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Abstract

Paraeducators are increasingly tasked with delivering early literacy instruction to students with disabilities in elementary schools. This review synthesized findings from 19 studies that examined paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction and reported the included studies’ descriptive characteristics, methodological quality, and treatment outcomes. Studies were rated for methodological quality using the Council for Exceptional Children’s quality indicators. This systematic review was the first to describe paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction in elementary school settings across single-case research designs and between-group research designs and the first to apply a set of quality indicators to rate study quality. The synthesized evidence suggests that, with the appropriate training and supervision, paraeducators were able to facilitate student acquisition in phonological knowledge, word reading, fluency, comprehension, and spelling domains. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords

paraeducator early literacy

The development of students’ literacy skills is a primary objective for staff in elementary schools. Previous research has indicated that literacy skill acquisition is associated with broader academic achievement and an array of positive postsecondary outcomes, such as better employment opportunities, increased independence, and a higher quality of life (Lemons et al., 2016). Specifically, the period between kindergarten and third grade is a critical window for developing foundational literacy skills, including phonological awareness, decoding, and word reading. Proficiency in these domains, and other emergent literacy skills, is necessary for the attainment of higher-order literacy skills, such as fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary (Wanzek et al., 2013).

For students between kindergarten and third grade, inadequate literacy growth can cause reading difficulties that may be difficult to remediate in later years (Al Otaiba & Fuchs, 2002). According to a longitudinal study conducted by Juel (1988), poor reading skills in the first grade were highly predictive of poor reading in the fourth grade. In Juel’s (1988) study, 21 out of 24 poor readers at the end of first grade lacked proficiency in basic reading skills by the end of fourth grade. Francis and colleagues (1996) produced evidence that converged with Juel’s (1988) finding, which suggests that, if early literacy difficulties are not remediated while students are between kindergarten and third grade, students are at increased risk for not attaining basic reading skills.

However, there is a base of empirical studies that supports the efficacy of high-quality literacy instruction as a mechanism for reducing the number of students who experience reading difficulties (e.g., Denton & Mathes, 2003). In 2000, the National Reading Panel published a literature synthesis that reported that components of effective literacy instruction included phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). High-quality literacy instruction that embedded the National Reading Panel’s (2000) five components has been demonstrated to exert positive effects on student literacy outcomes.

However, most studies included in the National Reading Panel’s (2000) review did not include students with disabilities in their samples. To address this gap in the literature, more researchers have conducted systematic reviews to estimate the effects of targeted interventions on literacy outcomes for students with disabilities (Berkeley et al., 2010; Sanders et al., 2019; Scammacca et al., 2015). Berkeley and colleagues (2010) analyzed 40 studies published between 1995 and 2006, and they determined that reading comprehension instruction for students with mild learning disabilities was associated with mean effect sizes of 0.52 on norm-referenced measures and 0.70 on criterion-referenced measures. Sanders and colleagues (2019) analyzed the effects of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) reading interventions for students with disabilities across 12 studies. They determined that SRSD interventions were generally effective, but study quality issues precluded the intervention’s designation as an evidence-based practice (EBP) as per the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC, 2014) quality indicators (QIs).

Furthermore, other researchers determined that systematic literacy interventions, which often contain activities that address oral language, the alphabetic principle, phonics, phonological knowledge, orthography, and fluency, were more likely to engender skill gains for students with disabilities (Lemons & Fuchs, 2010). Specifically, these systematic literacy interventions are often delivered using instructional techniques embedded within the explicit instruction framework, and these methods are associated with skill gains for students with disabilities (Browder et al., 2009; Wright et al., 2022). Previous researchers have determined that the most salient features of the explicit instruction framework include segmenting complex skills, the use of instructional modeling, fostering student engagement, emphasizing a concept’s critical features, providing feedback and practice opportunities, and their use was associated with a decrease in the number of students who experienced reading difficulties and greater skill gains relative to the use of non-explicit methods (Allor et al., 2010; Al Otaiba & Torgesen, 2007; Hughes et al., 2017). Thus, educational researchers have identified the ongoing need to ensure that students with disabilities receive high-quality literacy instruction between grades K-3 that incorporates the research-based principles of systematic and explicit instruction.

