School effectiveness and literacy instruction for students with difficulties in Brazil

Many students in Brazilian primary schools perform below expected levels in literacy. Despite evidence that schools can be organized to promote high-quality literacy instruction and achievement, few school effectiveness studies focus explicitly on literacy and few literacy studies examine school factors. Also, few studies explore how schools can be effective at teaching students with difficulties. Presuming that improving literacy achievement requires whole-school effort, this dissertation examines school factors that may influence literacy achievement in a sample of schools focusing on raising achievement of students with literacy difficulties in Brazil. The research was conducted in schools that had participated in the Escola Que Vale Program, a literacy professional development program. The first study explored how school leadership and professional community shaped literacy instruction through a case study of a single Brazilian school. Results showed that leadership and professional community supported general reading instruction and the implementation of interventions that benefit students with literacy difficulties but did not guarantee that instruction was organized in a way that prioritized the needs of students with literacy difficulties. The second study examined general education literacy instruction for students with literacy difficulties. Questionnaire results showed that teachers reported frequently using effective literacy instruction practices, especially differentiated instruction for students with difficulties. However, analyses of focus groups found the picture to be somewhat more complicated, with teachers expressing concerns about their abilities to deliver differentiated instruction and actually doing so infrequently. The findings suggest that a gap exists between teacher beliefs and actions related to teaching students with literacy difficulties in the general education classroom. The third study analyzed the organization and quality of literacy intervention instruction for students with difficulties, comparing a pull-out model to a supplementary model. The results showed that overall quality of literacy intervention instruction was low, regardless of the model. However, results also showed that supplementary instruction offered more opportunity for students to be engaged in reading and literacy instruction than pull-out instruction. Overall, the dissertation highlights the importance of teacher-related factors to school effectiveness and literacy instruction. It also reveals the challenges of conducting effective instruction for students with literacy difficulties.