Welcome to the Early Literacy Teacher Education Project (ELTEP) Resource and Information Center

The Early Literacy Teacher Education project (ELTEP) was funded through a three-year grant (2010-2013) from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The grant was awarded to Donna Scanlon, Kimberly Anderson, Lynn Gelzheiser, and Virginia Goatley. The project prepared materials and resources for use in pre-service and in-service teacher education courses with the goal of enhancing teachers’ ability to provide effective instruction for early literacy learners (K-2), particularly those who struggle at the early phases of literacy development. The materials focus primarily on the development of teacher knowledge to enable them to effectively identify what children are ready to learn and to plan and deliver responsive instruction. Resources developed during that project eventually led to the development of a book describing the instructional approach which is now in its third edition: Early Literacy Instruction and Intervention in Grades K-2: The Interactive Strategies Approach (Guilford Press, 2024).

The ELTEP project derived from research on a comprehensive and responsive approach to early literacy instruction and intervention known as the Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA; Scanlon, Gelzheiser, Vellutino, Schatschneider, & Sweeney, 2008; Vellutino & Scanlon, 2002; Vellutino, Scanlon, Sipay, Small, Pratt, Chen, & Denckla, 1996) which has been found to be effective in reducing the incidence of reading difficulties when instituted by classroom and intervention teachers in the primary grades. Learn about materials available to instructors.

Visitors may click on any of the links below to find out more about the project, learn what teacher educators have said about the ELTEP, and learn more about the Interactive Strategies Approach.

What Teacher Educators in the Research Project said about…

• About the ELTEP webinars and archives
• About the ELTEP content
• About the ELTEP instructional videos
• About the influence of the ELTEP on their instruction

The Interactive Strategies Approach (ISA)

• Scanlon, D. M. & Anderson, K. L. (2010). Using the Interactive Strategies Approach to Prevent Reading Difficulties in and RtI Context. In M. Lipson & K. Wixson (Eds.), Succecssful Approaches to RtI (pp. 20-65). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
• Reducing the Incidence of Early Reading Difficulties: Professional Development for Classroom Teachers vs. Direct Interventions for Children
• Response to Intervention as a Vehicle for Distinguishing between Reading Disabled and Non-Reading Disabled Children: Evidence for the Role of Kindergarten and First Grade Intervention
• Response to Intervention: An Overview. New Hope for Struggling Readers
• Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Strategies Approach (Learn about the Book)
• Reference List: ISA Research and Practitioner Readings

Materials Available for Instructors include:

• Recordings of the webinars used to introduce participating teacher educators to the instructional materials developed during the FIPSE project and that align with the 2010 edition of the Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties text.
• The PowerPoint presentations, including presentation notes, used in the original webinars.
• A library of video clips for use by/with students in undergraduate and graduate courses. The videos include teachers engaged in literacy instruction with students (primarily in grades K-2) in whole class, small group, and one-to-one settings. The library is organized around the structure of the 2017 and 2024 editions of the Early Intervention text. However, there is no requirement to use that text. Instructors have access to written descriptions of each video along with viewing prompts and discussion points.
• Webcasts for use in courses using the 2nd edition of the Early Intervention text. Note that similar resources for the 3rd edition are under development and many of these resources will be quite similar to those available for the 2nd edition. Instructors using the 2024 edition of the text will find the web-based resources for the 2nd edition to be quite compatible. These webcasts provide:
  • Recorded presentations of content related to each chapter in the book which includes:
    • Presentation of the text’s content
    • Video clips of teachers and students engaged in literacy learning/instruction and commentary on those videos
  • Activities to support engagement with the content such as:
    • Analyzing phonemes
    • Analyzing students’ word identification strategies
    • Attending to teachers’ approaches to providing motivating and responsive instruction
    • Analyzing the knowledge and processes needed to comprehend texts

Those wishing to gain access to project materials should contact ISA/RtI Professional Development at isapd@albany.edu..