Throughout the past eight decades, the research of teaching and assessing early literacy skills has provided teachers with information that vacillates regarding what and how the skills were taught and assessed. However, what has stayed constant in research is that once students struggle with reading, by third grade they will continue to fall behind unless interventions are started in the younger grades (Fletcher, Shaywitz, Shankweiler, Liberman, Stueging, Francis, Fowler, & Shaywitz, 1994; Moats, 2004). Thus, second-grade becomes a pivotal year to make sure struggling readers are provided with interventions that address specific skills. In order to determine which students need which interventions, screening assessments are the first key to start the process of intervention. However, many teachers have not been trained in using screening assessments such as the Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) oral reading fluency (DORF) probe. Thus, effective professional development that includes initial, follow-up, and ongoing phases is the first step in providing teachers with the knowledge and tools to use screening assessments like DORF.
The findings of this study indicate that a positive and negative significant relationship exists between second-grade teachers’ initial DIBELS professional development and the percentage of their students showing yearly improvement from their pre- to post-DORF scores of 35 words per year. In addition, a positive significant relationship exists between second-grade teachers’ confidence level and the percentage of their students’ pre- to post-DORF score improvement of 35 words and 45 words. Moreover, teachers’ confidence level predicts the percentage of students improving 45 words from their DORF pre- to- post-scores. However, on closer examination, the majority of struggling students appear to make little gains while as many teachers do not receive follow-up and ongoing professional development. These results indicate that further research is needed in the area of teachers receiving all phases of effective professional development and student achievement.