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A Reflective Professional Development Intervention Model of Early Writing Instruction

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Title: A Reflective Professional Development Intervention Model of Early Writing Instruction
Language: English
Authors: Zhang, Chenyi, Cook, J. Claire
Source: Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. 2019 40(2):177-196.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 20
Publication Date: 2019
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Preschool Education
Descriptors: Faculty Development, Preschool Teachers, Writing Instruction, Reflective Teaching, Workshops, Program Effectiveness, Literacy Education, Teacher Competencies, Teaching Methods, Reflection, Program Implementation, Fidelity
DOI: 10.1080/10901027.2018.1536903
ISSN: 1090-1027
Abstract: This study presents a professional development (PD) model for promoting preschool teachers' writing instruction utilizing teachers' reflective practices. Thirteen prekindergarten teachers were followed for the entire pre-K year. Teachers were assigned to intervention and comparison conditions. A reflective PD workshop was developed based on classroom observations and teachers' reflections during the Fall semester. Intervention group teachers completed a reflective PD workshop, and a reflective teacher-researcher meeting in the Spring semester. By the end of the pre-K year, classroom observations suggested that the intervention group teachers provided a significantly higher quality of literacy and writing instruction than comparison group teachers. Intervention group teachers also implemented new teaching practices with high fidelity. Findings demonstrate the merit and necessity of utilizing reflective practices during in-service teachers' training. The description of the reflective PD model and teachers' initial teaching practices are also discussed in this article.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2019
Accession Number: EJ1216308
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0136519853;[15u7]01apr.19;2019May22.09:30;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0136519853-1">A reflective professional development intervention model of early writing instruction </title> <p>This study presents a professional development (PD) model for promoting preschool teachers' writing instruction utilizing teachers' reflective practices. Thirteen prekindergarten teachers were followed for the entire pre-K year. Teachers were assigned to intervention and comparison conditions. A reflective PD workshop was developed based on classroom observations and teachers' reflections during the Fall semester. Intervention group teachers completed a reflective PD workshop, and a reflective teacher–researcher meeting in the Spring semester. By the end of the pre-K year, classroom observations suggested that the intervention group teachers provided a significantly higher quality of literacy and writing instruction than comparison group teachers. Intervention group teachers also implemented new teaching practices with high fidelity. Findings demonstrate the merit and necessity of utilizing reflective practices during in-service teachers' training. The description of the reflective PD model and teachers' initial teaching practices are also discussed in this article.</p> <p>It is widely acknowledged that teachers' reflection is an important practice for promoting teachers' understanding of teaching pedagogies (e.g., Loughran, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref1">31</reflink>]), construction of teaching self-efficacy (e.g., Hunter, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref2">23</reflink>]) and continuous growth in professionalism (e.g., Swain, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref3">40</reflink>]). However, few professional development (PD) models for in-service early childhood educators integrate reflective practice during PD training. Teachers are usually conceptualized as passive receivers in PD training rather than active contributors or collaborators, thus ignoring teachers' perspectives on classroom instruction, teaching beliefs, and classroom teaching experiences. Such conceptualization lacks teachers' "voices" in PD, which may lead to a disconnect between teachers' knowledge of newly introduced teaching pedagogies and their actual implementation of teaching practices in classroom. Given the uniqueness of preschool teachers' classroom responsibilities and early childhood classroom dynamics (Hall-Kenyon, Robert, MacKay, & Marshall, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref4">21</reflink>]), it is necessary to integrate teachers' reflective practice into a PD model in order to provide teachers with effective and individualized classroom teaching support.</p> <p>In recent years, a High-Leverage Teaching Practices (HLTP) approach (i.e., Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref5">2</reflink>]; Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref6">19</reflink>]) has been developed in the field of teachers' education (e.g., Davin & Troyan, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>]). The HLTP approach focuses on a core set of teaching practices within a specific domain of instruction rather than the totality of classroom instruction (i.e., early writing instruction vs. early literacy instruction) while considering teachers' professional identity (e.g., Hlas & Hlas, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref8">22</reflink>]). These core practices are not only critical to children's learning, but also essential to teachers' professional growth. The HLTP approach enables integration of teachers' reflective practice into PD which is often a challenging task in PD (Clarke, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref9">6</reflink>]).</p> <p>This study employs the HLTP approach in developing a PD model for early childhood educators promoting research-based, early writing instruction. Instead of focusing on the totality of literacy instruction (e.g., Landry, Anthony, Swank, & Monseque-Bailey, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref10">29</reflink>]; Powell & Diamond, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref11">35</reflink>]; Wasik & Hindman, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref12">42</reflink>]), Teachers' reflective practices were infused into the stages of PD (i.e., content development, PD training delivery, and practices implementation in the classroom) for identifying core practices of writing instruction, introducing core practices into teachers' existing classroom teaching routines, and encouraging teachers' active leverage of core practices in their classrooms.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-2">The limitations of comprehensive PD approach</hd> <p>In recent years, given the recognition of the importance of children's early literacy skills for later academic achievement (National Early Literacy Panel, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref13">33</reflink>]), researchers have designed and implemented a variety of PD models for promoting preschool teachers' research-based literacy instruction. Many early literacy PD models employ a comprehensive training approach in which teachers receive intensive workshop training and onsite coaching. The training and coaching sessions tend to focus on the totality of literacy instruction across different activity contexts (e.g., book reading, phonological awareness instruction) either sequentially or simultaneously (e.g., Dickinson & Caswell, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref14">11</reflink>]; Jackson et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref15">25</reflink>]; Landry et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref16">29</reflink>]; Powell & Diamond, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref17">35</reflink>]). Although valuable, comprehensive PD approaches are extremely time consuming and expensive (e.g., Dickinson, Freiberg, & Barnes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref18">12</reflink>]). Studies also indicate that such PD approaches do not necessarily yield significant improvements in children's language and literacy skills (Diamond, Justice, Siegler, & Snyder, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref19">10</reflink>]; Jackson et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref20">25</reflink>]; Lonigan, Farver, Phillips, & Clancy-Menchetti, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref21">30</reflink>]). One explanation may be related to the fact that teachers may vary significantly in their fidelity to the implementation of teaching practices introduced in PD training (e.g., Bingham, Culatta, & Hall-Kenyon, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref22">3</reflink>]; Powell, Diamond, Burchinal, & Koehler, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref23">37</reflink>]). While teachers may need additional time or support in professional development (Landry, Anthony, Swank, & Assel, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref24">28</reflink>]), challenges in fidelity of implementation illustrate several limitations of comprehensive PD approaches due to the lack of teachers' perspectives.