Brown Bag: Tools for Equitable Reading Instruction (10/15/24)

This session covers the development of our equitable reading instruction concept map – which served as the intellectual foundation of our work – the rubrics themselves, and our findings from two validation studies. The presenters also discuss the limitations of the tools and share our thoughts on how observational rubrics like the TERIs could be complemented with other measures to provide a broader and more comprehensive view of equitable reading instruction.

By Julie Cohen, Ph.D., Charles S. Robb Associate Professor, University of Virginia, and Marie Cushing, Research Specialist, University of Virginia

What does equitable reading instruction look like? In what ways does it predict positive student outcomes? Tasked with answering these questions, our team spent the last four years developing and validating the Tools for Equitable Reading Instruction (TERIs). One tool focuses on foundational reading skills instruction, and the second focuses on instruction in text-based comprehension. Both tools include rubrics focused on the clarity and precision of instructional explanations, the scaffolding provided to students, and the ways in which teachers cultivate literary identity, presence, criticality, self-efficacy, and joy.