Lessons Learned From a Research/Practice Partnership: OgStar Reading in Baltimore City

Framework

The Simple View of Reading as illustrated by Scarborough's Rope (Scarborough, 2001) and theories of orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015) lay the theoretical basis for our research. Every step in every lesson in the OgStar program has a research basis that aligns with these theories. The phonological awareness work at both the sound and syllable level, the instruction and practice in both synthetic decoding and encoding phoneme-grapheme linkages, isolated words, and words in connected texts, all support the word recognition side of Scarborough's Rope. The instruction in affixes helps develop vocabulary skills on the language comprehension side of the Rope. OgStar is implemented within classrooms where teachers are providing direct instruction in other language comprehension such as building background knowledge, content vocabulary, etc. Through repeated multisensory practice of the word recognition skills on OgStar, in concert with teacher's direct instruction on semantics, syntax, genre, etc., we expect that students' general reading comprehension will improve and will positively impact their overall school performance.

Methods

OgStar Reading®, a comprehensive literacy app that takes students through the complete Orton-Gillingham “Plus” (Bowman, 1994) program was developed in 2018. OgStar Reading® is a full structured supplemental literacy curriculum for early readers, dyslexics, English language learners, and struggling students from ages 4 - 13. OgStar Reading®, based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, is direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive. OgStar activities include phonological awareness, systematic/synthetic phonics work, multisensory sound/symbol associations, word building with prefixes and suffixes, audio-visual-tactile reading and writing of sight words, oral reading of phonetically-controlled words and sentences, finger tracing and writing of syllables, words, and sentences and oral reading fluency activities. An Independent Educational Researcher from a state university assisted in recruiting schools to participate in an independent experimental research evaluation of OgStar with students in first through the fifth grade. The proposed study was to take place over one academic year, consisting of five phases: recruitment, training, assessment, implementation, and analysis. Due to the worldwide pandemic and the closing of schools in 2020, the original study was halted and a revised study was reinstituted in 2021.
Recruitment
During the recruitment phase, the research team recruited teachers and students to participate in an experimental study of the OgStar Reading® program. After obtaining parental permission, students were assigned to a “business as usual” control group (BAU), in which they received their regularly scheduled instruction, or an OgStar Reading® group, in which they received the OgStar Reading® program. In order to obtain a sufficient sample size (N=200), the continuation of the study required participation from five grades (kindergarten through fourth grade) with 40 participating students at each grade (20 students in BAU per grade, 20 students in OgStar per grade). We included new incoming kindergarteners, and students in grades one through four who were mostly in the previous year's study. All students participating in the study, regardless of condition, continued to receive additional interventions as regularly scheduled, such as reading groups using a wide variety of reading methods, other electronic or web-based reading interventions, etc.
Training
During the initial training phase, participating general education classroom teachers, reading specialists and/or special educators were trained in the use of the OgStar Reading® program. Teachers attended training in OgStar Reading® in the summer of 2019. A refresher virtual teacher training was conducted prior to the reimplementation of the program with students in the 2021-2022 school year. During the school year, the research team met virtually with participating teachers in Teacher Professional Development (TPDs). In TPD meetings, the research team provided logistical and technical support and offered suggestions on how to support students in using the program during the school day based on the individual needs of teachers and students at SBCS.
Assessment
During the initial assessment phase, prior to 2020, participating students were individually assessed by trained research assistants before the implementation of the program on measures of phonological awareness, phonics, word identification, spelling, reading fluency, and text comprehension. The intent was to retest these students at the end of 2020, but with school closures, this was not possible. SBCS also shared student assessment data collected by the school during the year to better understand student performance on measures of reading. At pre-test during initial phases of the study in 2019, the assessment data was used to assign and match students to ensure equivalent groups prior to the intervention. In 2021, all students in both control and experimental groups were retested on these measures by a school-based team of educators. Students were matched on background characteristics (age, grade, gender, SES) and pre-test reading scores during Round One (2019 - 2020). During Round Two, (2021-2022), students were grouped by classroom. Data collected on student performance at pre- and post-test will be shared with teachers and administrators at SBCS to assist with school instructional planning.
Implementation
In the implementation phase, participating students in the OgStar Reading® group used the program during the day, in addition to other reading programs, while students in the BAU group only received their regularly scheduled reading instruction. Students in all grades began
the program at 3 points of entry (Lesson 1, Lesson 36, or Lesson 66, depending on their performance on the pre-tests. Across the year, students in the OgStar Reading® group used the app in 30 minutes sessions, 5 times per week, over 28 weeks. Trained research assistants (RAs), observed and supported students as they accessed the OgStar Reading® program app in school. This allowed the research team to collect qualitative data on how students interacted with the program and to offer technical support as needed. Additionally, students in the BAU group were observed to collect data on how students interacted with the regularly scheduled reading instruction. After the implementation and data collection phase is complete, teachers and students in the BAU group will be given access to training on the OgStar Reading® program to implement in the future.
Analysis
In the analysis phase, the university research team is analyzing the data to determine whether the OgStar Reading® program had significant and positive effects on children’s reading and spelling skills. This analysis is underway. Please note that all aspects of the study have been discussed with administration at SBCS, who were in full support of the proposed project.
Data Sharing and Confidentiality
This project was being conducted with one school. Identifying information is being removed from all data as soon as it is collected and entered, and identification numbers will be used to link data across subjects. Only the principal and co-investigators will have access to the key that identifies Subjects.

