Impacting Change in Classroom Literacy Instruction: A Further Investigation of the Better Start Literacy Approach

Abstract

A controlled intervention study supported the effectiveness of teachers implementing an integrated intervention (Better Start Literacy Approach; BSLA) to accelerate foundational literacy skills for children in Year 1 with low levels of oral language ability in a community with significant challenges to effective teaching and learning (Gillon et al., 2019). As part of an implementation approach, the current study aimed to investigate whether teachers from less challenging contexts can successfully implement the Better Start Literacy Approach with reduced support from researchers. Two schools with a total of 93 Year 0/1 children participated in the teacher-led classroom literacy intervention, with 20% of sample classified as linguistically diverse. A series of research questions explored the impact of the intervention on children’s foundational literacy skills. Repeated measures general linear models demonstrated a positive impact of the intervention for the research group compared to the control group. Further analysis demonstrated the intervention was equally effective for linguistically diverse learners. The findings have important implications for better understanding the effectiveness of the BSLA in differing contexts and for linguistically diverse learners, further adding to the research for this literacy intervention.