Efficacy of professional development with individualized coaching on enhancing educator knowledge and practice of emergent literacy skills

Clinical Question: Do preschool and kindergarten teachers (P) who participate in professional development programs that focus on emergent literacy skills with built-in individualized coaching (I) compared to those who do not participate in professional development programs (C) show enhanced knowledge and/or practice in the classroom environment (O)?

Method: Systematic Review

Study Sources: ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science

Search Terms: teacher coaching AND language and literacy, teacher coaching
professional development AND emergent literacy skills

Number of Included Studies: 9

Primary Results:
1. Professional development programs with built-in individualized coaching were effective when targeting teachers’ code-focused and oral language instruction and improving environmental supports in the classroom but not effective when the outcome measures pertained to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.
2. Professional development programs that focused on one or two outcome measures and were shorter in duration displayed as great or greater effect sizes than more involved professional development programs.

Conclusions: Participating in a professional development program and receiving individualized coaching on a core set of emergent literacy instructional skills within a specific classroom context leads to improved educator practice and enhanced teacher-child interactions. Programs that incorporated videotaped feedback of teacher-child interactions during coaching sessions or written observations and feedback yielded better results than those that presented feedback verbally or through modeling. Further research is needed to determine the long-term effects of professional development with coaching on children’s literacy achievement as they enter grade school.