The Importance of Paraeducators in Applied Settings

Across elementary schools in the United States, staffing challenges have exacerbated schools’ difficulty in delivering systematic early literacy instruction to students with disabilities. Decades-long school staffing patterns have resulted in a growing number of paraeducator personnel relative to the number of licensed teachers, related service providers, and other specialists employed by school districts (Biggs et al., 2019). Paraeducator personnel are school staff members who are not certified to independently deliver instructional or behavioral services, and they serve under the supervision of a credentialed school staff member, such as a special education teacher. Data from the U.S. Department of Education (2018) indicated that there were over 488,000 paraeducators working in schools in the United States, and that there were more paraeducators than special education teachers employed by the nations’ school districts (Walker et al., 2020). Despite, in many cases, not having earned specific teaching or behavior support credentials, paraeducators are increasingly tasked with delivering instruction to students, especially students with identified disabilities (Carter et al., 2009).

Although the number of paraeducators employed in U.S. schools has increased, appropriate professional development and other supports have often not been provided to these personnel. Federal laws, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), mandated that paraeducators be appropriately trained and supervised by qualified teachers (Biggs et al., 2019). Despite recent efforts to provide support to teachers on strategies to supervise paraeducators (e.g., Yates et al., 2019), in many schools, paraeducators serve under the direct supervision of special education teachers who have often received little or no training on strategies for paraeducator supervision (Drecktrah, 2000). According to Drecktrah (2000), only 10% of in-service teachers reported that their pre-service training included instruction on the effective use of paraeducators; however, 90% of in-service teacher respondents reported that systematic training on working effectively with paraeducators would be beneficial to include in pre-service teacher preparation programs. Due to inadequate pre-service training and the lack of effective coaching from supervising teachers, paraeducators may struggle to implement systematic early literacy instruction without the requisite professional development or training supports (Carter et al., 2009; Giangreco et al., 2002).

Paraeducator Training

Although many paraeducators serve in classrooms in which they have not been trained to deliver evidence-based academic, behavioral, social, or communication programs, previous reviews suggest that paraeducators can deliver effective services when provided with the necessary training, coaching, feedback, and support (Walker & Smith, 2015). Walker and colleagues (2020) published a review of 19 studies that used single-case research designs (SCRD) to determine the effectiveness of paraprofessional-implemented systematic instruction for students with disabilities. Across 19 studies, there were 60 paraprofessionals who supported students using interventions such as naturalistic language strategies, least-to-most prompting, pivotal response training, and discrete trial training. Within the subset of 13 studies that reported student outcomes, 85% reported positive academic and behavioral student outcomes and 90% reported positive effects on paraprofessional behaviors.

Brock and Carter (2013) reviewed 13 experimental studies that used SCRD to evaluate the training methods used to prepare 40 paraeducators to support students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They reported that multi-component training protocols, specifically programs that provided a written or verbal description of an instructional practice, modeling, and performance feedback, were used to effectively prepare paraeducators to deliver EBPs with sufficient levels of implementation fidelity. Brock and Carter (2013) found that paraeducators were able to deliver EBPs with initial training sessions that ranged from 20 minutes to 8 hours. We were not able to identify any systematic reviews that analyzed outcomes from empirical studies that addressed how paraeducators supported students with learning disabilities.

Paraeducator Participation in Early Literacy Instruction

Using findings from prior empirical research, Causton-Theoharis and colleagues (2007) published a practitioner paper that offered guidance on the effective use of paraeducators in early literacy instruction. Their guidelines stipulated that paraeducators were most effectively used in the context of supplemental instruction, rather than supplanting traditional teacher-led instruction. They reported that paraeducators were effective when using a scripted intervention and receiving support on intervention intensification strategies. They also suggested that training in student behavior support strategies, and ongoing monitoring and feedback from supervising teachers were associated with successful intervention implementation.

Three previous reviews have examined the effects of paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions. In their review, Slavin and colleagues (2011) reported that one-on-one paraeducator or volunteer tutor-implemented reading interventions (n = 18) produced a mean effect size (ES) of 0.24. Samson and colleagues (2015) reported that explicit training, ongoing supervision, and scripted lesson plans were all associated with positive student outcomes. In their meta-analysis of paraeducator-implemented supplemental early literacy interventions, Jones and colleagues (2021) determined that paraeducators were able to facilitate significant positive effects for student growth in phonological awareness (ES = 0.51), decoding (ES = 0.61), and spelling (ES = 0.86). They found that the aggregate ES across all studies was 0.51 (95% CI: 0.28–0.81). Thus, the findings of reviews by Slavin et al. (2011), Samson et al. (2015), and Jones et al. (2021) suggest that paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions are associated with at least small-to-moderate effects on student acquisition outcomes. Their findings indicate that paraeducators can deliver generally effective systematic literacy instruction when provided with adequate training, coaching, and supervision from qualified personnel, and that special education teachers and administrators should consider how paraeducator personnel can be incorporated into early literacy service provision.