</p> <p>First, comprehensive PD models may ask teachers to implement too many practices or have limited focus on key practices that are easily implemented by "real teachers" in early childhood classrooms (Dickinson et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref25">12</reflink>]). Second, during PD trainings, teachers were taught to teach in specific ways based on researchers' protocol, which suggested an unequal power distribution in researcher–teacher interactions (Zeichner, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref26">45</reflink>]). This may discourage teachers' active participation in professional development. Third, because teachers' perspectives are often missing, the comprehensive PD approach may not address the discrepancy between teachers' existing classroom teaching beliefs and those teaching practices grounded in theory and educational research developed by researchers. For example, many teachers believe young children learn writing through self-exploration with writing materials (Evans, Fox, Cremaso, & McKinnon, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref27">15</reflink>]). However, both social cultural theory (Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref28">41</reflink>]) and educational research (Bingham, Quinn, & Gerde, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref29">4</reflink>]) highlight the importance of adults' supports to children's early writing development. Due to the absence of active reflection, it is possible that teachers may not fully understand the effectiveness of new teaching practices and internalize them into their daily teaching (Loughran, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref30">31</reflink>]). A different approach to PD is needed in order to address these limitations and incorporate teachers as active participants in training efforts.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-3">The advantages of integrating teachers' reflection in PD</hd> <p>This study employed an HLTP approach in PD development, which focuses on accommodating teachers' background knowledge and experiences into core teaching practices that fit within existing classroom routines and are relatively easy for teachers to implement (Ball et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref31">2</reflink>]). In an HLTP PD model, teachers' reflections inform the development of PD training and support the implementation of newly introduced practices. This approach has several advantages in comparison to the traditional comprehensive approach. First, teachers' reflection on their existing classroom teaching practices may enable researchers to identify potential barriers for teaching practice implementation. Early childhood educators' nonteaching responsibilities, such as managing the classroom environment (e.g., cleaning classrooms, and preparing learning materials), maintaining relationships with children's families (e.g., organizing parent-involvement events), and fulfilling professional development requirements (e.g., taking PD training workshops), may impede the implementation of new instruction. When the PD training and implementation of new teaching practices adds additional burdens to teachers' existing responsibilities, or creates conflict with existing classroom routines or schedules, teachers are less likely to implement new practices due to time and staffing constraints, and very little paid time for planning or professional development (Powell, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref32">36</reflink>]).</p> <p>Second, during a PD training, teachers' reflections on the effectiveness of their existing teaching practices indicate their beliefs regarding children's early development. Such insight can provide researchers the opportunity to deliver tailored, in-depth explanations of research-based teaching pedagogies (i.e., procedural knowledge) alongside learning theories and scientific research of children's learning and development (i.e., conceptual knowledge). In this way, teachers may develop a rigorous understanding of the necessities of the new teaching practices. When teachers recognize the effectiveness of the new practices on children's learning and their own professional development, and specifically why the newly introduced teaching practices are meaningful for becoming a quality teacher (Grossman et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref33">19</reflink>]), teachers' professional identity may be promoted. Teachers could be more likely to leverage newly introduced teaching practices in the classroom spontaneously, because the practices fit within teachers' own teaching experience and beliefs, making them easy to implement with high fidelity (Ball et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref34">2</reflink>]).</p> <p>Third, teachers' reflection on children's characteristics may help researchers gather information on children's early literacy development that may be challenging to capture in existing child assessment tools. For example, while children's interest in literacy learning is important in early literacy development (Ilgaz, Hassinger-Das, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref35">24</reflink>]), it is very challenging for researchers to assess children's interest in writing activities given the lack of assessment tools. Teachers' reflections may help researchers identify the types of activities that children show great interest in, so that writing interactions may be embedded into such activities. Last, but not least, inviting teachers to reflect on their own need for professional development helps researchers develop a better understanding of teachers' concerns not only about teaching, but also regarding teachers' own self-efficacy in teaching (e.g., "What are the pedagogies I have developed?" and "What are the pedagogies I need to further develop?"). This supports the initiation and maintenance of the research–teacher collaborative partnership, and researchers' individualized emotional supports to teachers, which is critical to early childhood teachers' classroom teaching quality (Jennings, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref36">26</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-4">The focus of early writing instruction</hd> <p>Preschool children's writing development (e.g., name writing, letter writing, and spelling) is concurrently and longitudinally associated with prereading skills (Kendeou, van Den Broek, White, & Lynch, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref37">27</reflink>]; National Early Literacy Panel, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref38">33</reflink>]), such as phonological awareness and letter knowledge (Diamond, Gerde, & Powell, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref39">9</reflink>]; Dickinson, McCabe, Anastasopoulos, Peisner-Feinberg, & Poe, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref40">13</reflink>]), and predictive of both later reading and writing achievement (Aram & Biron, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref41">1</reflink>]; National Early Literacy Panel, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref42">33</reflink>]). While providing writing opportunities and writing instruction in early childhood settings is important to children's early literacy and writing skills (Gerde, Bingham, & Pendergast, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref43">17</reflink>]; Guo, Justice, Kaderavek, & McGinty, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref44">20</reflink>]; Zhang, Hur, Diamond & Powell, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref45">47</reflink>]), observational studies document that preschool teachers' writing instruction occurs relatively infrequently and is, generally, of low quality (Bingham et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref46">4</reflink>]). Having recognized the necessity of promoting teachers' writing instruction, we developed a reflective PD model primarily focused on teachers' writing instruction during large group activities, rather than all literacy instruction in classroom.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-5">The purpose of the study</hd> <p>The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of an HLTP PD approach that integrates teachers' reflection on teachers' classroom teaching. Thus, we will first describe the approach of integrating teachers' reflective practices in PD training, and then evaluate the impact of our PD model to teachers' classroom teaching by addressing the following questions: 1) What are preschool teachers' existing teaching practices of early writing skills? 