Abstract
This mixed-method case study explores the implementation and impact of a grade-wide literacy intervention program through a professional learning community (PLC) at a middle school in Norwalk, California. A team of sixth-grade teachers who had adopted the principles of DuFour, Fullan and Quinn sought to create a PLC that could lead to positive change in school culture and literacy rates across the curriculum. The research questions are: What does a systemic grade-wide literacy-focused PLC intervention look like? What is its impact on reading comprehension, literacy practices, and student confidence? How does this effort influence the school system and stakeholder buy-in? Data was collected through pre- and post-surveys from students and staff, meeting agendas, notes, and correspondences, along with i-Ready scores to measure reading comprehension growth. Initially, 103 students were reading below the fourth-grade level; by the end of the year, this number decreased by 18.4% to 84 students. Surveys and reflections indicated improved teacher-student relationships, with students feeling more supported. Additionally, students exhibited positive literacy practices and increased confidence as readers. The initiative positively impacted the wider school culture, leading other grade-level teams to adopt similar practices. This study highlights the managerial and organizational benefits of PLCs in educational settings.
Introduction
In recent years, many schools have turned to systemic interventions like professional learning communities (PLCs) as a way to address the needs of their varied student populations in the unique culture of their school (Gülhan, 2024; Hendrickx et al. 2025; Lei et al. 2024). Recognizing that the system as a whole must change and that a different approach is needed is at the heart of PLCs. The PLC model has been shown to be effective in addressing low levels of student achievement, fostering a sense of collective responsibility at all levels of the school community, and reaching high levels of student achievement (Mariani-Petroze, 2023; Kruse et al. 2009; Newman and Wehlage, 1995). These concepts were built upon by DuFour and Eaker (1998) in their groundbreaking work Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement (DuFour and Eaker, 1998). At the heart of the concept of PLCs is the notion of community and collaboration. Long have teachers labored in isolation in their own classrooms, without giving much thought to what was happening in the school beyond their walls. That paradigm no longer suits the needs of contemporary students, as illustrated by the declining literacy rates, especially among the nation’s poor (Chall et al. 2009; Mamedova and Pawlowski, 2019). Schools are finding more success when they develop a systems approach and work in unison to improve student learning. When teachers and administrators work collaboratively, they are more likely to improve student achievement (Voelkel et al. 2021; DuFour, 2007). When teachers participate in effective PLCs, they develop a sense of empowerment and influence as they build a common language with their peers, develop standards of practice, and create shared knowledge (Graham, 2007; McLaughlin and Talbert, 2006; Servage, 2008; Stoll et al. 2006). PLCs are not merely a collegial group of teachers, but rather educators who dig deeply into student learning and engage in disciplined inquiry into their individual and collective practice with an aim of continuous improvement.
Many students entering middle school in the sixth grade do not have the literacy skills needed to make sense of the texts that they encounter as they progress through secondary education (Chall et al. 1990). In middle school, students need to extract information from more challenging and varied texts, and strong reading skills are imperative if they are to make meaning of them. Meanwhile, secondary teachers are rarely trained to teach literacy, so the reading skills and strategies that students need are not taught or reinforced beyond the language arts classroom (Stevens, 2014; Clarke, 2006). A coordinated effort on teachers’ part to explicitly teach literacy strategies and skills will help students successfully transition from primary to secondary school. Mancilla-Martinez et al. (2011) demonstrated in their longitudinal study that reading comprehension growth slows dramatically in adolescence, especially among language-minority learners. The deceleration of growth is attributed to the student’s inability to gain knowledge from sophisticated texts, and the authors contended that a deficit in either linguistic comprehension or word decoding will impede comprehension. They concluded by stating that the instruction that students get in middle school is insufficient for supporting comprehension growth. Curwen et al. (2010) and Stevens (2014) stressed the importance of teachers delivering explicit literacy instruction in content areas. Teachers approached the text with a plan and discussion of its purpose, engaging in metacognition throughout by explaining to the students how their brains make sense of the text and when and where they might encounter such a text again. As experts in their field, teachers are well suited to teach their students how to unpack the texts that they encounter in the classroom (Curwen et al. 2010; Stevens, 2014). Schoenbach et al. (2010) also connected explicit literacy instruction in content areas to student achievement. Through an analysis of several quantitative as well as qualitative studies, they determined that student gains were most profound when teachers leveraged the social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building aspects of classroom life in order to build a community that supports reading development. In this way, they made the teachers’ and students’ reading processes and knowledge visible to one another, leading to rich conversations using academic language (Schoenbach et al. 2010). Through directed classroom observations, Ness (2009) discovered that less than 10% of classroom time is dedicated to comprehension instruction, with most of that using only one strategy of discourse: question-and-answer evaluation (Ness, 2009). Through a review of audiotaped classroom observations and a deep analysis of their transcripts, a teacher could become more purposeful and effective in literacy instruction.
Sixth grade is a pivotal time. It is the first year of middle school and the first-time students rotate through classes with different teachers. These changes, along with the developmental challenges of puberty, can be a source of stress and anxiety. Poor literacy skills exacerbate these challenges as students strive to make sense of different teachers and subjects with little or no support. Therefore, this study aims to determine the effect that a grade-wide literacy intervention program implemented through a PLC has on the motivation, literacy identity, and performance of sixth-grade students and to help them successfully transition from primary to secondary school.
Methods
This study is a PLC intervention at the sixth-grade level using principles put forth by DuFour and Fullan (2013) as well as by Fullan and Quinn (2015). The study uses a qualitative case study method on a sample of a cohort of 180 sixth-grade students at an urban middle school in Norwalk, California, over the course of a school year.