Study Purpose and Research Questions

As more students with disabilities in elementary schools require support to remediate skill deficits that are predictive of long-term reading difficulties (Al Otaiba & Fuchs, 2002), there is a growing emphasis on how paraeducator personnel may be best used to deliver systematic reading instruction that incorporates tenets of the explicit instruction framework (Jones et al., 2021; Lemons et al., 2012). To address these concerns, we evaluated experimental research studies, in peer-reviewed journals, dissertations, and other gray literature, that examined the effects of paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions on reading outcomes for students between kindergarten and third grade. We used a multi-pronged approach (i.e., separate inclusion criteria and coding procedures) for this study’s descriptive review, study quality coding, and treatment outcomes review. For the descriptive review, we coded the demographic characteristics of studies’ samples and their training program components; we coded descriptive characteristics to provide greater contextual information about the included studies and to possibly facilitate future analyses of moderated treatment effects. We coded for study quality to assess whether the included studies had sufficient rigor to justify inferences of treatment effectiveness. We used the CEC (2014) QIs to measure study quality, and we selected this set of QIs because they can inform the degree to which practitioners trust the evidence regarding a study’s outcomes (Lory et al., 2018). For our treatment outcomes, we opted to report standardized mean differences for studies that used between-groups designs; we decided to report these statistics because other reviews on paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions reported standardized mean differences; and we wanted to contextualize our findings within the existing literature base. For studies that used SCRD, in which each student serves as their own control, we used visual analysis to identify functional relations between the use of an early literacy treatment and student acquisition outcomes (Ledford et al., 2019).

To our knowledge, this is the first review that synthesized findings on paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction across studies that used both SCRD and between-group comparison designs. This study may be the first to apply a specific set of QIs (CEC, 2014) to evaluate rigor, as well as the first to only include studies whose samples included at least one student with an identified disability. Our research questions were:

Research Question 1: What were the descriptive characteristics of studies that evaluated paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions?

Research Question 2: To what extent did SCRD studies that examined paraeducator-implemented early literacy intervention meet CEC (2014) QIs and the 80% weighted eligibility criterion for methodologically sound (Lane et al., 2009) research?

Research Question 3: To what extent did between-group comparison studies that examined paraeducator-implemented early literacy intervention meet CEC (2014) QIs and the 80% weighted eligibility criterion for methodologically sound (Lane et al., 2009) research?

Research Question 4: For methodologically sound between-group comparison studies (Lane et al., 2009), what is the strength of the evidence base for the use of paraeducator-implemented interventions to improve early literacy outcomes?

Research Question 5: For methodologically sound SCRD studies (Lane et al., 2009), what is the strength of the evidence base for the use of paraeducator-implemented interventions to improve early literacy outcomes?

Method

Inclusion Criteria for Descriptive Review

All included studies in the systematic review were published in English and exclusively used paraeducator personnel as intervention implementers. Each eligible study included at least one student between kindergarten through third grade whom their authors identified as having a disability. We excluded studies that included preschool students or students in fourth grade or higher for the sake of focusing on outcomes for students between kindergarten and third grades; previous research has suggested that reading difficulties after third grade are highly predictive of longer-term reading disabilities (Al Otaiba & Fuchs, 2002; at full-text screening stage, 62 of 285 studies not included due to student ineligibility). Eligible studies analyzed the effects of systematic early literacy intervention on students’ literacy skill growth and addressed components such as phonological processing, decoding, reading of high-frequency words, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and spelling. Finally, all studies were conducted in school settings.

Inclusion Criteria for Outcomes Review

All included studies were experimental, included a comparison condition, or presented at least three opportunities to demonstrate an experimental effect, and reported literacy acquisition data. We excluded any observational or correlational studies from this review. Any between-groups comparison study that did not report their method for assigning participants to treatment groups, or failed to report outcome data for all treatment groups, was excluded from the outcomes review. All eligible SCRD included at least three data points in each experimental condition, with the exception of maintenance or generalization conditions. We decided to exclude any study that used a non-concurrent multiple baseline design.