2) Does teachers' quality of writing instruction improve after the intervention? and 3) Does teachers' implementation of the newly introduced practices achieve high fidelity? We hypothesized that teachers who received the reflective PD would implement new writing instruction with high fidelity and achieve better quality of writing instruction than comparison group teachers.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-6">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0136519853-7">Participants</hd> <p>Thirteen prekindergarten classrooms from four childcare centers in a southeastern, urban area serving children from low-income families (i.e., over 80% of enrolled children received free meals) were recruited for this study. All participating classrooms followed state universal pre-K guidelines and teaching standards, and reported implementing the Creative Curriculum (Dodge, Colker, & Heroman, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref47">14</reflink>]). Each classroom had one lead teacher and an assistant teacher. The 13 lead teachers (all female) participated in this study. Assistant teachers were recruited for supporting lead teachers only during researchers' classroom observations; they did not attend the PD workshop nor receive any other form of PD training in this study. The majority of participating lead teachers were African American (<emph>N</emph> = 12), had experience working with young children (<emph>M </emph>= 6 years), and all had completed a bachelor's degree in either early childhood education (<emph>N </emph>= 10) or another discipline (<emph>N </emph>= 3). Though the children in participating teachers' classrooms had diverse ethnic backgrounds, the majority of children were of African American descent.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-8">Intervention procedure</hd> <p>Two experienced early childhood education researchers visited the centers and explained the purpose and procedure of the study to teachers at the beginning of the Fall semester. Teachers who showed interest in the study were given consent forms and the demographic survey. Seven teachers from two childcare centers were assigned to the intervention group to receive Reflective PD training, and the six teachers from another two childcare centers were assigned to the comparison group. The researchers provided a 4-hour Reflective PD workshop to the intervention group teachers, described in more detail below, at the beginning of the Spring semester (i.e., January), and the comparison group teachers received the same Reflective PD training at the end of the Spring semester, upon the completion of data collection (i.e., early May). The same researchers observed all participating classrooms three times across the intervention period (i.e., two pre- and one postintervention) and conducted an additional observation of the intervention teachers' fidelity of new practice implementation a month after the workshop (i.e., late February).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-9">Infusing teachers' reflection into PD model</hd> <p>Teachers' reflections were infused into PD development, PD training, and PD implementation through a set of reflective conversions (see Table 1), in line with Fenstermacher's reflective practice framework (Fenstermacher, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref48">16</reflink>]) and previous PD studies (e.g. Wood & Bennett, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref49">44</reflink>]). The process of infusing reflection into PD through these researcher–teacher reflective conversations is described in detail below.</p> <p>Table 1. Reflective Practices at Different Stages.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Professional Development Stage</td><td>Reflection Questions</td><td>Integration to Professional Development</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Development of PD content</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Reflection on current classroom literacy activities:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What are the literacy activities you do every day?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Do you prepare writing activities for children and how often do you do a writing activity?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on teachers' own experiences:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What are the activities you like to do every day if possible?</p></list-item><list-item><p>What are the activities you feel you can do without too much preparation?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on children's experience:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What are the activities in which children show great interest?</p></list-item><list-item><p>What are the activities you feel children love to participate in and follow your instruction?</p></list-item></list></list-item></list></td><td>Identified morning meeting routines (e.g., calendar time, weather time, attendance taking, and daily helper) as the activity context for implementing writing instruction. Reflective PD training was designed to focus on the modification of teachers' choices of routine activities, which they feel comfortable doing every day without too much preparation. Whiteboard activities were developed to support children's participation in routine activities with writing practices.</td></tr><tr><td>Reflective PD Workshop Delivery</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Reflection on observation of children's writing in classroom:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What do your children usually write in your classroom?</p></list-item><list-item><p>How do you usually support your children's writing attempts?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on newly introduced strategies:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Do you think these strategies may be helpful to your children?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Do you think these strategies may be used during your morning meeting routines?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on implementation of newly introduced instruction:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What are the routine activities you feel most comfortable integrating with the whiteboard writing activity?</p></list-item><list-item><p>How would you modify your morning routine activities to modeling writing or scaffold children's writing attempts?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>What challenges might you face when implementing writing activities during your morning meeting routines?</p></list-item></list></td><td>Identified the existing teaching practices of writing in classrooms (e.g., copying letters in small group, writing names with name cards). Identified the literacy instruction teachers have performed in other literacy activities (i.e., book reading) that can be used for scaffolding writing strategies (e.g., prompting children with the letter name or letter sound, and discussing print knowledge). Identified the writing practices that teachers do not frequently implement (e.g., explaining writing process when modeling writing). Identified and explained the misconception of writing development (e.g., writing skill is only about hand writing skill). Researchers and teachers collectively developed the approach to modify different morning meeting activities to integrate writing interactions (e.g., writing calendar words on whiteboard instead of pointing to calendar words, writing children's names for attendance taking, writing theme words or spelling weather words). Researchers and teachers collectively developed behavioral management strategies for guiding children to write along with teachers' modeling of writing.</td></tr><tr><td>PD Classroom Implementation</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Reflection on the implementation of new teaching practices:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Do you do whiteboard activities every day? How do you like it? How do children like it?</p></list-item><list-item><p>What do you usually write? What would you do in the future?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on the impact of the new teaching practices:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Do you find these writing practices easy to do?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Do children like these writing activities?</p></list-item><list-item><p>What are the changes you have observed after introducing writing activities into morning meeting time?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Have you observed children making progress in writing skills?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Do you use whiteboard activities outside of morning meeting routines?</p></list-item></list></list-item><list-item><p>Reflection on the potential challenges:</p><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Is there a time during the morning meeting when you feel writing instruction is challenging? Why?