Learning to Generate Inferences and Building Knowledge Using an Online Platform

Project LINK is a four-year initiative aimed at developing and piloting an inference instruction intervention to enhance reading comprehension for all 6th and 7th-grade students, with a specific focus on improving outcomes for students with reading difficulties and emergent bilingual students.

During the first project year, the LINK team will select and sequence related narrative and expository texts to build students’ vocabulary and content knowledge. We will embed inference/discussion prompts in digital versions of these texts on the Actively Learn® platform, which includes a series of language and knowledge-building supports (e.g., translations, speech-to-text, dictionary, embedded videos/illustrations). Additionally, we will design in-person and online frameworks to engage students in small-group discussions about the texts, ensuring alignment with the Virginia Standards of Learning for 6th and 7th-grade English, science, and social studies. We will endeavor to select texts authored by linguistically and culturally diverse writers and discussion prompts will encourage students to challenge implicit biases and dominant narratives.

In Year 2, we will complete revisions to our intervention and then engage experienced English teachers, selected by school administrators for their expertise, to implement it in grades 6 and 7. We will gather data on usability and feasibility (e.g., teacher focus group data, attendance and implementation log data, and implementation fidelity measurements). We will also measure student outcomes (e.g., inference generation skills, reading comprehension, reading motivation) and assess student perceptions of online supports. Based on data analyses, we will revise the intervention to enhance its usability, feasibility, and potential efficacy.

In Year 3, we will field test the revised intervention with a new group of expert teachers and make further refinements. Both years will include comprehensive training and support for teachers to ensure effective implementation.

The Year 4 pilot study will evaluate the usability, feasibility, and promise of the LINK intervention relative to business-as-usual instruction using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Data sources during Year 4 will include teacher focus groups, attendance and implementation logs, observations of intervention implementation, and student measures of inference generation, reading comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading motivation.