Teacher Behavior Rating Scale
TBRS is a reliable and valid measure to evaluate teaching behaviors that target school readiness.
The Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS) was developed by the Children’s Learning Institute at UTHealth Houston as a classroom observational measure to target enriched learning activities in early literacy, language, and mathematics skills in pre-K and kindergarten classrooms. TBRS has been used in numerous studies as a tool to observe and evaluate teaching behaviors and change over time.
TBRS contains 87 items across 13 separate content areas. Most items utilize both a 3-point scale to evaluate the quantity of the observed behavior, frequency of interactions, or consistency of a behavior, and a 4-point scale to evaluate the quality of the observed behavior. Reliability and validity studies find TBRS to be sensitive to positive teaching behaviors that promote school readiness and is predictive of children’s school readiness abilities.
In developing TBRS, CLI had two primary goals:
- Develop a tool that is sensitive to classroom environments and instructional practices that promote the skills linked to school readiness
- Ensure instructional areas measured were predictive of change in children’s skills
TBRS was designed to be completed by a trained observer. The two-hour classroom observations must be scheduled during instructional periods of the day when teachers are implementing the majority of their language, literacy, and mathematics activities. Observers are required to observe at least one large-group activity, one small-group activity, and transitions between activities, as well as examining the teacher’s weekly lesson plans and sample of student work (i.e., portfolios).
TBRS Measures
- General Teaching Behaviors: Classroom Community, Sensitivity Behaviors
- Environment Items: Classroom Community
- Lesson Plans
- Portfolios and Assessments
- Centers
- Book Reading Behaviors Subscale: Introducing the Book, Use of Vocabulary Words, Engagement and Enthusiasm, Read Aloud
- Print and Letter Knowledge Subscale: Teachable Moments, Literature linked to Theme, Print in the Classroom
- Written Expression Subscale
- Phonological Awareness Subscale
- Phonics Subscale
- Math Concepts Subscale
- Oral Language Use Subscale
- Team Teaching Subscale
CLI used TBRS to develop the CIRCLE Classroom Observation Tool (COT), used by coaches across CLI’s implementation projects to observe teacher behavior, set goals for improvement, and track progress over time through the CLI Engage platform. CLI’s COT features specific behaviors that impact the TBRS scales.
TBRS Training
CLI offers in-person, virtual/remote, and hybrid training options for TBRS, available nationally and internationally. Our standard training model includes the following, but can be adapted to meet specific training needs:
- Four days of training to review the measures and to practice coding videos together: we meet two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon each day
- A set of five reliability videos and their corresponding master codes for your team to code on their own
- Four 2-hour meetings to answer coding questions after the initial training
Training Request
To request a quote for TBRS training, please contact us and include the following information:
- Number of participants to attend the training
- Preferred training modality: in-person, remote, or hybrid
- TBRS measures to be trained (all or only specific measures)
- Training materials preference (manual, workbook, activity handouts, and forms to code): printed and shipped by CLI or on your own
- Provide three training date options for the initial training
- Provide dates that you are available for the four 2-hour coding meetings
