Course of the Project

The project was pre-piloted in the fall and winter of 2019.

The preliminary study was conducted in the 2020/21 school year. In fall 2020, at the beginning of the second school year, teachers and students were surveyed and students' reading and writing skills were assessed for the first time.  

A second assessment of students' literacy skills was conducted during winter 2020/21. Due to restrictions such as school closures and remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this phase was delayed by a few months in some classes. In addition, lesson observations were carried out in the areas of reading promotion, text comprehension and spelling. 

The main study scheduled for the 2021/22 school year could not be conducted as planned due to pandemic-related restrictions. However, a continuation of the project with the original sample size of 80 elementary school, each with two classes and 160 teachers, is planned.

Teacher Survey

The teacher survey included questions on content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge. It covered subject-specific knowledge as well as knowledge related to acquisition, diagnosis, curriculum and instruction. In addition, the teachers were asked once in the first semester of the second school year about their teaching methods in the first school year and once in the second semester about their teaching methods in the second school year.

Lesson Observations

The quality of teaching was recorded in lesson observations by two trained observers who documented sequences in basic reading and writing lessons and assessed levels of proficiency.

To this end, an observation tool was developed and adapted that encompasses the dimensions of "constructive support", "cognitive activation" and "classroom management". The dimensions "constructive support" and "cognitive activation" were each differentiated according to subject.

Lesson Journal

At the end of each school week, the participating teachers completed a lesson journal to document the content of the lessons conducted in the area of written language acquisition. The questions pertained to the entire week.

Student Performance

The students' reading performance was assessed using the ELFE II reading comprehension test, while their spelling skills were recorded using the Hamburg Writing Test (HSP). Data was collected using these standardized instruments at two measurement time points during the 2020/21 school year under review.