Literature Search and Screening Procedures

To identify studies for this systematic review, we conducted database searches, a hand search, an ancestral search, and a forward search. For this review, the first author was the primary coder, and he trained the third author to be the reliability coder. During the initial training, the first author provided an overview of the inclusion criteria, and the reliability coder met the criterion of independently coding 10 titles with at least 90% accuracy. In 2020 and 2021, we conducted the initial searches by performing multiple database searches to identify articles for inclusion in this review (see Table S1 in Supplemental Materials; see Figure S1 for the PRISMA diagram; Moher et al., 2009). We used the results of the database searches to inform the hand, ancestral, and forward searches.

Our literature search process included title screening, abstract screening, and full-text screening stages. We created a Microsoft Excel file in which we used binary codes (i.e., “1” satisfied the criterion, “0” did not satisfy the criterion) to assess whether a record identified in our search might be eligible for the subsequent screening stage. Our codebook included categories for participant, intervention, comparison condition, academic outcomes, and study setting eligibility. If a study satisfied all five criteria, we included it in the successive screening stage (e.g., if a study met all five criteria for the title screening stage, we included it in the abstract screening stage). We included any study in this review that satisfied all criteria across the title screening, abstract screening, and full-text screening stages.

To assess interrater agreement (IRA), we recorded an agreement when both the primary and secondary coders agreed that a title should or should not be included in the subsequent screening stage; we recorded a disagreement when the coders differed on a title’s inclusion status for the following screening stage. After each screening stage, the first author and reliability coder participated in consensus discussions to address disagreements on records’ inclusion status. To determine our IRA estimate, we divided the number of agreements by the number of agreements plus the number of disagreements and multiplied it by 100. Across screening stages, our IRA estimates ranged from 77% to 100% (see Tables S2 and S3 in Supplemental Materials). Our IRA levels were only below 80% for the ancestral and forward searches, which may be attributable to the relatively limited number of records assessed for IRA.

The database searches resulted in the identification of 14 studies for inclusion in this review. We conducted a hand search of the journals in which seven of the studies were published, specifically focusing on those journals’ published contents between 2018 and 2021. This hand search did not yield any additional records for inclusion. Then, we conducted an ancestral search using the 14 included studies’ reference lists that originally entailed 989 records (796 after the removal of duplicate records). Using the same study eligibility criteria and coding process, we identified five studies for inclusion in this review. During the ancestral search, two of the five studies that we identified were published in peer-reviewed journals; those two studies supplanted previous iterations of the same studies that were published as dissertations, which we had identified during the database searches. In February 2021, we entered citations for the 14 included studies in Google Scholar to perform a forward search. The first author found that the 14 included studies were cited by 584 studies, and manually exported the citations to an Excel codebook. Both coders engaged in the same coding procedure to determine eligibility for this review, and we found that the two studies merited inclusion. Across all searches, we identified 21 articles for inclusion in this review (see Figure S1). After removing dissertations that were subsequently published in peer-reviewed journals (n = 2), we identified 19 articles for inclusion in this systematic review.

Descriptive Coding

Our descriptive review reports how paraeducators have been used to support students with disabilities. It includes information on study context, intervention implementers, student participants, paraeducator training protocols, intervention components, treatment dosage, and treatment integrity (see Appendix A in Supplemental Materials for codebook). The first author coded all 19 studies and the third author coded a randomly selected subset of five studies (26%) to estimate IRA. To calculate IRA, the authors divided the number of agreements by the number of agreements and disagreements, and multiplied that by 100 to obtain a percentage. To resolve observed disagreements, the first and third author conducted consensus discussions. Across all domains in the descriptive review, the IRA estimate was 81%, with a range of 63% to 100% for each subdomain. The two domains with IRA levels below 80% were intervention dosage and comparison condition description; these levels were likely below 80% due to their definitions being insufficiently operationalized by the first author during the codebook’s development.

Study Quality Coding

To code the 19 studies for methodological quality, we used the CEC (2014) QIs. We used binary codes (i.e., 0 for “does not meet the QI” and 1 for “meets the QI”) to evaluate whether each study satisfied QIs for methodologically sound studies; if the article reported sufficient information on a QI to facilitate replication, we coded the QI as present (see Appendix B in Supplemental Materials). No study satisfied all CEC (2014) QIs.

