At 2 primary schools in Western Jamaica, students at the Grade 1 level lacked basic literacy skills of comprehension, letter recognition, letter sounds, and oral communication. The purpose of this qualitative evaluation study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of the Jolly Phonics program implemented to improve students' literacy in Grades 1-3. Guided by Engestrom's activity theory, the effectiveness of the Jolly Phonics approach was examined based on the sociocultural learning theories of Vygotsky, Dewey, and Piaget. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions of the program's impact on students' literacy improvement and of the strategies used in the Jolly Phonics program. Data collection involved individual interviews with 8 teachers from 2 selected primary schools with a representation of at least 2 teachers from each grade level. Using open coding and thematic analysis, emerging minor and major themes were identified. Themes included (a) positive impact on curriculum and instructional delivery; (b) focus on all students who lacked basic literacy skills; (c) development of phonetic awareness, writing, comprehension, and listening skills; (d) workshops that are stimulating and informative; (e) support from teachers and administrators; and (g) greater focus placed at the lower grades. Overall, the findings indicated that the Jolly Phonics program had a positive impact on struggling readers in Grades 1-3. Implications for positive social change include providing the local district with research-based findings on teachers' perceptions of the impact of and strategies used in the Jolly Phonics Program. The findings can be used to support programming decisions and professional development to improve literacy skills of early and struggling readers.

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The purpose of this study was to explore elementary teachers' self-reporting of: a) work with a reading coach and b) attitudes, perceptions, and practices in teaching reading. The five point ratings and open-ended responses on the survey were the sources of data. Surveys were returned by 85% of teachers in five elementary schools in Collier County, Florida. Correlations of survey items were analyzed on the basis of the aggregated data and the following subgroups: certification, years of experience, school demographics, and grade levels. The survey in this study was excerpted and adapted from a survey, which was tested for validity and reliability, used with teachers in a research study, and published by the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) in Evaluating professional development: An approach to verifying program impact on teachers and students (Shaha, Lewis, O'Donnell, & Brown, 2004). Permission to use the survey was granted by Performance Learning Systems, Inc. and the National Staff Development Council (see Acknowledgements). The primary question for this study was: Are teachers' self-reports of their attitudes, perceptions, and instructional practices on the Reading Instruction Survey correlated with the amount of coaching they indicated they had received? Secondary questions pertained to how the results changed for the subgroups. The literature review contained information about resources and research in reading that led to the provision of reading coaches. High-stakes for the improvement of reading instruction from federal, state, and local levels provided a rationale for the study. The results of this study indicated that coaching made a difference for these teachers. The aggregated and disaggregated data revealed small to large, significant correlations to coaching. The items with the greatest number and magnitude of correlations to coaching were isolated skills instruction and intervention plans. The evidence of positive relationships of attitudes, perceptions, and practices to work with a coach is an important finding. The limited correlations of skilled, balanced, and integrated strategies led to questions about the content of the coaching. Further research is needed to determine whether the content of the professional development offered by coaches is comprehensive enough to impact reading proficiency levels of all students.

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In a suburban alternative school, educators of at-risk students reading below grade level often struggled to provide effective reading instruction. As a result, these students were likely to continue to experience academic difficulties, which could limit their career options and their opportunities to contribute to the betterment of society. This study addressed the gap between reading strategies teachers actually used in the classroom and the reading strategies they learned during professional development. The research questions focused on the instructional challenges teachers experienced while working with struggling readers in an alternative school setting. Mastery learning theory and the adult adragogical theory were used in this case study to explore experiences of 6 teachers concerning the use of reading strategies in an alternative middle school setting. Data were collected with interviews, observations, and from archival work samples. Findings revealed that for teachers serving in an alternative school setting, there was a need for additional strategy-related support for struggling readers, collaborative professional development with a focus on literacy, and teacher acquisition of vocabulary and comprehension strategies. The resulted project consists of a data-driven professional development program designed to help instructors teach reading strategies to assist struggling student readers. This project contributes to positive social change through a targeted implementation of instructional literacy practices that teachers in all content areas can use to help struggling readers in an alternative school settings to experience greater academic success.

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