Investigating teacher professional development with distance coaching to promote students’ response to reading interventions in rural schools

This chapter examines emerging research on professional development with coaching for rural teachers to promote students’ response to early reading instruction (early reading RTI). The purpose of this chapter is to (a) provide a brief discussion of the importance of research on teacher professional development to promote early reading RTI; (b) present a rationale for conducting rigorous investigations that take into account contexts of rural schools and study teacher professional development considerations within a well-defined theory of change, (c) provide examples of key studies on teacher professional development designed for rural schools to promote students’ response to early reading instruction; (d) present a research example illustrating the investigation of potential mediating variables within a proposed theory of change, and (e) propose several next steps for advancing practically-relevant research on professional development for rural school teachers.