For assessing IRA, we used the same method that we used for the descriptive coding; our IRA was 87%, which ranged from 60% to 100% for each QI (see Table S4 in Supplemental Materials). The QIs for which IRA levels were below 80% were intervention materials (4.2), comparison condition description (6.2), overall attrition levels (6.8), differential attrition levels (6.9), and comprehensive reporting of outcome (7.3). Interrater agreement levels may have been adversely affected by the two coders assessing agreement on too few studies during the reliability coder’s training and the possible use of imprecise operational definitions in the codebook.

Method to Evaluate Eligibility for Outcomes Review

After coding studies to determine which satisfied all QIs (CEC, 2014), we used a proportional weighting method to determine which studies were sufficiently methodologically sound to warrant inclusion in this review’s treatment outcomes analysis (Lane et al., 2009; Royer et al., 2017; see Table S5 in the Supplemental Materials). Specifically, this method proportionally scored QI components to determine a composite score; if 80% of total QIs were satisfied, we deemed the study methodologically sound and eligible for analysis in our treatment outcomes review (Royer et al., 2017). For example, QI 6.0 has six components for group design research, which means that each component represents 16.7% of the total score for QI 6.0. If a study satisfied five of six components for QI 6.0, the study would receive a weighted score of 0.83 (i.e., 0.167 + 0.167 + 0.167 + 0.167 + 0.167 = 0.83), instead of the zero it would receive in an absolute system (Royer et al., 2017). To qualify as methodologically sound, a study needed to obtain a score of 6.40 to satisfy 80% of all QIs (i.e., .80 × 8 QIs = 6.40). Study outcomes from all 19 studies were included in the treatment outcomes review based on the proportional weighting coding process.

Treatment Outcomes Coding

We determined effect size estimates for all studies that used between-group comparisons to infer effects (see Appendix C in Supplemental Materials) using the Hedges’ g effect size (Hedges, 1981). The second coder confirmed 100% of the lead author’s effect size estimates for five randomly selected studies that used between-groups designs. For studies that used SCRD to infer treatment effects, the first author used visual analysis to determine whether, for each experimental design, there was a functional relation between participation in an early literacy intervention and literacy skill acquisition. To visually analyze early literacy skill acquisition data, the first author examined each experimental design’s level, trend, variability, stability, immediacy of change, and overlap across conditions (Ledford & Gast, 2018; Spriggs & Gast, 2010). We did not estimate IRA for the visual analysis of outcomes from studies that used SCRD. Then, the first author used success estimates (Reichow & Volkmar, 2010) to report the results of visual analysis across eligible studies. The first author determined success estimates by dividing the number of experimental designs per study in which a functional relation was identified by the total number of experimental designs within that study and multiplying by 100.

Results

We conducted a systematic literature review to determine the descriptive characteristics, study quality, and treatment outcomes of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction in elementary school settings. First, we reported descriptive data from 16 studies because three were follow-up measurement studies of a study that was already included in our systematic review (see Table S6 in Supplemental Materials). We excluded Vadasy et al. (2008) and Vadasy and Sanders (2012, 2013) from the descriptive review because descriptive information for these studies was reported in Jenkins et al. (2004) and Vadasy and Sanders (2010, 2011), respectively. Then, we examined the extent to which included studies satisfied the eight CEC (2014) QIs; for those studies meeting at least 80% of weighted criteria (Lane et al., 2009; Royer et al., 2017), we reported statistically significant treatment outcome or used visual analysis to infer functional relations in our treatment outcomes review.

We determined that 15 of 19 (79%) reviewed studies used between-groups designs, and the majority were published in peer-reviewed journals. Two studies were published dissertations and 17 were published in peer-reviewed journals. A plurality of studies occurred in urban elementary schools in the Pacific Northwest region (e.g., Vadasy, 2000; Vadasy et al., 2007; Vadasy & Pool, 1997). Across all included studies, most of the paraeducator implementers were White females, and a plurality of the students were White males. In all included studies, paraeducators were trained by research staff members to deliver a systematic early literacy intervention to a sample of students that included at least one student with an identified disability between kindergarten and third grade. The most common elements of paraeducator training programs were exposure to lesson scripts, observing models of instructional procedures, participating in implementation role-play activities, and receiving explicit feedback from research staff members. The mean duration of the initial training session was 3 hours, and most studies did not include a follow-up training session. Treatment integrity data suggest that paraeducator personnel were able to effectively implement scripted early literacy programs.

