PARTNERS4LITERACY: A COMPARATIVE CLASSROOM DISCOURSE ANALYSIS DURING DELIVERY OF READTOPIA INSTRUCTION

Both literacy and language are required for the joint construction of knowledge. It is essential to learning new concepts that beginning communicators and preliterate learners have the opportunity to participate in their learning by asking questions, communicating with peers, and presenting thoughts and opinions. Students in special education classrooms who are beginning communicators and preliterate learners may only have access to a restricted set of graphically represented vocabulary, not including question words needed to participate fully in daily learning experiences. This focused embedded study posits that if three experienced and credentialed special education classroom teachers can learn to use aided language input during delivery of Readtopia lessons, while encouraging student participation using vocabulary, along with Readtopia content vocabulary, then students' communication, language, and literacy potential will be revealed in varied ways. Nonexperimental mixed methods approach to analyzing teacher discourse during video recorded language literacy lessons. The unit of analysis is at the classroom level. There were 68 consented participants including 53 students and 15 educators. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to analyze teacher-student discourse from nine video recordings. Teacher questions were categorized and examined for repeated patterns in structure, meaning, and purpose. Results of the discourse analysis revealed five supports necessary for facilitating language development and six barriers to the development of a transactional model of communication critical for joint construction of knowledge. The supports necessary for facilitating language development include using the Readtopia teacher guide, modeling core words, giving additional wait time, asking questions that encourage student response, and rewording questions. The barriers include use of closed-ended questions over open-ended questions, the frequency of modeling and the percentage of questions that are modeled, the frequency of questions that were repeated, wait time for student response, and the frequency of student responses.