PLCs first build a shared vision that ensures the academic excellence of all students by obtaining a collective commitment from all teachers to raise the literacy levels of every student on the sixth-grade roster. It establishes a collaborative culture by dividing teachers into interdisciplinary teams based on complementary subject matters, such as math with science and social studies with language arts. The intervention itself is an attempt to establish a coherent system, with the teachers, parents, administrators, and students committed to something larger than themselves as they pursue deep mutual learning goals.
In true PLC fashion, the team has incorporated within the intervention the long-term goal of raising students’ reading abilities to grade level. They have also established the short-term action steps of getting books in their students’ hands, carving out time for sustained silent reading, and meeting with parents to establish communication protocols and support behaviors. This study was guided by the following research questions:
What does a grade-wide literacy-focused PLC intervention to support sixth-grade students’ literacy look like at the systemic level?
What is the impact of a literacy-focused PLC project on grade-wide reading comprehension, students’ literacy practices, and students’ confidence as readers?
How does this PLC effort change the school system and its leaders’ and students’ buy-in?
Design and procedures
The PLC process
The project at hand sought to begin the process of developing collective responsibility for student achievement in the school culture. Some elements of the project addressed cultural needs while some were geared for academics, specifically literacy across content areas. By committing to putting into place systems to address the needs of our students, we met weekly to share and analyze student work, which led to a deeper reflection of and refinement of our pedagogical practice.
Description of the Intervention: challenges and proposed solutions
The main components of the intervention were to increase students’ independent reading and conference with a core teacher on a regular basis. The conferencing piece of the intervention was designed to build the student-teacher relationship and student accountability and to inform us of students’ progress in adapting to their individual needs. This individualized plan had the potential to increase good reading habits, build confidence within each student, and ultimately lead to success by learning skills, practicing, and boosting their identity as readers. During these meetings, we also encouraged students to take responsibility for their own education and advancement, increasing self-efficacy. Conferences took place during sustained silent reading time, when most of the class was reading independently and the teacher could quietly conference with a small set of students, one at a time. Although very brief, lasting no more than 5 to 10 min in duration, they were a consistent check-in with each individual student. They gave teachers the time to discuss the unique challenges facing each student. They provided opportunities for students to learn how to make long- and short-term goals. Discussion topics included i-Ready lessons and benchmark scores, discussions of books the students were reading, and any other matter that the teacher and student thought appropriate. Teachers took notes, which were used as data to learn about students’ literacy practices and students’ confidence as readers.
Changing a culture: barriers and strategies for overcoming obstacles
Any intervention that will lead to dramatic advances in student achievement must address cultural as well as logistical issues. According to Mamedova and Pawlowski (2019), 43 million American adults, two-thirds of whom are native-born, have low literacy skills (Mamedova and Pawlowski, 2019). Additionally, reading as a pastime among those who are literate is in decline. Books are competing with an increasing menu of entertainment and informational options for many people who simply are not in the habit of reading. Schools face this issue of chronic low skills, and its impact is demoralizing at all levels.
We sought to avoid the common pitfalls that may come with the implementation of a newly formed PLC. DuFour and Fullan (2013) described four barriers that impede the effective implementation of a workable PLC. According to the research, the primary obstacle PLCs face is the tendency of people to see PLCs as a quick fix to chronic problems (DuFour and Fullan, 2013); however, we understood it to be a long-term process geared toward a profound change in culture. It is about developing relationships with various people, analyzing and reevaluating our professional practices, and putting into place the processes necessary to address the needs of our students in practical terms within the context of the school day.
PLC team and process
The PLC was conducted at a middle school in Norwalk, California, and included sixth-grade students, teachers, and their families. The core group that comprised the PLC leaders for this study consisted of all four teachers assigned to the sixth-grade roster. To protect the privacy of the participants in this study, all names, including the name of the school and the administrator, are pseudonyms. I am the sixth-grade science teacher, and this PLC was composed of a math teacher, a social studies teacher, and a language arts teacher. An intervention teacher and an AVID teacher also worked closely with the core teachers. We all agreed that our first obligation was to deliver quality instruction in our subject area; beyond that, we would collaborate to focus our instruction and attention on the goals of this PLC. We participated in a process to effectively implement the PLCs as recommended by DuFour and Fullan (2013).
Step 1: Communication is key to create and maintain collaboration
Communication among the various school communities is essential to achieve a common goal; we must set up convenient platforms by which we can disseminate information, discuss concerns as they arise, and celebrate victories. For this purpose, a sixth-grade text group was established, which included the four core teachers, the resource specialist program (RSP) teachers who serve the students on the sixth-grade roster, and the intervention teacher who takes care of testing students. A reminder system was set up to allow teachers to text parents and easily notify them of upcoming events and expectations. Handwritten postcards were sent to the parents of students in each of the teachers’ homeroom classes to serve as a welcome to the new school year and an introduction to the teacher and expectations.
Step 2: Setting a shared mission, vision, values, and goals
A common goal is crucial to ensure systemic professional engagement. Any goal that successfully drives the purpose, direction, commitments, targets, and timelines of the community must be student oriented. In the weeks before the advent of the school year, the principal and teachers within the PLC met to discuss the first steps in developing a grade-wide plan for intervention. We then shared our mission with the rest of the community: to increase the literacy rates among sixth-grade students using three measures. First, they set the goal to help all students achieve beyond the expected one-year growth in literacy scores on i-Ready diagnostic assessments administered in the final month of the school year. The second goal was to foster a positive reading identity and sense of self-efficacy within each student that was measured by a pre- and post-survey by creating a school climate where literacy is attended to, celebrated, and enjoyed by all members of this community. Finally, a community-wide campaign known as “Break the Four” was launched to improve understanding that being able to read at a fourth-grade level or beyond is necessary to achieve proficiency across subjects.