Across all included studies, we coded the interventions’ instructional components. Four of the five components included in the National Reading Panel’s (2000) synthesis were present throughout the reviewed studies; no study explicitly included a vocabulary component. However, it is likely that students were exposed to novel vocabulary words in the context of instruction that addressed word reading, decoding, fluency, and comprehension (see Table S7 in Supplemental Materials for more information).

Quality Indicator Attainment

None of the four studies that used SCRD satisfied all CEC (2014) QIs; after applying the 80% weighted criterion for determining inclusion in this review’s outcome analysis (Lane et al., 2009), all four studies exceeded the QI threshold of 6.40. All SCRD studies satisfied the CEC (2014) QIs for describing the context and setting (1.0), participants (2.0), intervention agent (3.0), description of instructional practice (4.0), and data analysis (8.0). One of four met the QI for internal validity (6.0) and two of four satisfied the QI for measurement (7.0), but none satisfied the QI for implementation fidelity (QI 5.0; see Table S5 in the Supplemental Materials).

None of the 15 studies that used between-group comparisons satisfied all QIs. However, all 15 studies met the QIs for describing the context and setting (1.0) and participants (2.0). Fourteen of 15 studies attained the QI for describing the intervention agent (3.0), and 13 of 15 satisfied the QIs for description of instructional practice (4.0), implementation fidelity (5.0), and data analysis (8.0). Ten of 15 studies met the QI for internal validity (6.0), and one of 15 satisfied the QI for measurement (7.0). All 15 studies met the 80% weighted criterion for inclusion in this review’s outcome analysis (see Table S5 in Supplemental Materials). Across studies, no researchers disaggregated data based on student disability status.

Student Outcomes From Between-Group Comparison Studies

We determined that nine of 15 studies (60%) included a decoding measure (see Table S8 in the Supplemental Materials). Of the nine studies that included a decoding measure, only four (44%) detected statistically significant effects (Jenkins et al., 2004; Vadasy et al., 2002, 2005, 2008), and those ranged from 0.65 to 2.28 (g). We found that 13 out of 15 studies (87%) included a word reading measure (see Table S9 in the Supplemental Materials). For word reading, 10 of 13 studies (77%) detected statistically significant effects, which ranged from 0.30 to 1.87 (g). For spelling, we determined that 11 out of 15 (73%) included a spelling measure (see Table S10 in the Supplemental Materials). Seven out of 11 studies (64%) that used a spelling measure detected statistically significant effects, which were between 0.35 and 1.11 (g).

We determined that six out of 15 studies (40%) included a phonological knowledge measure (see Table S11 in the Supplemental Materials). Four out of six studies (67%) that used a phonological knowledge measure detected statistically significant effects, ranging from −24.73 to 22.22 (g). We found that 11 out of 15 studies (73%) included a fluency measure (see Table S12 in the Supplemental Materials). For fluency, seven of 11 (64%) studies detected significant effects, which ranged from 0.45 to 1.47 (g). We determined that 11 out of 15 (73%) included a reading comprehension measure (see Table S13 in the Supplemental Materials). Six of 11 (55%) studies detected a statistically significant effect for reading comprehension, and those statistically significant effects ranged from −1.75 to 1.05 (g).

Student Outcomes From SCRD Studies

We report success estimates for studies that used SCRD in Table S14 of the Supplemental Materials. Using visual analysis, we inferred functional relations in two of two designs for both the Allor et al. (2006) and Owens et al. (2004) studies. We inferred functional relations in one of one design for the Spooner et al. (2009) and Westover and Martin (2014) studies (100% success estimate). Allor and colleagues (2006) included six participants and measured performance on a standardized phonemic awareness measure. In Owens and colleagues (2004) there were six participants, and the researchers used a proximal measure that addressed sound-symbol correspondences and sight words. There was one participant in Spooner et al. (2009), and the authors used a proximal measure that addressed vocabulary and comprehension for an emergent reader. In Westover and Martin (2014), there were three participants and the researchers measured phonological, phonemic awareness, and comprehension using a researcher-created probe.

Discussion

The purpose of this review was to describe and estimate the effects of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction. We identified 19 studies for inclusion in this review, which entailed 16 unique samples (i.e., three follow-up studies were conducted). In this review, we synthesized the studies’ descriptive information, methodological quality ratings, and student early literacy treatment outcomes. To our knowledge, this review was the first analysis of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction that synthesized both SCRD and between-groups comparison studies and applied a set of QIs to assess rigor.

