A $340,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow researchers to investigate the correlation between reading performance and neurological changes from intense reading instruction in third grade students in the Lebanon school district.
The grant, which began August 1, marks a joint venture between Dartmouth and the Stern Center for Language and Learning, based in Wiliston. The grant proposal was co-written by lead investigator and education professor Donna Coch and Stern Center president and founder Blanche Podhajski.
The two year project provides for instruction for students who struggle with learning to read but do not qualify for special education, Coch said.
“Forty percent of children will learn to read no matter what, but 60 percent of children need more instruction,” Podhajski said. “All of these students do not have a learning disability, they just require more structured literary approach”
The instruction consists of an intervention — guided by Stern Center employees — that teaches students to decode and read automatically and fluidly, Podhajski said.
This process involves teaching students the rules of English. Students can understand 87 percent of words if the student understands these rules, Podhajski said. The main goal is to explain how words sound, in order to increase fluid reading.
Each student will complete 50 hours of instruction — one hour every school day for 10 weeks, Podhajski said. Before and after the intervention, Coch’s lab will measure students’ electrophysiological effects to determine if they correlate with observed behavioral outcomes, which are primarily based on standardized reading tests.
Most of the grant goes toward paying for the intervention for the third-grade students, since 50 hours of intervention costs about $4,000 per student, Coch said.
Another part of the grant’s funding is dedicated to connecting different areas of study. Through the project, the all-undergraduate lab will understand the intervention, while those carrying out the intervention will learn why brain waves involved are important, Coch said.
Research assistants will assist at some intervention periods, Coch said.
A mini-conference with teachers, students, parents and community members will conclude the project by displaying the findings from the study, Coch said. Results will show teachers ways to provide this additional help to students.
The Stern Center, founded in 1983, has executed these types of educational interventions since 1995, Podhajski said.
The idea of connecting neuroscience and education is becoming increasingly common, Coch said, resulting in a new field called “mind, brain and education.” Scholars hope to pool knowledge on how children learn and develop in order to put procedures into practice. Harvard University offers a master’s program in the field, and a scholarly journal called “Mind, Brain and Education” published its first issue in 2007.
Research assistant Ayesha Dholakia ’15 has been working in the lab for two years. Her job consists of helping plan and run both behavioral and brain imaging studies. She will be one of the main actors in executing the study, by running brain wave studies on the young participants and then performing data analysis.
“I’m really excited about this project because thus far I’ve only worked on studies involving college students,” Dholakia said. “This will be a great opportunity to run a study on kid participants.”