Step 3: Implementation of plan of action
After getting the stakeholders focusing in the same direction, each member took on collective and individual commitments to achieve these goals. An example of a collective commitment was that each core teacher designated 30 min, once a week, for independent reading for his or her students. During independent reading time, each member also took a cohort of students with whom to conference individually once a week. An example of an individual commitment was that I would open my room after school 3 days a week to provide students with assignment completion time (ACT).
To involve the community at the collective level, the team members were committed to participating in cross-curricular teams that met once a week and to engage in parent conferences together. The math teacher set up the reminder system for parents’ meetings. The AVID teacher and I agreed to meet with small groups of parents of students who fell below the fourth grade reading level. The AVID teacher was also fluent in Spanish, which helped in explaining to Spanish-speaking parents the problems of low literacy for their children’s learning and how they could support their child in improving his or her reading at home. The AVID teacher and I scheduled and conducted all the small group parent meetings by the end of September. The language arts teacher and the math teacher organized and disseminated the i-Ready data as needed with parents and other teachers.
The PLC approach provided the sixth-grade team the wherewithal to assess their current reality, customize solutions to their own needs, and anticipate future planning needs. Survey data were analyzed to determine if the systems put in place as a part of the PLC process led to stronger literacy identities within their students or not. Together, informed by assessments’ outcomes, the core teachers periodically checked on both short- and long-term goals with specific targets.
In assessing their current reality, the PLC decided that students needed to get their own books. The first goal was to get independent reading books to each of the students within the first week of school and to establish a grade-wide expectation that students were to always have a book with them as part of our school culture. A baseline of reading and math abilities was established by administering i-Ready diagnostic assessments in August, followed by benchmark assessments to measure growth in both December and May, as usual.
Step 4: Building coherence through vertical and horizontal alignment
Although the sixth-grade teachers were the primary driving force to implement the PLC practices grade-wide, they were not the only staff members who participated. The administration played a vital role. The principal agreed to support the sixth-grade teachers in incorporating PLC principles into their practice. She provided two days with substitute coverage so that the teachers had the opportunity to collaborate for an extended period. She supported extra pay for time spent after or before school for meetings. She pledged to not call on the team’s teachers to cover other classes during the days that the cross-curricular teams met during their prep period. She also relinquished time at administrative staff meetings so that the team could meet. This commitment by the administration to finding time for the teachers to collaborate in a meaningful way allowed the teachers to focus on students’ progress. The resulting schedule allowed teachers to analyze student work samples and formative assessments to refine their instruction and make decisions that would lead to greater student achievement. The principal also committed to supporting the project by purchasing the needed materials. She authorized the purchase of student notebooks for science and social studies. This helped the team in their commitment to teaching the skill of notetaking. It was also determined that the inventory of independent reading books needed to be greatly expanded. She allocated $300 to each teacher to establish or bolster classroom libraries.
Step 5: Foreseen challenges to build a collaborative culture with a focus on students’ needs
Several challenges faced the research team in their effort to implement a systems approach to increasing literacy among sixth-grade students. The sheer magnitude of the students’ deficiencies presented the first problem: 87% of students were at least one year below grade level in reading as measured by the first i-Ready diagnostic. The team decided that, as the fourth grade is the crucial level at which students change from learning to read to reading to learn, they should focus their efforts on improving reading scores to at least a fourth-grade level. The importance of that goal was evident in the numbers: A stunning 56.3% (103 out of 183) of students were three or more years behind in reading comprehension. With such a large swath of students so far behind, planning instruction became difficult, as the teachers had to choose goals and how to measure success.
Our team members further considered both the internal and external factors that represented additional challenges. Internally we had control of our classrooms and instruction; however, the administration provided only limited collaboration time. We knew that we had to make the most of our collaborative time by organizing ourselves into cross-curricular teams that met during our prep period at least once a week. As the math and science teachers shared a common prep period, they became a team; the same was true of the language arts and social studies teachers. We were committed to meeting once a week to plan and, based on the review of students’ work samples, revise instruction. We established collaboration across subjects. For example, because 30 min of math instruction were set aside for reading each week, as the science teacher, I agreed to take on some of the math standards that might have been neglected due to the reduction in instructional minutes. During this time, we also discussed students’ issues and looked for opportunities to reinforce content knowledge and literacy skills.
External factors that could affect the success or failure of our program included the parents of our students. Even if the school was successful in implementing all steps of this PLC, if parents did not support the students at home, we would not be able to have a significant impact. By having small-group parent meetings for those students who had fallen two or more years behind in reading, we were including the parents in the solution. We were ensuring that all stakeholders were informed as to the extent and seriousness of the problem, the steps being taken by us, the teachers, and the support that parents were expected to provide in the home. Finally, one of the secondary effects of this effort was the message that was sent to students, administration, and parents about how—by working as a PLC and speaking with one loud voice—literacy would become a priority and be addressed by everyone.
Focus of the intervention
Four literacy skills
After doing research on best practices, we decided to focus our teaching on high-yield instructional practices that could be used across all of our courses. For that, we looked at Fisher et al.’s 2016) findings. In their work Visible Learning, they analyzed and synthesized thousands of studies to determine which pedagogical practices led to higher student achievement. We settled on four that Fisher et al. (2016) deemed to have a high impact: note-taking, summarizing, metacognition, and academic discourse (Fisher et al. 2016).