We reported the results of student-level outcome measures that addressed phonological knowledge, decoding, word reading, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension. After computing standardized mean difference effect sizes for each outcome measure, we determined that 10 of 13 studies that used a word reading outcome measure detected significant effects, four of nine studies that used a decoding outcome measure detected significant effects, four out of six studies that used a phonological knowledge measure detected significant effects, seven of 11 studies that used a fluency or spelling measure detected significant effects, and six of 11 studies that used a reading comprehension detected significant effects. For the studies that used SCRD, we inferred functional relations for student literacy acquisition in 12 out of 12 cases.

Several of our descriptive review’s results converged with findings from reviews conducted by Samson et al. (2015) and Jones et al. (2021). Like Samson et al. (2015), we reported that paraeducator implementers received explicit training and feedback from research staff members to prepare them to deliver systematic early literacy instruction. They determined that paraeducators were well-equipped to deliver instruction when they were provided with an instructional protocol that used scripted lessons; they also reported that explicit training in phonemic awareness and direct instruction in phonics were effective components of paraeducator training programs. We determined that student-level literacy skill acquisition effects were comparable to those measured by Jones et al. (2021). Our review, along with the findings of Jones and colleagues (2021), suggests that paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions are associated with moderate positive effects on decoding outcomes (e.g., Hund-Reid, 2009; O’Shaughnessy & Swanson, 2000). However, our estimates of spelling outcomes were lower than the estimate by Jones et al. (2021); this finding may be related to the studies included in this review’s use of distal measures that required greater transfer.

Implications for Practice

To address students’ early literacy skill deficits, school administrators and classroom teachers can use paraeducators to deliver effective early literacy instruction. As the number of paraeducators employed in schools has increased from under 10,000 in the 1960s to over 400,000 today (Biggs et al., 2019), paraeducators constitute a greater proportion of school staff members. Paraeducators, when they are properly trained, coached, and supervised by qualified personnel, can provide effective supplemental support to students with early literacy difficulties (Jones et al., 2021).

Empirical research findings suggest that training programs for adult learners that embedded active learning opportunities in the context of small group instruction for 10 or more hours were most strongly associated with skill mastery (Trivette et al., 2009). In this review, we found that studies that used multiple training methods, such as modeling, role-playing, and feedback were associated with positive implementer training outcomes and adequate treatment integrity levels (Allor et al., 2006; Therrien et al., 2012). Furthermore, the use of scripted lesson protocols supported non-certified paraeducators to deliver evidence-based reading instruction, which is associated with positive student acquisition effects and may reduce the likelihood of future reading difficulties (Al Otaiba & Fuchs, 2002; Causton-Theoharis et al., 2007). To this end, researchers should consider providing professional development resources for teachers on selecting evidence-based early literacy curricula and preparing paraeducators to deliver systematic early literacy instruction.

Implications for Research

Future studies of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction should provide more rigorous reporting of classroom literacy instruction, complete outcome data for each measure administered, and a description of their procedure for scoring reliability on their dependent measures. It would also benefit future researchers to conduct longer-term early literacy intervention studies that incorporate classroom-based paraeducators in their samples. Only one study that lasted over 18 weeks (Westover & Martin, 2014) used full-time classroom paraeducators as intervention implementers; the other studies, all conducted by Vadasy’s research group, used non-certified implementers who were not tasked with other responsibilities independent from delivering early literacy instruction. Additional studies that use classroom-based paraeducators to deliver longer-term early literacy interventions may provide meaningful social validity and feasibility evidence for implementers in applied settings.

Future research on paraeducator-implemented early literacy interventions should also report data that are disaggregated by student disability status or students’ pre-treatment reading performance. Because paraeducators often support students with disabilities in instructional settings (Carter et al., 2009), disaggregated data by disability status or risk for reading difficulties may help researchers and practitioners understand which instructional protocols are effective for whom, and under what conditions. These data would provide insight into the extent to which paraeducators are able to effectively address early literacy skill deficits. In addition, more thorough descriptive reporting of student samples, such as reporting specific disability categories, may improve the external validity of their findings and facilitate the identification of significant aptitude by treatment interactions.