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Is there any specific writing practice you find difficult during the morning meeting routine?</p></list-item></list></list-item></list><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>What would you change in the future when teaching writing skills?</p></list-item></list></td><td>Checked the fidelity of teachers' implementation of newly introduced practices. Checked the extent to which teachers spontaneously provide writing instruction in other classroom activities. Checked children's improvement in writing skills. Researchers and teachers collectively discussed potential solutions to the challenges (e.g., teaching children with special needs, teaching English language learners). Researchers explained the benefits of providing writing instruction outside of morning meeting activities to children's writing and literacy development.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0136519853-10">Reflective PD model development</hd> <p>After the first classroom observation of the intervention group teachers' teaching, researchers briefly met with each teacher individually and had a reflective conversation about her experience leading different types of classroom activities (e.g., large group routine activities, book reading, small group, and free play). During this process, teachers identified types of classroom activities they felt were the easiest to conduct in the classroom. Teachers also reflected on the children's interest in different activities and identified the classroom activity that was most engaging to children.</p> <p>During the first observation, we found all participating classrooms had routine morning meeting time activities between breakfast and large group reading time. This observation is consistent with a previous observational study of 34 Head Start classrooms where most preschool teachers provided routinized, nonbook reading activities before a more structured large group book reading (Zhang, Diamond, & Powell, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref50">46</reflink>]). Intervention group teachers concurred during reflective conversations that morning routine activities are easier to implement than other activities (i.e., book reading or small group activities); minimum preparation is needed, as routine activities are repeated every day with similar classroom materials (e.g., environmental print of numbers and letters). Teachers also reflected that children were more engaged in routine morning activities because they participated in routinized interactions and conversations (e.g., answering the same questions each day, such as "What is the date today"). Therefore, the Reflective PD workshop was developed to focus on introducing new writing skills teaching practices that teachers could easily implement during morning routine activities.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-11">Reflective PD content and delivery</hd> <p>Based on existing early writing research, classroom observations, and teachers' reflection on classroom teaching experiences, a 4-hour, Reflective PD training workshop was developed. We identified three research-based, core teaching practices of writing instruction based on existing literature of early writing development and the first observation of teachers' teaching. The three core practices were: 1) Increasing opportunities of teacher–child writing interactions (e.g., Dennis & Votteler, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref51">8</reflink>]; Rowe, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref52">38</reflink>]); 2) Providing explicit explanation of the writing process (e.g., Pollo, Kessler, & Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref53">34</reflink>]); and 3) Scaffolding and supporting children's writing attempts with explicit literacy instruction (e.g., Bingham et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref54">4</reflink>]; Gerde, Skibbe, Bowles, & Martoccio, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref55">18</reflink>]). These practices have consistently shown significant impact on children's early writing development, yet intervention teachers did not implement such practices during the first observation. The workshop aimed to introduce these teaching practices to teachers (e.g., writing calendar words to model the writing process during daily calendar time thereby modifying calendar time to include writing instruction; see Table 2 for additional teaching practices) and guide teachers to implement these practices during large group morning meeting routines (i.e., Zhang & Quinn, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref56">48</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table 2. Examples of the Core Practices.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Core practices of writing instruction</td><td>Examples</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Increasing frequency of writing practices</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Interactive writing practices</p></list-item><list-item><p>Repeated writing practices</p></list-item></list> e.g., Both teacher-led (writing along with teachers' writing) and child-led writing practices (children's independent writing initiated by themselves) occur every day.</td></tr><tr><td>Explaining writing process</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Explanation of writing tools</p></list-item><list-item><p>e.g., I am going to use my marker to write "January" on my whiteboard.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Explanation of writing as a form of communication</p></list-item><list-item><p>e.g., Good morning! Can we write "hello" on our whiteboard and show it to our friends?</p></list-item><list-item><p>Explanation of writing tasks</p></list-item><list-item><p>e.g., Friends, yesterday we talked about tree. Let's write the word tree together on our whiteboard.</p></list-item><list-item><p>Modeling writing with explanation of print knowledge, and decoding skills</p></list-item><list-item><p>e.g., "What's the weather today? Sunny. Good, I am going to write down "Sunny" here from left to right with the first letter capitalized."</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td>Scaffolding with explicit decoding skills</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Supporting children's writing attempts with explicit instruction of letter knowledge (letter names of letter sound) and phonological awareness</p></list-item><list-item><p>e.g., March, let's write together. What is the first letter? What letter makes "m" sound? Yes. How about "a" sound? Great. What is the next letter?</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>During the workshop, researchers frequently prompted teachers, as a group, to reflect on: 1) their observations of children's early writing development; 2) the potential effectiveness of the newly introduced teaching practices for children's learning; and 3) the feasibility (e.g., problems or challenges) of enacting the newly introduced teaching practices with the strategies introduced. Teachers shared their reflections with researchers and other teachers, identifying the challenges for classroom implementation for core practices. Teachers and researchers then collaboratively developed strategies to address the identified teaching challenges. For example, given the concern regarding some children's limited behavioral, self-regulation skills, we collaboratively discussed and developed behavior management strategies for guiding children's appropriate use of the whiteboard (e.g., labeling whiteboards with children's own names, and assigning whiteboard helpers to distribute whiteboards).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-12">Classroom implementation of new practices</hd> <p>Teachers' reflection was also infused into the classroom implementation of newly introduced writing practices. A month after the Reflective PD workshop (i.e., late February), a researcher visited each intervention group classroom and observed teachers' fidelity of new teaching practices implementation. The observation lasted one hour and primarily focused on teachers' writing instruction during morning routine activities (e.g., whether teachers integrated writing activities into morning routines, and whether teachers scaffolded children's writing attempts). After the observation, a short 15-minute researcher–teacher briefing meeting occurred outside of the classroom with assistant teachers' support. During the meeting, teachers were prompted to reflect on: 1) their experience of teaching writing skills during morning meeting routines; 2) the impact of new teaching practices on children's writing skills; and 3) the potential challenges in implementing writing instruction. Based on teachers' reflection, researchers provided feedback on teachers' writing practices (e.g., what are the teaching practices teachers provided with high quality, and what are the teaching practices teachers may consider further developing to better support children's writing development). Researchers and teachers also discussed the challenges or obstacles that may affect teachers' teaching in the classroom. For example, given teachers' reflection that some children had special needs (e.g., language or speech delay, attention deficit disorder) or limited English language skills (i.e., English language learners), we developed easier writing tasks (e.g., writing each students' initials rather than full names during name-writing attendance) and strategies for involving assistant teachers in morning meeting routines (e.g., assistant teachers could sit next to children with special needs and provide one-on-one support during writing).