Note-taking involves writing down the key points of a lecture, a lab, or a reading. It is a key study skill that is known to increase comprehension. The school, as a whole, has adopted the AVID style of focused notetaking as a practice across the curriculum, so it made perfect sense that we direct our attention to this practice in a more focused way. We determined to do more with student notes than merely have students write down key points of instruction. Fisher and associates (2016) determined that taking class notes has an effect size of 0.59. This is the most powerful impact; however, this effect gets even higher by revisiting the notes on several occasions to organize and transform them in various ways in order to develop a true understanding of the material. By doing this, the effect size on comprehension soars to 0.85 (Fisher et al. 2016). My colleagues and I committed to teaching our students how to take notes and reflect upon what information should be noted and what may be left out. Furthermore, students should be taught to ask questions that will clarify ambiguities, fill omissions, or explore ramifications in order to lead to deeper learning.
Summarizing, the second strategy we agreed upon, goes hand in hand with notetaking.
Teaching students to conceptualize what they are learning in the broad outlines of a well-reasoned summary was expected to lead to deeper comprehension. When students stop and summarize texts, discussions, and lab results, they engage in a review process that evaluates what they are learning and where there are gaps in their understanding (Fisher et al. 2016). The proposed intervention included having the teachers incorporate summarizing into their regular instruction as both a formative and summative assessment.
The third high-impact strategy that we decided upon as a group was metacognition. This requires the ability of teachers to observe their own thinking when approaching various texts and to teach students how to make sense of the material. Each subject matter has its own types of texts that require various strategies to make sense of them. Each teacher is an expert reader in his or her own subject. When teachers show their students how they think by explaining how they approach each type of text, they give students the tools to monitor their own learning. Part of being metacognitively aware is to learn how to ask questions as they read, engage in discussions, and conduct laboratory activities. Using and teaching metacognitive strategies can have an effect size on comprehension as high as 0.69 according to Fisher et al. (2016).
The final strategy that we agreed to implement in our daily practice was to have our students engage in academic discourse. Building literacy includes reading, writing, listening, and speaking. When students incorporate all four of these aspects into their learning, they will invariably make gains in reading comprehension. A major push from the district office is for students, especially English learners, to engage in academic discourse on a daily basis. Fisher and his associates (2016) confirmed that this is a wise choice as effective classroom discussion employed on a regular basis has an effect size of 0.82. By agreeing to implement high-yield strategies in our instruction across the curriculum, we gained precision in our pedagogy and created the capacity within our students to achieve at a higher level.
Parental involvement
The overall goal of the intervention was to increase the reading levels of the sixth-grade students beyond a single year’s growth within the school year. To do this, the students and their families must be a part of the solution. As sixth grade is students’ first year of middle school, there can be no assumption that either the students or their guardians were aware of students’ current reading ability. Therefore, small-group meetings with parents of students who scored below the fourth grade reading level (more than one year below grade level) were scheduled.
The sessions were limited to only 10 students and their parents. Spanish language support was provided. Attending one of these sessions was mandatory for students falling more than two years behind as measured on the i-Ready diagnostic given in the first weeks of school. During the meeting, parents were informed of their child’s reading level and why it is important to make significant gains during the upcoming year. They were informed of our plan to help their children make those critical gains and the part that they themselves would play in that effort.
They were trained on how to access their child’s Power School account so that they could monitor their progress regarding grades, assignments, and assessments. They were also taught how to log in to i-Ready in both reading and math and asked to ensure that their children completed two lessons in each subject every week. Moreover, they were asked to reinforce the expectation that their children would read every night. The purpose of the parent meetings was twofold: to inform the parents of the status of their children and to establish a sense of urgency that inspired the families to take part in the solution. By giving the parents specific tasks and tools to monitor progress, the PLC hoped to employ the parents to a greater degree in the advancement of their children’s academics. By getting the parents’ cooperation, the students would get a consistent message that literacy is important and that there was no time to waste in ensuring its acquisition. Having the parents and teachers in unison, however important that may be, does no good if students themselves do not work hard to improve their own academic skills.
Changing the culture at the students’ level
The ultimate goal was for the students to take full responsibility for their learning. Many of the students in the study had no experience succeeding in school and lacked the organizational skills necessary to navigate secondary school with any degree of proficiency. To provide guidance for each student, a system of student-teacher conferences was held. The roster was divided up among the four core teachers, and a weekly meeting was scheduled so that every student met with his or her conference teacher once a week. During the conferences, the student could discuss the book he or she was reading. The meeting challenged the student to make weekly goals regarding the reading, i-Ready lessons, missing assignments, and any other concerns that either the student or the teacher deemed important. The conference teacher also served as a point of contact between the staff, the student, and the parents.
A short-term goal was to obtain independent reading books for every student by the end of the first week of instruction. Getting the children to the library needed to be factored into the first week’s schedule. To get the results that teachers seek in literacy development, the students needed to become well-versed in cycles of inquiry. As stated earlier, we created opportunities to analyze student work in order to refine this practice.
The PLC came to the consensus that, if students did not read at home, then the school was obligated to provide them time in school to read. The very act of reading had not been developed in many of the incoming sixth-grade students, and we realized that this was a critical first step. A plan was devised whereby each one of the core teachers would take one day a week and provide 30 min of independent reading. I took two days for silent reading. The 30 min time period not only gave the students time to practice their reading, but also gave us the opportunity to conduct our conferences. The expectation that every student was required to have an independent reading book was established at the very beginning of the school year. We agreed to hold this time sacred and not let other academic pressures interfere with it. The math teacher measured the students’ stamina by timing how long each class as a whole could stay focused on reading before one or more students’ eyes began to wander.
