ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1548014
MULTISYLLABIC IMPLEMENTATION FIDELITY IN UPPER ELEMENTARY Multisyllabic Implementation Fidelity in Upper Elementary and Professional Development Considerations: A Pilot
Provisionally accepted- 1College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- 2Texas A and M University, College Station, Texas, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study aimed to investigate instructors' implementation fidelity of a program targeting multisyllabic decoding and encoding and its effects on upper elementary students' reading and spelling performance. Additionally, the research explored the influence of professional development (PD) and contextual factors on teachers' instructional practices. The study involved nine female instructors from three adjacent elementary schools, including two classroom teachers who provided whole-group instruction and seven interventionists who worked with small groups.Student participants were 64 third to fifth grade learners. PD occurred prior to the study, accompanied by weekly coaching during the seven-week instructional period. Results indicated that higher fidelity of implementation for a greater number of lessons taught led to statistically significant improvements in student outcomes compared to lower fidelity for fewer lessons, which still yielded advancements in spelling and vocabulary. Furthermore, teachers exhibited significant knowledge gains from pretest to posttest, with feedback addressing factors impacting implementation fidelity. The study discusses implications for PD and effective program implementation.
Keywords: multisyllabic, encoding, fidelity, Decoding, implementation
Received: 19 Dec 2024; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Traga Philippakos, Quinn, Rocconi, Picerno and Davis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zoi A. Traga Philippakos, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, 37996-3400, Tennessee, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.