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-13">Data collection</hd> <p>Two experienced early childhood education researchers observed all participating classrooms at three time points: 1) the beginning of the Fall semester (i.e., August); 2) the end of the Fall semester (i.e., early December); and 3) the end of the Spring semester as a post-PD training evaluation (i.e., April). Each observation lasted a minimum of 90 minutes during which the researchers observed morning routine activities, a large group book reading, and free play or center time. Such amount of observation time aligned with the User's Guide of the chosen observational measures (i.e., Smith, Brady, & Anastasopoulos, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref57">39</reflink>]). The researchers reached high interrater reliability of observational measures before data collection (<emph>k </emph>> .90).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-14">Measures</hd> <p>Three classroom-focused, instructional measures were used to assess writing instruction before and after the intervention. Two of these observational measures evaluated the quality of classroom writing experiences, and another two checklist measures recorded teachers' routine activities and intervention fidelity. Each is explained below.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-15">Language and literacy classroom instruction and supports</hd> <p>The Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO Pre-K; Smith et al., 2008) was used to assess the global quality of language and literacy focused supports and interactions occurring within classrooms. Trained observers rated classroom literacy environments with 19 Likert-scale items (<emph>R </emph>= 1–5) in five domains: classroom structure (<emph>n </emph>= 4 items), curriculum (<emph>n </emph>= 3 items), language environment (<emph>n </emph>= 4 items), books and book reading (<emph>n </emph>= 5 items), and print and early writing (<emph>n </emph>= 3 items). According to the ELLCO User's Guide, the coefficient alpha for the total score is.90.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-16">Writing resources and interactions</hd> <p>The 41-item Writing Resources and Interactions in Teaching Environments-Preschool Classrooms checklist (WRITE; Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref58">17</reflink>]) was also used to assess the quality of participating classrooms' writing environments in three specific domains: 1) classroom writing materials and environmental print (i.e., availability of writing materials (<emph>n </emph>= 6), arrangement of writing materials (<emph>n </emph>= 5), and environmental print (<emph>n </emph>= 4)); 2) teachers' writing instruction (i.e., explanation of writing (<emph>n </emph>= 4), demonstration of writing (<emph>n </emph>= 5), and scaffolding of writing (<emph>n </emph>= 5)); and 3) child initiated, independent writing attempts (i.e., <emph>n </emph>= 3: child uses writing in play or activity, child writes at writing center, and child writes letters, numbers, or words). During an observation, an observer checked the items present in a classroom or observed during teachers' teaching. The writing materials that intervention group teachers received during the Reflective PD training (i.e., handheld whiteboards and markers) were not counted as existing classroom writing materials. Further, because the intervention group children were provided with interactive writing activities, only children's independent writing attempts that occurred outside of morning routines (e.g., free choice time) were counted.</p> <p>To derive scores of each domain, trained research assistants first counted how many items were observed in each subdomain. Each subdomain was then issued a rating on a 4-point scale: 0 = none of the items were observed; 1 = less than 50% of items in a domain were observed; 2 = more than 50% of items in a domain were observed; and, 3 = all items in a subdomain were observed. Lastly, a score of each domain was created by adding all subdomain rating scores together. In the end, the scores of the three subdomains were summed to create a total score for the writing instruction domain. In this study, the ELLCO writing environment domain score was consistently and significantly correlated with the WRITE writing instruction domain score preintervention (<emph>r </emph>= .56, <emph>p </emph>< .05) and postintervention (<emph>r </emph>= .68, <emph>p </emph>< .01).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-17">Classroom routines</hd> <p>A checklist of common classroom routine activities was developed for this observation. The list includes nine common activities that preschool teachers may implement during Morning Meeting Time large group activities (e.g., attendance taking, reviewing classroom rules, music (singing and dancing), and weather and calendar time). Researchers also kept field notes during the observation if a different routine activity occurred. The length of Morning Meeting routine activities was also recorded, starting from the time when all the children in a classroom gathered to a large group until more than half of children were dismissed from the large group to other activities or another large group activity started.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-18">Fidelity checklist</hd> <p>In order to observe teachers' implementation of writing activities and instruction from the workshop, researchers developed an nine-item checklist. Three items focused on teachers' implementation of whiteboard activities (i.e., teachers use of whiteboards for writing, children's individual use of handheld whiteboards for writing, and the extent to which writing was routinized in morning routines); six additional items focused on teachers' implementation of specific teaching strategies (i.e., Did the teacher model writing for children? Did the teacher explain letters by drawing attention to their shape? Did the teacher label and explain letter names when writing or prompting children to write? Did the teacher draw attention to letter sounds when writing or prompting children to write? and Did the teacher encourage children to share what they had written and talk about their writing?). During the observation, these items were checked as either present or not present. Ratio scores were calculated in order to capture the extent to which teachers provided writing instruction based on the reflective workshop training.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-19">Results</hd> <p>In order to address the proposed research questions, we conducted analyses to examine teachers' existing classroom writing instruction and the impact of the intervention on teachers' teaching.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-20">Teachers' initial teaching practices</hd> <p>The quality of participating teachers' teaching practices were observed using the ELLCO and WRITE. The descriptive statistics by groups (i.e., intervention vs. comparison group) are presented in Table 3. ANOVA analyses revealed no significant difference in the quality of early literacy environment (ELLCO) or early writing environment (WRITE) between the intervention and comparison group classrooms. Generally speaking, all participating classrooms provided a similar classroom structure for literacy instruction. Learning centers were arranged with learning materials and the teachers led classroom activities that reflected the goals and objectives of the curriculum. For example, classrooms' themes were reflected in classrooms' activities. All classrooms had a designated book reading area and a designated time for large group book reading activities. Teachers also provided literacy instruction during classroom activities. A designated writing center was set up in all classrooms with environmental prints (e.g., words and letter prints). Although the classroom literacy environment was established in the beginning of the semester and maintained across the semester, the quality was very basic. None of the ELLCO dimensions had average scores higher than 4 (<emph>R</emph> = 0–5; 4+ is considered a strong quality). The results for specific items of literacy teaching were generally low: teachers' efforts to build vocabulary Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 2.96, <emph>SD</emph> = .69, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 2.66, <emph>SD</emph> = .38, to promote phonological awareness Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 3.15 <emph>SD</emph> = .77, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 3.04, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.05 and to support for children's writing Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 3.04, <emph>SD</emph> = .85, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 2.92, <emph>SD</emph> = .73.