A commitment to continuous improvement
DuFour (2004) described the PLC as a process rather than a program—a process that is constantly in refinement (DuFour, 2004). My colleagues and I recognized this fact and put into place the systems that would lead to continuous improvement. By working in cross-curricular teams and meeting weekly during our prep periods, we evaluated the effectiveness of our instruction by analyzing student work samples. As Fullan and Quinn (2015) asserted, it is not about working out every nuance of a journey but rather about setting the overall direction and establishing a culture that enables innovation and growth in that direction (Fullan and Quinn, 2015). We committed to engaging in cycles of inquiry in which we administered a common assessment after having taught a skill or concept. Afterward, we evaluated students’ work to determine whether or not our students had mastered it. These data were utilized to answer the research question. This process was guided by the four questions that are the hallmarks of effective PLCs, as discussed next.
What Do We Want Our Students to Learn?
We agreed upon the knowledge and skills our sixth-grade students must acquire before the end of the school year and delivered the instruction needed for students to master them within that time frame. Summary writing, metacognitive awareness, note-taking, and academic language were agreed upon as the necessary skills taught across the curriculum.
How Will They Know If Their Students Have Mastered the Desired Skill or Concept?
By meeting frequently and comparing students’ work samples, we could determine which students mastered these skills and which students needed further instruction.
How Will We Respond When Students Do Not Master the Skill or Concept?
We developed and put into practice systems that supported student learning and respond to students’ changing needs, whether it be further instruction or tutoring support for individual students.
How Will We Challenge Students Who Master the Skills and Concepts to Further Their Learning?
We challenged students who were reading at a sixth-grade level to choose independent reading books that were at or above the level of their reading competency.
Ethical considerations
The important ethical concerns were three-fold. Students’ identities had to be protected, so student names were replaced by numbers on all data and remarks. Improving students’ attitudes vis-a-vis reading and literacy was the goal, so the PLC teachers must first do no harm. Care had to be taken that any criticism or assessment of students’ capabilities was constructive and encouraging. Our approach and tone were pitched in such a way that we were not demeaning or destructive to the confidence of our charges. Finally, when meeting with the families of students, we were sensitive to the limitations and cultural differences of each family. As much as possible, we were mindful of the economic restrictions and emotional entanglements that complicated the lives of many of the families.
Results and discussion
Descriptive statistics
The demographic information on the school website indicates that 93% of students in this school qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and 18.7% of them are ELLs. Moreover, a large proportion of the students have an IEP. Demographic information about the sixth-grade students who were part of the PLC is presented here, with i-Ready scores at the beginning and end of the PLC year (see Table 1).
Table 1 i-Ready for Sixth Graders in the School, Pre and Post Scores.
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At the beginning of the year, 103 students were reading below the fourth-grade level (based on i-Ready scores). At the end of the year, there was a significant 18.4% decrease to 84 students. A breakdown of the number of students at each reading level helps us appreciate the improvement of students with the most serious delay. At the end of the program, the number of students below fourth-grade reading competence had decreased by 19 students, with a commensurate increase in students at or above fourth-grade competence (see Table 2).
Table 2 i-Ready for Sixth Graders in the School, Pre and Post Scores by Percentage.
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To answer the first research question, “What does a grade-wide literacy-focused PLC intervention to support sixth-grade students’ literacy look like at the systemic level?”, I analyzed a variety of ethnographic notes, including meeting minutes, memos, and teachers’ reflections. In order to provide an accurate description of the development of a literacy-focused grade-level PLC, I broke the process down into the following themes: consensus building, communication, common strategies, and planning time. This PLC is based on DuFour and Fullan’s (2013) theoretical framework, and the intervention will be described following this structure.
Building consensus
Building consensus among the team members required a great deal of thoughtful analysis of the current reality regarding literacy. An inventory of the resources available to meet the challenges presented by current circumstances also had to be created. The first step in the process of confronting the problem of widespread low literacy rates at the school under study actually occurred the year prior to the intervention. The middle school had undergone a rather dramatic decline in enrollment and, as a result, lost a teacher. With the departure of that teacher, I and another colleague were then assigned the entire sixth-grade roster of students. It was through this challenge that we decided we needed a grade-wide approach. The other teacher was unfortunately relocated to another school site, leaving me alone to proceed with the idea of implementing PLC practices within the sixth-grade team. I developed the outline of a plan to address the literacy practices of incoming sixth-grade students and called a meeting to introduce the plan to all of my colleagues teaching sixth grade. On August 6, 2018, I met with all of the sixth-grade teachers as well as the intervention teacher and presented a plan to address the literacy needs of the incoming students. According to DuFour and Fullan (2013), if there was to be a grade-wide level approach, then the teachers of that grade would have to agree on shared priorities and practices. This was the goal of the first meeting: to introduce the rationale for a systems approach to the problem of literacy and to discuss exactly what priorities and practices we would agree to adopt.
Sustained silent reading
The plan included time set aside each day for sustained silent reading (SSR). This proposal was met with skepticism as represented by the social studies teacher’s comment: “I will give it one semester. If I do not believe that there is any benefit, then the second semester I will not continue to participate.” To which I replied, “Fair enough.” Eventually, each of the four core subject teachers pledged to take one day a week to include 30 min of SSR in their classes. The social studies teacher’s was out with a serious injury for the entire first semester. When she returned, the SSR routine had been well established and she consented to continue with it for the remainder of the year. She grew to support the effort enthusiastically, especially after the teacher-student conference piece was put into place.
