Structured Supplemental Spelling Instruction
Study: Graham et al. (2002)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

Almost 300 second-grade students in 12 classrooms were given a spelling subtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT; Wechsler, 1992). All students whose standard scores were two thirds of a standard deviation (SD) below the mean in the normative sample were identified as “at risk” in the area of spelling (67/291 were identified as at-risk). Teacher interviews confirmed 66 out of the 67 as students who struggle with spelling. Parents of 60 of these 66 students consented for students to participate in the study.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional or behavioral difficulties (BI):

First, students standard scores on the WIAT spelling subtest fell two thirds of a SD below the mean of the normative sample. Second, teachers confirmed spelling difficulties. Third, parents consented.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

%

Specify which condition is the submitted intervention:

The submitted program is the spelling instruction (description begins on page 673 in the article).

Specify which condition is the control condition:

Students in the control condition received small group instruction (equal amount of lessons) in math. Description of this treatment begins on page 674 in the JEP article. To summarize, the supplemental math instruction was delivered by trained individuals to pairs of students outside of the classroom. The supplemental math treatment was a modified version of the Peer-Assisted Learning math program developed by Fuchs and Fuchs.

If you have a third, competing condition, in addition to your control and intervention condition, identify what the competing condition is (data from this competing condition will not be used):

Using the tables that follow, provide data demonstrating comparability of the program group and control group in terms of demographics.

Grade Level

Race–Ethnicity

Socioeconomic Status

Disability Status

ELL Status

Gender

What method was used to determine students' placement in treatment/control groups?

Random

Please describe the assignment method or the process for defining treatment/comparison groups.

Instructors were assigned to one of the four participating schools. Three times a week, they worked with each of their assigned pairs of students for 20 min a session. Pairs of students were formed in the following way. First, we told the teachers in each school which students had been randomly assigned to each condition. Then, in conjunction with the teachers, students in the same condition were paired together on the basis of teachers’ opinions of their compatibility and issues of scheduling.

What was the unit of assignment?

Students

If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit of assignment:

What unit(s) were used for primary data analysis?

Schools
Teachers
Students
Classes
Other
If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit(s) used for primary data analysis:

mean performance of pair

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

What were the background, experience, training, and ongoing support of the instructors or interventionists?

The instructors were six graduate students majoring in education. The instructors were trained to how to implement the supplemental spelling and math instruction. The instructors completed checklists during each lesson to indicate that each activity had been completed.

Describe when and how fidelity of treatment information was obtained.

First, instructors trained to criterion during training. Second, instructors met weekly with Steve Graham to discuss lesson implementation. Third, instructors were given a checklist for each lesson and were asked to complete the checklists while teaching. Examination of checklists indicated that instructors had completed 99.1% of the steps during spelling instruction. Additionally, 25% of sessions were audio taped and checked for treatment fidelity.

What were the results on the fidelity-of-treatment implementation measure?

Examination of these tapes indicated that instructors had completed 98.0% of steps during the spelling instruction.

Was the fidelity measure also used in control classrooms?

For any substantively (e.g., effect size ≥ 0.25 for pretest or demographic differences) or statistically significant (e.g., p < 0.05) pretest differences, please describe the extent to which these differences are related to the impact of the treatment. For example, if analyses were conducted to determine that outcomes from this study are due to the intervention and not pretest characteristics, please describe the results of those analyses here.

Please explain any missing data or instances of measures with incomplete pre- or post-test data.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion:

Describe the analyses used to determine whether the intervention produced changes in student outcomes:

This is described in detail on page 677 of the JEP article. All analyses used One-Way Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVA). Some of the outcome measures were not normally distributed so analysis also included the Mann-Whitney Test, a nonparametric procedure. Results of nonparametric and parametric procedures were identical.