</p> <p>Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Teachers' Classroom Instruction.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td /><td /><td>Fall</td><td>Winter</td><td>Spring</td></tr><tr><td>Groups</td><td>Variables</td><td>Range</td><td>M</td><td>SD</td><td>M</td><td>SD</td><td>M</td><td>SD</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Intervention</td><td>Classroom Structure</td><td>0–20</td><td>14.71</td><td>1.38</td><td>15.07</td><td>1.23</td><td>16.14</td><td>1.14</td></tr><tr><td>N = 7</td><td>Curriculum</td><td>0–15</td><td>10.07</td><td>1.40</td><td>9.86</td><td>0.99</td><td>10.36</td><td>0.94</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Language Environment</td><td>0–20</td><td>13.00</td><td>2.18</td><td>12.86</td><td>1.77</td><td>15.14</td><td>1.57</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Book and Book Reading</td><td>0–25</td><td>15.08</td><td>2.35</td><td>15.86</td><td>2.21</td><td>17.64</td><td>1.35</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Print and Early Writing</td><td>0–15</td><td>9.50</td><td>2.10</td><td>9.21</td><td>0.99</td><td>12.21</td><td>1.60</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Writing Material</td><td>0–9</td><td>3.43</td><td>0.79</td><td>2.43</td><td>1.27</td><td>3.29</td><td>1.80</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Writing Instruction</td><td>0–9</td><td>2.29</td><td>2.14</td><td>1.57</td><td>2.94</td><td>3.14</td><td>1.95</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Child Writing Attempt</td><td>0–3</td><td>0.14</td><td>0.38</td><td>0.29</td><td>0.76</td><td>0.71</td><td>0.76</td></tr><tr><td>Comparison</td><td>Classroom Structure</td><td>0–20</td><td>15.08</td><td>0.74</td><td>14.42</td><td>1.83</td><td>14.75</td><td>0.69</td></tr><tr><td>N = 6</td><td>Curriculum</td><td>0–15</td><td>9.25</td><td>0.88</td><td>9.33</td><td>1.03</td><td>8.92</td><td>0.86</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Language Environment</td><td>0–20</td><td>12.58</td><td>1.69</td><td>11.58</td><td>1.72</td><td>12.58</td><td>1.74</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Book and Book Reading</td><td>0–25</td><td>16.71</td><td>0.76</td><td>15.67</td><td>1.40</td><td>16.17</td><td>1.86</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Print and Early Writing</td><td>0–15</td><td>9.75</td><td>1.13</td><td>9.50</td><td>1.22</td><td>9.75</td><td>0.69</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Writing Material</td><td>0–9</td><td>2.50</td><td>0.84</td><td>2.33</td><td>1.03</td><td>2.17</td><td>0.75</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Writing Instruction</td><td>0–9</td><td>1.83</td><td>1.47</td><td>2.00</td><td>1.27</td><td>1.17</td><td>1.17</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Child Writing Attempt</td><td>0–3</td><td>0.84</td><td>0.50</td><td>1.17</td><td>0.75</td><td>0.33</td><td>0.52</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The quality of classroom writing environments in the Fall semester, as evaluated by the WRITE, was generally low. Although each participating classroom had writing materials available for children to use (e.g., paper, pens, markers, letter shaped stencils), the arrangement of these materials was usually limited to a designated area (i.e., the writing center) and children's writing samples (e.g., children's letter writing, word writing or name writing works) were not displayed: Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 3.00 <emph>SD</emph> = 0.91, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 2.38, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.80. Teachers' instruction of writing skills (e.g., explanation of writing process, and scaffolding of children's writing attempts) rarely occurred during the observation): Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 2.08 <emph>SD</emph> = 1.80, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 1.77, <emph>SD</emph> = 1.24. Children's self-initiated writing attempts also rarely occurred: Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 0.31 <emph>SD</emph> = 0.63, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 0.69, <emph>SD</emph> = 0.86. Very few children used the writing center to write during free-choice time. Paired T-test analyses showed no significant changes in all domains of the literacy environment or writing environment across the Fall semester (see Figures 1 and 2). These results suggested that the two groups of teachers provided a similarly basic quality of literacy and writing teaching practices before receiving the Reflective PD training.</p> <p>Graph: Figure 1. Intervention impact on teachers' classroom instruction.</p> <p>Graph: Figure 2. Intervention impact on writing instruction.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-21">Teachers' existing morning routines</hd> <p>Based on teachers' reflection, we specifically investigated the characteristics of classroom morning routines. We found, on average, classroom large-group, morning-routine activities lasted 17 minutes (<emph>R = </emph>9–26 minutes); no significant change in the length of morning routine occurred across the observation period (Fall: <emph>M </emph>= 16.08, <emph>SD</emph> = 5.85, Winter: <emph>M </emph>= 16.54, <emph>SD</emph> = 6.65). Teachers provided different types of morning meeting routines activities in their classrooms (see Table 4); however, calendar time, weather time, and music time occurred in all participating classrooms. Some teachers provided routinized early literacy or math activities using flashcards, but these activities were generally superficial and teachers primarily focused on labeling the names of letters or numbers. Teachers did not provide in-depth explanations of letter knowledge, such as letter name-sound correspondence. Four teachers, all from one childcare center, included the pledge of allegiance as routine activities.</p> <p>Table 4. Types of Morning Meeting Routine Activities Observed in Classroom.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Routine Activities</td><td>Fall</td><td>Winter</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Calendar</td><td>13</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Weather</td><td>13</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Music (Singing and Dancing)</td><td>13</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Discuss Schedule</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Discuss Theme/Focus</td><td>6</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Discuss Classroom Rules</td><td>6</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Poem/Rhyming</td><td>3</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Morning Message</td><td>2</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Attendance Taking</td><td>4</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>Flashcard (e.g., letter naming and counting)</td><td>4</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Other</td><td>4</td><td>4</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0136519853-22">The impact of reflective PD on teachers' teaching</hd> <p>The impact of Reflective PD was evaluated by conducting a one-way ANOVA on the quality of classroom literacy environment (measured by ELLCO) and writing environment (measured by WRITE) at the end of the preschool year. Results showed that intervention classrooms had significantly better quality of early literacy environment in the domains of classroom structure (<emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref59">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref60">13</reflink>) = 6.74, <emph>p </emph>< .05, <emph>d </emph>= 1.44), curriculum (<emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref61">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref62">13</reflink>) = 8.13, <emph>p </emph>< .05, <emph>d </emph>= 1.59), language environment (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref63">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref64">13</reflink>) = 7.14, <emph>p </emph>< .05, d = 1.49), and print/writing environment (<emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref65">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref66">13</reflink>) = 12.12, <emph>p </emph>< .01, <emph>d </emph>= 1.94 (see Figure 1). No significant difference was found between the two groups in the domain of book reading quality. Intervention teachers also provided better quality of writing instruction than did comparison group teachers, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref67">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref68">13</reflink>) = 4.68, <emph>p </emph>< .05, <emph>d </emph>= 1.20 (see Figure 2). No significant differences were found in the domains of writing materials and children's writing attempts.