Student conferences
During one of the planning days at the beginning of the second semester, we divided up the students in order to implement the student conferences. We each took a group of students into conference with their SSR period once per week for 30 min. Each of us ended up with a caseload that amounted to six to eight students per class period, whom we pledged to advise while our classes read silently. The conferences focused on the books that the students were reading at the time as well as their assignment completion and i-Ready lessons. A form was generated to keep account of the student’s goals in order to monitor progress. The first iteration of the conference form included a checklist of actions that the student and teacher would go through in order to review the student’s current reading ability and the Lexile™ level of books that would best suit the student’s needs (see Table 3). It also included items that ensured that the students kept track of the books that they had read, the i-Ready lessons that they had completed, and weekly goals.
Table 3 Literacy Conference Checklist.
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Surprisingly these conferences were met with enthusiasm by the students. It was quite common for students to seek out their conference teacher if they were absent on their conference day and update their form themselves. New students were assigned a conference teacher as they were enrolled. When the conference sheet was filled, the teachers discussed changes that they wished to see on the conference sheet for the next meeting and wrote notes. After revision of the process, it was determined that they wanted to add a place to indicate the number of missing assignments that the students had and a more explicit weekly goal. These changes were made, and a new form was developed (see Table 4). The revised form concentrated only on reviewing the current status and performance of the student; the list of instructions was not thought to be necessary on every checklist. These reports were shared with the parents during parent conferences.
Table 4 Revised conference checklist.
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We also reached a consensus to use the i-Ready reading program to measure students’ growth, because it was already purchased and used by the district. Furthermore, the students were familiar with it. The language arts and math teachers scheduled the initial diagnostic assessments for the first full week of school to collect a baseline measure. Students who required more than a week to complete the i-Ready diagnostic were allowed to finish the process during their social studies and science classes in order to minimize the impact on their language arts and math instruction. The outcome of the initial assessment is presented in Table 5. Based on our own professional experience we expected to see many of the students underperforming; however, we were not prepared to see how extensive the lack of literacy truly was. The problem was a daunting one. The size of the problem that the data presented to us challenged us to sort out carefully what our short-term and long-term goals truly were. In the short term, we believed it was of paramount importance to get books into the students’ hands. Our long-term goal was to develop literacy skills that would take them through their entire academic careers.
Table 5 Number of students celebrated.
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Celebrations
The team agreed that it was important to celebrate student growth and achievement as an engagement strategy to engender enthusiasm within each student and build a culture of success. We agreed that it was the students themselves who had to do the actual work and that they needed a lot of encouragement because many of them had had very little success in school; consequently, their confidence was very low. Celebration benchmarks were created to encourage growth in i-Ready scores, including “breaking the four” and reaching their stretch goal at the end of the year. Within the year of the study, celebrations were also held for reading 10, 15, 20, and 25 books. Parents were invited to attend when their students’ achievements in grades, citizenship, and attendance were recognized during the end-of-the-semester assemblies. The number of students celebrated is outlined in Table 5.
Building a culture in the community
An increased sense of community grew during the time of the intervention. As suggested by Graham (2007), this was a vital precursor to having the reflective conversations that will lead to student growth. We agreed it was important to present a united front to the students and their families as well as to the rest of the school staff. We reinforced one another in conveying the message that they were a community of learners and that literacy was a priority. This was accomplished by keeping the SSR period sacred; the time was never sacrificed for other duties or projects. We developed a common routine of greeting one another’s substitute teachers and offering them our support with difficult students or logistical issues at the school. We held our parent-teacher conferences in the same room at the same time in order to facilitate open communication among the parents, students, and teachers. Finally, we sent reminder messages in unison to keep parents informed of upcoming events at the school.
Coming to a consensus on implementing common practices across the curriculum to build a culture was difficult at first. As each teacher taught a different subject, it was difficult to come to an agreement on which teaching strategies would be effective across all subject matters.
However, after reading Fisher et al.’s (2016) Visible Learning, in which the authors reviewed thousands of research papers, we determined that would implement four strategies that would have a great impact on our students’ achievement. Furthermore, these strategies could be implemented in our classrooms regardless of subject matter. The team settled on the following strategies: We taught our students how to take notes and write effective summaries. We showed them how to make their own thinking visible as they navigated complex texts through metacognition. We pointed out things within texts that led our students to greater understanding, and we provided our students with opportunities for academic discourse within class assignments.
Time to plan and evaluate student work
A supportive administration is essential because they may have to advocate for planning days and supplemental hours with extra pay. Time for teachers to get together to thoughtfully plan instruction and evaluate student progress has to be built into the day. As the science and math teachers shared the same prep period, they agreed to meet during their prep once a week to discuss opportunities to reinforce important standards in each of their classes. The language arts and social studies teachers likewise shared a prep period, and they too agreed to meet once a week. The social studies teacher had recently sustained an injury that required surgery and was out for the entire first semester; substitute teachers could not be required to meet during their prep period, so we agreed to begin our meetings after the return of the social studies teacher.
The math and science teachers were able to meet weekly at the beginning of the first semester. It was during these meetings that they looked for opportunities to do what they called “cross-pollinate.” This was a plan to actively look for opportunities to reinforce one another’s content in each of their classes. As the math teacher noted, “If I am going to give up a day of math instruction, then you have to take on some of the math standards that I may not get to.” I, as the science teacher, taught the students how to determine the volume of three-dimensional figures as well as measures of central tendency: mean, median, mode, and range within the content of science. The students took notes on these topics in their science classes but then used those science notes often during their math classes.
