Examining Sustainment of an Evidence-Based Kindergarten Literacy Curriculum. Report Brief

Our team previously conducted an efficacy evaluation of "Zoology One: Kindergarten Research Labs," a kindergarten curriculum that integrates literacy instruction and science exposure. Two cohorts of kindergarten students and their teachers participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years. In each of those school years, kindergarten teachers assigned to the "Zoology One" condition were expected to implement the "Zoology One" curriculum and received training, coaching, and materials to support their implementation. Findings revealed that "Zoology One" students outperformed control students in reading comprehension, letter naming-fluency, and motivation to read. The study discussed here aims to better understand teachers' continued use of the curriculum one year after their participation in the RCT. We surveyed 28 teachers and interviewed 19 of those teachers from the treatment group in the spring one year after their participation in the RCT. Surveys and interviews asked teachers about the extent to which they continued to use various components and materials from the "Zoology One" curriculum. We also used data about teachers' fidelity to "Zoology One" collected during the RCT, as well as teachers' years of teaching experience to examine the extent to which these variables predicted sustainment.