</p> <p>Examination of the fidelity data revealed that all seven intervention group teachers successfully implemented instruction consistent with the Reflective PD training. All intervention teachers transformed morning routines to include whiteboard activities (i.e., teachers wrote on the large whiteboard and children used handheld whiteboards to complete some routinized activities), modeled writing for children, and were observed prompting children to write with letter names (e.g., "Today is Monday. It starts with letter M. Can you write M?"). Six of the seven teachers were observed drawing attention to the ways that letters are formed and prompting children's writing with letter sounds. Five of the seven teachers encouraged children to talk about their writing (e.g., "What did you write," or "What is this letter?"). As a group, teachers demonstrated relatively high fidelity to the implementation of new teaching practices.</p> <p>During the last observation, we found that intervention teachers spontaneously leveraged writing instruction to different classroom activities. Three teachers created a whiteboard writing transition activity (e.g., between breakfast and large group activity, or between free-play and book reading). In this transition activity, children who completed an activity went to the large group carpet and independently completed a writing task (e.g., name writing or letter writing). One teacher used the whiteboard writing in a book reading activity in which teachers wrote new words from a storybook, defined the words, and clapped the syllables of the words with the children. One teacher used the whiteboard outdoors and led children to draw pictures of the clouds and write letters based on cloud shapes. The teacher also prompted children to talk about letter names and letter sounds in children's letter writings. In contrast, comparison group teachers did not provide any writing instruction during the last observation. In fact, literacy instruction, overall, rarely occurred.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-23">Discussion</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0136519853-24">The existing teachers' literacy and writing teaching practices</hd> <p>In this study, we employed an HLTP approach and developed a Reflective PD model based on our baseline observation and teachers' reflection of their teaching experience in the classroom. Analyses of our baseline observation echoed previous observational studies (e.g., Zhang et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref69">46</reflink>]) that, though all participating classrooms provided a learning environment for children's early literacy and writing development, the quality was very basic. For example, a designated writing center was set up in all participating classrooms and writing materials were available to teachers and children; teachers' writing instruction and children's writing attempts rarely occurred during the observation period. Research-based literacy instruction, such as explicitly explaining letter knowledge and vocabulary, occurred incidentally. Across the Fall semester of the prekindergarten year, no significant change in the quality of the classroom literacy or writing environment was detected in our data analyses. The current state of literacy and writing instruction in these classrooms suggested that teachers' literacy instruction seemed unresponsive to children's growth in literacy skills. Preschool teachers may understand the necessity of supporting children's literacy learning following existing professional standards or curriculum requirements, yet need guidance and training for leveraging the quality of learning environments through the implementation of research-based literacy promoting instruction (Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref70">17</reflink>]).</p> <p>Classroom observations and teachers' reflection on their existing classroom teaching practices suggested that morning routine activities are a meaningful context for promoting writing instruction. Teachers' reflection suggested that leading morning routine activities was easier than other learning activities; once daily routine activities were established, children could follow the instruction and participate in the activities. The analyses of observational data supported such reflection. We found that classroom routine activities did not change dramatically in the Fall semester (see Table 4).</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-25">The benefits of infusing reflective practices into professional development</hd> <p>Our analyses revealed a significant impact of our Reflective PD model on teachers' literacy and writing instruction evaluated by both global (ELLCO) and domain-specific (WRITE) observational measures. With a brief, Reflective PD workshop, intervention teachers provided better quality literacy and writing learning environments, more explicit instructions on writing processes, more modeling of writing actions and increased scaffolding of children's writing. Conversely, the comparison group classrooms' quality of literacy and writing environment generally remained the same between our observations. These differences are especially notable, given that such experiences rarely occur in many preschool classrooms, especially those classrooms, like ours, that serve at-risk populations (i.e., Head Start programs, Gerde et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref71">18</reflink>]). The fidelity observation showed that intervention teachers implemented almost all teaching strategies introduced in the Reflective PD workshop. All teachers started modeling writing processes and scaffolding children's writing attempts with attention to letter names. This may be because the intentional focus on morning meeting routines could have provided the least amount of interference in teachers' existing teaching responsibilities. Teachers may find the implementation of evidence-based literacy or writing instruction during regularly occurring classroom routines less challenging and more convenient than implementing a completely new and unfamiliar activity (e.g., Wasik & Hindman, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref72">42</reflink>]).</p> <p>The intervention impact and high fidelity may also have occurred because we recognized teachers as "human" and "power holders" in their classrooms. We granted teachers a large amount of flexibility in implementing new teaching practices. Rather than completely modifying morning routines, we preserved the objective of the activity as a welcoming time for children (i.e., a time to build community). We encouraged teachers to make decisions regarding which routine tasks they modified based on their reflection of children's interests and their own preference, as long as they implemented most, if not all, new teaching practices of writing skills during morning routines. Such an approach promoted teachers' frequent self-reflection and exploration of different types of teaching practices based on their own interest in teaching. This, in turn, may enable teachers to develop confidence and interest in enacting new teaching practices based on reflection (Clark, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref73">5</reflink>]). Importantly, this modification did not significantly increase the length of morning meeting time in intervention classrooms compared to comparison classrooms, but capitalized on existing routinized practices in ways that increased children's exposure to writing interactions.</p> <p>Teachers' reflection on the effectiveness of new teaching practices reinforced teachers' understanding of research-based, teaching practices and skills to spontaneously leverage the quality of classroom teaching with new teaching practices. During the researcher–teacher brief meeting following classroom observations, we prompted teachers to reflect on their observation of children's learning performance and their own feelings when implementing the new practices. Such reflective practices not only enable teachers to understand the effectiveness of new teaching practices based on their personal experience, but also develop teachers' awareness that implementing research-based instruction is feasible and easy to do. In our last observation, a few teachers had spontaneously created new classroom activities using the newly introduced teaching practices of writing skills without researchers' guidance. During the study, teachers' reflection also enabled us to form a two-way communicative partnership with participating teachers. We not only introduced new teaching practices to teachers, but also provided individualized support and guidance to teachers' classroom teaching based on their reflection and questions about classroom teaching and children's early writing development. We acknowledged teachers' concerns and frustration in classroom teaching, and collaboratively developed solutions to the challenges in classroom teaching.