During these weekly meetings, we compared student work samples, which we used as formative assessments. We focused particularly on our students’ progress in summary writing by comparing students’ summary writing between the two classes.
Communication
For a community to work well and achieve its goals, there needs to be clear communication between the participants. A group text was established with the core sixth-grade teachers, the intervention teacher, and the AVID teacher. It was thought that daily communicating through email was too cumbersome and that a group text was more immediate and convenient. Concerns that arose with students were first introduced to the team through text messages for discussion. Each teacher provided insights to the team about their own experiences with that student and, in that way, a common approach was taken in each of their classes. If a teacher suggested that a student perhaps needed testing for RSP services, the intervention teacher researched the child’s cumulative folder to see what the child’s history might have been. It was through this approach that the teachers discovered that, of the six students who had participated in bilingual education in elementary school, four had scored three or more years behind in reading comprehension. As the year progressed, the RSP teacher as well as the counselor assigned to the sixth-grade students were added to the text group. The intervention teacher, in particular, was very helpful as part of the text communication. She took it upon herself to research student histories as concerns came to light. She then arranged for testing, when appropriate. She kept the teachers abreast concerning students who were receiving special education services or had special circumstances, such as foster care or homelessness. This quick-and-easy method of communication proved convenient and effective, considering that two of the teachers had small children at home and could not stay for lengthy meetings. We never went more than a day or two without touching base.
Parental cooperation
Parent participation is important to achieving the kind of growth needed in this school. The intervention and AVID teachers committed to providing Spanish language support for the meetings planned for the parents of students who fell below the fourth grade in reading. The intervention teacher pledged to support the team in any way that she could, without really knowing how she would fit into the program. Handwritten postcards of introduction were mailed out to the parents of each sixth-grade student as a way to engage the parents and seek their support for the team’s efforts to work with their children. After the initial i-Ready diagnosis in early September, a list was compiled of students who fell below the fourth grade in reading comprehension (see Table 6). There were 103 students on this list. The researcher and the AVID teacher met with small groups of these students and their parents.
Table 6 Parent Meeting for Students Who Scored Below the Fourth Grade on i-Ready Diagnostics.
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Parents of 10 students had to be contacted by phone as they were unable to attend any of the meeting times offered. During meetings, the parents were appraised of the situation and its importance. They were then asked to support the efforts of the sixth-grade team in very specific ways. They were asked to see to it that their child read every evening for 20 min. They were also given a brief training on the i-Ready program and how they can monitor their child’s progress. Some of the parents were aware of their child’s struggles with reading, but many were not. “Why was I not made aware of this before?” was a common refrain.
The analysis for Research Question 2 was a two-tailed paired t-test comparing the students’ i-Ready literacy score changes between pre- and post-intervention to investigate the impact of this PLC project (see Table 7).
Table 7 Number of Sixth-grade Students at Each Literacy Level Before and After the PLC.
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The comparison between the pre- and post-score differences in i-Ready was performed by quartile to learn whether there was a differentiated impact based on students’ baseline (see Table 8).
Table 8 Student Growth by Quartiles.
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This analysis indicates that there is a significant growth in i-Ready literacy scores after the PLC was implemented. It also indicates that the PLC had a statistically significant and positive impact on the first three quartiles (Q1, Q2, and Q3) of the baseline levels. The intervention seemed to be more beneficial for the students in the first quartile, who started with the lowest levels of literacy scores because they showed the largest growth (32.6 points). This is not surprising; it is expected that students who began with the lowest scores had more room for change than students who were already scoring at the grade level.
First, the significance between pre- and post-measures of literacy practices and students’ confidence was analyzed using a paired t-test to compare the means (see Table 9).
Table 9 Growth in students’ literacy practice and Confidence.
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The t-test indicates that there was an increase in students’ positive literacy practices and their confidence when comparing the means from the pre- and post-scores.
The association between i-Ready academic measures, students’ literacy practices, and students’ confidence as readers after the year of the intervention was analyzed using a Pearson linear correlation analysis (see Table 10).
Table 10 Correlation Coefficients.
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The correlation between students’ positive literacy behaviors is positively and significantly correlated to their i-Ready scores, with medium-size strength (p = 0.34). This was expected as the scale of positive literacy behaviors is closely relevant to literacy skills. This means that the higher their positive literacy behaviors were, the higher their i-Ready scores were. Surprisingly, the correlation between students’ confidence and both i-Ready scores and students’ literacy practices is in a negative direction, although both are statistically significant. These findings are surprising, as I expected the students’ confidence as learners to be positively related to positive literacy skills and skills; however, other researchers have found similar results, with a negative association (Neugebauer, 2014).
To answer Research Question 3, “How does this PLC effort change the school system and the leaders’ and students’ buy-in to the community?”, I administered and analyzed a survey for the teachers participating in the intervention. Of the six people surveyed, all responded. The respondents included the three core teachers, the intervention specialist, the special education teacher, and the AVID teacher. By the time the survey was sent out, the principal had been relocated to another school. The survey consisted of six 5-point Likert-style statements (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). This survey was used to get the participants’ impression on key aspects of the program that indicate a change in school culture and student buy-in (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Teacher survey results.
figure 1
Gray square represents disagree, red square represents neutral, blue square represents agree.
