and teachers will face in the 21st century.