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-26">Feasibility of reflective professional development</hd> <p>The implementation of reflective PD with an HLTP approach greatly relies on the researcher–teacher partnership and collaboration due to its practice-based nature. We, as researchers, had to first abandon assumptions that all teachers may experience the same challenges and need the same type of support. We observed teachers' teaching and listened to teachers' reflection, initiating a collaborative relationship with teachers and seeking to understand their actual needs in teaching. We deliberately developed a brief training workshop and only focused on a few core practices to accommodate the fact that many teachers had time and staffing constraints (Whitebrook & Sakai, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref74">43</reflink>]) and had little time for planning or implementing new learning activities (Powell, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref75">36</reflink>]). During the PD we provided individualized support, and guided teachers to internalize new practices through reflection rather than one-way lecturing. Collaborative problem solving between researchers and teachers constantly occurred during the PD implementation, which maintained a positive researcher–teacher relationship. While the cost of PD is low because of the brief PD training, a high researcher to teacher ratio may be necessary to assure successful implementation of this PD model. In this study, the researcher to teacher ratio was roughly one research to six teachers. Frequent classroom observations and reflective meetings were conducted. More professional mentors will need to be added when working with a larger group of teachers.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-27">Limitations and future directions</hd> <p>A number of limitations of this study should be acknowledged. First, as an exploratory study with a small sample size, we utilized a quasi-experimental design, which limits our ability to causally infer program impacts. Second, we primarily used structured interviews to guide teachers' reflection on their teaching practices. Different reflective approaches, such as reflective journaling (Loughran & Northfield, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref76">32</reflink>]), may be integrated in future Reflective PD development. Third, we did not audiotape teachers' reflection during meetings. Content analyses of teachers' transcripts of reflection may reveal teachers' personal growth in teaching (Ball et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref77">2</reflink>]). In addition, although intervention teachers suggested that children were more motivated to write and interested in writing activities after the Reflective PD intervention, classroom observations revealed little change in the prevalence or nature of children's individual writing attempts in other classroom contexts (i.e., free choice/center time). This may be because we did not conduct full-day observations to capture teacher–child interactions during the afternoon, when much of the free choice or center time activities are prevalent. Future studies may consider employing a full-day observational approach to examine how a Reflective PD training approach may impact children's attitude toward learning.</p> <p>In conclusion, the present intervention impact on teachers indicated that a HLTP approach effectively promotes the quality of in-service preschool teachers' classroom writing instruction through infusing reflective practices into PD design and implementation. Reflective conversations between researchers and teachers guided teachers' active reflection on the effectiveness of teaching practices, based on which a meaningful writing instruction activity context (i.e., Morning Meeting Routine) was identified. Teachers' reflective practices also supported a collaborative researcher–teacher partnership in teaching.</p> <hd id="AN0136519853-28">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.</p> <ref id="AN0136519853-29"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref41" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Aram, D., & Biron, S. (2004). Joint storybook reading and joint writing interventions among low SES preschoolers: Differential contributions to early literacy. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19, 588 – 610. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.10.003</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref5" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Ball, D. L., Sleep, L., Boerst, T. A., & Bass, H. (2009). 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  Data: A Reflective Professional Development Intervention Model of Early Writing Instruction
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Zhang%2C+Chenyi%22">Zhang, Chenyi</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Cook%2C+J%2E+Claire%22">Cook, J. Claire</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Early+Childhood+Teacher+Education%22"><i>Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education</i></searchLink>. 2019 40(2):177-196.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: 20
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  Data: 2019
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Label: Education Level
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Preschool+Education%22">Preschool Education</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Faculty+Development%22">Faculty Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Teachers%22">Preschool Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Writing+Instruction%22">Writing Instruction</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reflective+Teaching%22">Reflective Teaching</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Workshops%22">Workshops</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Program+Effectiveness%22">Program Effectiveness</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Literacy+Education%22">Literacy Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teacher+Competencies%22">Teacher Competencies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teaching+Methods%22">Teaching Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Reflection%22">Reflection</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Program+Implementation%22">Program Implementation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Fidelity%22">Fidelity</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1080/10901027.2018.1536903
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  Data: 1090-1027
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  Label: Abstract
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  Data: This study presents a professional development (PD) model for promoting preschool teachers' writing instruction utilizing teachers' reflective practices. Thirteen prekindergarten teachers were followed for the entire pre-K year. Teachers were assigned to intervention and comparison conditions. A reflective PD workshop was developed based on classroom observations and teachers' reflections during the Fall semester. Intervention group teachers completed a reflective PD workshop, and a reflective teacher-researcher meeting in the Spring semester. By the end of the pre-K year, classroom observations suggested that the intervention group teachers provided a significantly higher quality of literacy and writing instruction than comparison group teachers. Intervention group teachers also implemented new teaching practices with high fidelity. Findings demonstrate the merit and necessity of utilizing reflective practices during in-service teachers' training. The description of the reflective PD model and teachers' initial teaching practices are also discussed in this article.
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        PageCount: 20
        StartPage: 177
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      – SubjectFull: Faculty Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Teachers
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      – SubjectFull: Writing Instruction
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      – SubjectFull: Reflective Teaching
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      – SubjectFull: Program Effectiveness
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      – SubjectFull: Literacy Education
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      – TitleFull: A Reflective Professional Development Intervention Model of Early Writing Instruction
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