Literacy--Study and teaching (Elementary)

The Fountas and Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI), first edition, is a textbook series designed for struggling elementary school readers. The materials have become entrenched in the nation’s schools and are currently utilized as an intervention resource in all fifty states and four of the seven largest school districts in Florida. Reading intervention support is a requirement for students in most states, often due to their performance on standardized assessments (Diffey, 2016). Moreover, NAEP data indicates that students of color are overrepresented in reading intervention courses; thus, instructional materials choices made for these courses disproportionally affect this population (The Nation’s Report Card, n.d.). As culturally relevant texts are academically beneficial, it is critical that intervention materials are appropriately representative (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Au, 2001; Sampson & Garrison-Wade, 2011). The purpose of this qualitative critical content analysis of the 731 books within the LLI system was to examine the cultural, ethnic, and racial representation of people/characters of color within the series.
Major findings revealed that people/characters of color were depicted from a deficit model (Ladson-Billings, 2018). Coded information revealed 41.5% included a negative characterization while 7.6% offered a positive portrayal. Further, the books exploring the experiences and cultures of people/characters of color depicted undesirable conditions 25.7% of the time while presenting favorable information 2.5% of the time. The final finding centers on what is missing from the stories. Other than a select few texts, the LLI books are colorblind, presenting students an inaccurate view of society. Accordingly, counternarratives and stories that center on social justice/equity are notably absent.

Reading is an essential skill necessary for academic success. However, many
children experience difficulties in acquirin,g essential reading skills necessary to support
and enhance other areas of learning (Nes, 2003). One major area in which students fail to
attain proficiency is in the area of reading fluency (Vaughn et al., 2000). Previous
research has demonstrated that repeated reading is an effective intervention for increasing
fluency in elementary age readers (Keehn, 2003; Rashotte & Torgesen, 1985). However,
little research has specifically addressed the impact of repeated readings on first grade
students. In addition, researchers have called for investigations of additional components
(sight words and phonics) on repeated reading interventions (Vaughn et al., 2000).
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of combining sight
words and spelling pattern instruction with timed repeated readings on the word
accuracy, words read correctly per minute and prosody of first grade students who are at
risk for reading failure.
An ANCOVA yielded significant effects on each of the three dependent variables,
and these results demonstrated that the addition of components (sight words and spelling
patterns) to timed repeated readings improved the oral reading fluency of low level
readers, of which students at risk for reading failure are a part. The outcome of this study
also confirmed that first grade students from low socioeconomic backgrounds can
increase their oral reading fluency skills with research-based methods.