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When asked if students improved their attitude toward reading, all six teachers marked agree or strongly agree. All teachers also agreed or strongly agreed that they believed that the administration was supportive of their efforts. Five of the six teachers agreed that the students improved their proficiency in reading, while one teacher remained neutral on the point. They also all agreed that students increased their awareness of their reading, with five responding that they strongly agree and one with a simple agreement. When asked if they believed that students read more books during the intervention year than they had previously observed, five responded that they strongly agreed and one remained neutral on the point. Finally, when asked if they felt comfortable approaching the team regarding student concerns, they responded with a resounding 100% strongly agree.
Following the Likert-style questions, the survey included six open-ended questions. The first question asked about the impact the team approach had on their individual professional practice. The most common theme that arose from their answers was that of collaboration. Four of the six respondents expressly mentioned that the team approach led to a greater willingness and success in collaborating with their colleagues.
The second open-ended question asked the teachers to reflect upon how we could improve our program going forward. These responses were less uniform, with two respondents mentioning the importance of flexibility as an important feature of our success. They mentioned it in the context of allowing the program to evolve as we developed it further, to be open, for instance, to changing our primary form of assessment from i-Ready and to better coordinate our lesson plans as well as develop a common approach to vocabulary and writing. The math teacher said that having a common prep period is important so that there is an opportunity to touch base with our colleagues on a more frequent basis. The special education teacher remarked that grade-level PLCs should take precedence over content-area PLCs at the middle school level. The common theme in these answers was the importance of working through issues to improve efficiency and impact on student learning.
When asked what impact the sixth-grade team’s PLC had on the school as a whole, there was universal agreement. All six respondents spoke of the seventh- and eighth-grade teams following the lead of the sixth-grade intervention in one fashion or another.
When talking about the impact that the intervention had on students, the teachers related some common themes as well. Three of the six teachers mentioned that they believed that the students felt cared for and valued as individuals. Two of them stated that they believed that the students understood that the teachers were working together to help them and that they had common expectations regarding behavior in class and reading expectations. One teacher reported that students appreciated the time set aside for reading, and another teacher appreciated that the collaborative nature of the PLC made it possible to direct a student to the teacher who was most appropriate for addressing his or her academic issues.
Finally, the survey asked what the administration could do to nurture their PLC going forward. The answers came down to three things: time, resources, and support. The teachers repeatedly mentioned that they appreciated the time they had to meet in order to plan and evaluate student work. They also valued the time they were given to share with other grade-level staff what strategies they used that were successful and what failed as well as which obstacles were met and how they were overcome. They wanted the administration to support teachers in their efforts to dedicate time for students to read. Equally important, the teachers believed it was important to have time to meet with parents in order to convey concerns and enlist their support on behalf of their students.
Conclusion
The PLC succeeded in elevating literacy skills in the bottom three quartiles of the student population because, to varying degrees, it developed collaboration among the four groups of stakeholders: the faculty and staff, the administration, the parents, and—most importantly—the students. This collaboration resulted in a sustained and integrated effort to improve reading across the curriculum. Students became more comfortable in class because they were convinced that what was happening in the classroom was being done with them and not to them. However, it is difficult to generalize how successful the approach in this particular study could be in other school settings. So much of the success in collaboration depends upon the qualities of the individual participants and their willingness to cooperate with one another. The partnership between teachers and the support and encouragement of the administration is the key to successful implementation of a PLC. Once a school embarks upon a PLC journey, the participants must keep an open mind and be flexible. They must understand that it is a process that will unfold in ways that they may not anticipate. Not getting discouraged is key. The results a team might expect may not be happen quickly, especially in a school with a long history of low literacy rates. Using Data to drive instruction in a cross curricular way can be a challenge. The teachers involved must support one another and take chances with the understanding that their colleagues will be supportive of their efforts. The administration must also have a high degree of buy in. They cannot ask their teachers to do this work without giving them the time, resources and appropriate compensation to do it.
Future research and limitation
The aspect of the intervention that each of the teachers mentioned in their reflections as having a positive impact on student motivation and buy-in was the weekly student-teacher conferences. Although brief, the teachers believed that they were effective in building relationships between teachers and students that encouraged students to take an active role in their literacy development. The literature is scant on the subject of such conferences. With the prospect of it having a substantial effect on student achievement, it would be worthwhile to do further research in this area. We need to do additional studies on what a literacy mentoring program would look like. For example, in what ways did the weekly conferences reinforce or accelerate learning? How could the 5 min devoted to the conference be optimized? How can the administration help effectively make conferencing a school-wide practice? How to integrate parents into a school-wide PLC is another area of study that would be interesting and could have a beneficial effect, especially in low performing schools. We found in our intervention that parents wanted to help their children but did not know what their place in the effort was. By giving them simple and direct actions to take we were able to include them in the program. It would also be interesting to see more longitudinal studies that focus on school change via PLCs. Using the school-wide climate survey over subsequent years in addition to the individual grade-level exit surveys could give us a better view of the growing influence of the PLC. This study was merely a beginning, the first year in the development of a PLC. Following this, or any school implementing PLC practices, over several years would provide much-needed insights into how PLCs contribute to the development of a collaborative culture longitudinally.
Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to confidential school records, but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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El Camino High School, La Mirada, CA, USA
Marianne Hunt
Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China
Yuyang Yan & Hui Liu
Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, CA, USA
Blanca Meyer
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The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Concordia University Irvine, USA, granted an exemption for this research on March 26, 2020. Reason for exemption: There is no risk to the students, as the secondary data collected from school records will remain confidential, and no direct data will be collected.
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Hunt, M., Yan, Y., Meyer, B. et al. Managing literacy interventions through professional learning communities: a case study on organizational change in education systems. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 402 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04744-9
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Received:13 September 2024
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DOI:https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04744-9
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