It may also benefit future researchers to examine the components of paraeducator early literacy training programs that may be associated with higher treatment fidelity ratings. In our review, we determined that access to lesson scripts, explicit feedback, modeling, and role-play were commonly used to support paraeducators (Lane et al., 2007; Owens et al., 2004; Vadasy & Sanders, 2008). However, other training components, such as offering a rationale for why an instructional practice was relevant or important, supporting paraeducators to collect student data to inform individualized instructional modifications, and offering guidance on self-monitoring strategies were less common. Future studies should conduct experimental analyses of professional development programs that embed different component types to determine which are most closely associated with positive student acquisition outcomes, as well as analyses on implementer non-response to generally effective coaching supports.

Finally, research should be conducted into the effectiveness of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction when the implementers are trained and supervised by classroom teachers. In our analysis, all studies used research staff to support paraeducators. Additional empirical studies that address classroom teachers’ ability to adequately train paraeducators to deliver comprehensive early literacy instruction would meaningfully address the research-to-practice gap. Specifically, this research may include studies that incorporate systematic training on supporting paraeducators during pre-service teacher preparation programs.

Limitations

In this review, we only included studies that exclusively used paraeducators as treatment implementers, which may limit the external validity of these findings. At the full-text screening stage, 186 studies were excluded due to the use of an ineligible implementer. Future syntheses may consider analyzing evidence from studies that used both paraeducators and other implementer types, which may provide additional statistical power for outcome analyses. Our decision to only include studies that had at least one student between kindergarten and third grade with an identified disability likely decreased the number of studies that qualified for inclusion in this review. We rejected 62 studies at the full-text screening stage due to student ineligibility. We experienced other student-related descriptive coding challenges, namely because nine of 17 studies did not report the students’ disability types, and no study that used a between-group comparison disaggregated data by student disability type. Furthermore, the generalizability of these findings may be affected by the fact that over half of the included studies were conducted by the same research team (i.e., Vadasy and colleagues) in the same geographic region.

Other limitations pertain to statistical power, our search procedure, and study quality. Twelve studies used between-groups comparisons, and three had 30 or fewer student participants. In addition, our search procedure may not have identified all eligible studies from the gray literature because we did not search beyond dissertation databases. Our use of Google Scholar for the forward search may have had adverse effects on the replicability of our search process. Furthermore, there was a high proportion of studies identified via the ancestral and forward searches (seven of 21), which may suggest that our Boolean search terms may not have encompassed all relevant literature. Study quality issues, such as inadequate reporting on comparison condition instruction and dosage, incomplete outcome reporting, and poor explanation of reliability scoring procedures, hindered our ability to interpret certain studies’ results. In addition, this review may have been strengthened by the use of a second set of QIs to assess study quality, particularly at the design level.

We recognize that our decision to exclude any SCRD study that used a non-concurrent multiple baseline design may not be aligned with literature that suggests these designs are not inherently prone to threats of internal validity (Slocum et al., 2022); however, in our coding process, we did not exclude any studies from this review on the basis of their use of a non-concurrent multiple baseline design (see Figure S1). Finally, we did not perform an IRA estimate for the visual analysis of student acquisition data for the studies that used SCRD to infer effects. Due to the IRA issues associated with visual analysis, our review would be strengthened if we additionally reported an objective measure of effect (Ledford et al., 2018).

Conclusion

In this review, we addressed the training protocols used to support paraeducator personnel to deliver early literacy interventions, the interventions’ instructional components, the studies’ methodological rigor, and student-level early literacy acquisition data. Our findings demonstrate that researchers were able to adequately train non-certified paraeducator implementers to deliver a comprehensive early literacy protocol in a relatively short time period. Across studies, there were statistically significant positive effects detected for dependent variables that addressed the constructs of phonological knowledge, decoding, word reading, spelling, fluency, and comprehension. Future research is warranted on the effects of paraeducator-implemented early literacy instruction that targets vocabulary development. In addition, future researchers should better describe their implementer and student samples to facilitate analyses of response to treatment.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-rse-10.1177_07419325241234080 – Supplemental material for The Effects of Paraeducator-Implemented Interventions on Student Literacy Skill Acquisition: A Review

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-rse-10.1177_07419325241234080 for The Effects of Paraeducator-Implemented Interventions on Student Literacy Skill Acquisition: A Review by Guy Martin, Christopher J. Lemons and Yasmina E. Haddad in Remedial and Special Education

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The research described in this article was supported in part by Grant H325D170005 from the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education. Nothing in the article necessarily reflects the positions or policies of the federal government, and no official endorsement by it should be inferred.

ORCID iD

Guy Martin

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material is available at

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