Results

After consistent dosage of OgStar Reading across the experimental group in classrooms in the spring of 2022, we expect that there will be a statistically significant positive effect on measures of students' phonological awareness, phonics skills, word identification, spelling, reading fluency, and text comprehension. We expect that the results will be stronger for students in grades kindergarten through second than in grades third and fourth. More importantly, for the students' sake, we expect that the regular dosage of OgStar will have produced an educationally effective outcome that will have a lasting impact on the students' learning trajectories.

Importance

In the era of the Common Core State Standards, students are expected to read, understand, and learn from complex texts in elementary school and beyond. Decoding is essential to being able to perform these tasks. Students with disabilities are at risk for reading difficulty in school because they often lack skills in phonemic awareness and phonological awareness, which are
necessary for fluent reading and comprehension. Research shows that teachers can support students with reading through explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). The Orton-Gillingham “Plus” (Orton-Gillingham plus Phonological Awareness Training and Reading Fluency Training) approach, which forms the basis for OgStar Reading®, inherently draws on each of these skills recommended by the National Reading Panel and supported by recent empirical studies on the efficacy of synthetic phonic reading programs as superior to whole word, guided reading, or analytic phonic programs (Johnston & Watson, 2005; Earp, 2016, DeHaene, 2009). Also, the importance of explicit phonological awareness instruction as a first link in the reading chain, has been studied extensively as a major factor leading to reading proficiency (Blachman, Tangel, Ball, Black & McGraw, 1999; Brady, Braze, & Fowler, 2011). Reading fluency training results in readers who are more accurate and efficient and leads to better reading comprehension (Meyer & Felton, 1999; Wolf, 2009). In the Orton-Gillingham “Plus” Program, students learn reading skills in progression, beginning with phonological awareness, then moving to multisensory introduction of discrete letter/sound units that will be practiced in isolation and in connected language. Irregular sight words are also practiced multisensorily and inserted into reading and writing tasks. Each lesson ends with a repeated reading fluency exercise to improve speed and accuracy. In later lessons, prefixes, suffixes, and roots are introduced multisensorily, as well, to improve decoding and encoding of long, multisyllabic words and to improve vocabulary. Orton-Gillingham “Plus” is unique in the presentation of skills through multiple modalities simultaneously, including visual auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic. Instruction is intensive, direct, and explicit. Phonics work is synthetic, meaning that letters and sounds are used to form words. The program involves continuous
review to ensure students maintain concepts learned over time.
Combining explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics for decoding and encoding, vocabulary, and fluency, as well as providing students with opportunities to use these skills independently with immediate feedback in the multisensory, sequential environment of the OgStar online program may improve the reading skills of students who may otherwise struggle in school.
However, there are few large-scale studies of teacher training in Orton-Gillingham that connect to student outcomes (Ritchey & Goeke, 2006; Rose & Zirkel, 2007). Moreover, the effects of translating the Orton-Gillingham Approach to digital format has not been researched much at all. The study meets an important need in the field and the professional development delivered by the research team will support teachers in using this intervention and evaluating other online programs to meet student needs.

References

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Bowman, Fran L. (1994). Bowman’s Orton-Gillingham “Plus” Guidebook: Phase One & Phase Two. BES Publications.

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Ehri, Linnea C. (2014). Orthographic Mapping in the Acquisition of Sight Word Reading, Spelling Memory, and Vocabulary Learning, Scientific Studies of Reading, 18:1, 5-21, DOI: 10.1080/10888438.2013.819356

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Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups (00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Ritchey, Kristen D.; Goeke, Jennifer L. (2006). Orton-Gillingham and Orton-Gillingham-Based Reading Instruction: A Review of the Literature, Journal of Special Education, v40 n3 p171-183.

Rose, T. E., & Zirkel, P. (2007). Orton-Gillingham Methodology for Students With Reading Disabilities: 30 Years of Case Law. The Journal of Special Education, 41(3), 171–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224669070410030301

Scarborough, H. S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97-110). New York: Guilford Press.

Wolf, Maryanne, et al. (2009). The RAVE-O Intervention: Connecting Neuroscience to the Classroom. Mind, Brain, and Education. IMBES.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2009.01058.x