Tate, T, Collins, P, Xu, Y, Yau, J, et al (2019). Scientific Studies of Reading.
Reviewed: April 2020
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.03 |
-0.01 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.02 |
-0.08 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers only;
|
0.00 |
-0.04 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.88 |
-0.91 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.22 |
-0.26 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
0.65 |
0.61 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as English learners;
|
-0.69 |
-0.68 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
0.72 |
0.73 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as gifted;
|
0.89 |
0.92 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Reading subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-1.01 |
-0.97 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.04 |
-0.01 |
Yes |
|
|
|
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.98 |
-1.03 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.06 |
-0.11 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
0.80 |
0.74 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers only;
|
0.01 |
-0.04 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.26 |
-0.30 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
0.91 |
0.89 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-1.14 |
-1.14 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as English learners;
|
-0.80 |
-0.79 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA) |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as gifted;
|
1.05 |
1.12 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.04 |
-0.02 |
Yes |
|
|
|
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.16 |
-0.30 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as English learners;
|
-0.61 |
-0.69 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
0.74 |
0.67 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers only;
|
0.02 |
-0.05 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.75 |
-0.82 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring at standard level in reading score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.04 |
-0.10 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring below standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
-0.91 |
-0.97 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers identified as gifted;
|
0.86 |
0.84 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) - English Language Arts (ELA): Writing subtest |
Visual-syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Compliers scoring above standard level in writing score prior to the intervention;
|
0.67 |
0.65 |
No |
-- | ||
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
| Asian | 36% | |
| Black | 1% | |
| Other or unknown | 62% | |
| Pacific Islander | 1% |
| Hispanic | 49% | |
| Not Hispanic or Latino | 51% |
The study occurred within general education seventh and eighth grade classrooms of an urban Californian school district (p. 290).
The student-level demographic information is based on demographic characteristics for the 3,453 students the authors refer to on page 290 of the study as “our final analytic sample”. Of these 3,453 students, 41 percent were in Grade 7, 49 percent were in Grade 8, 50 percent were male, 36 percent were Asian (non-Filipino), 1 percent were Black, 1 percent were Filipino, 62 percent were an unspecified race. Forty-nine percent of participants were identified as Hispanic. Seventy-four percent were socio-economically disadvantaged, 27 percent were identified as English learners, 9 percent were identified as gifted, and 4 percent were identified as needing special education services (Table S-1).
Visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) organizes text using natural language processing techniques to segment phrases and words and highlight specific sentence and phrase structures. This results in a streamlined column of text which enables efficient eye movement and syntactic processing. As such, although the content, vocabulary, and syntax of passages are not modified, the presentation of the text looks different to the eye, with the goal of facilitating syntactic processing of complex information and improving reading comprehension. Teachers in both study conditions were responsible for creating the curriculum for their classes. Students in intervention classes engaged with their classrooms’ standard texts for 50 minutes each week using VSTF.
Teachers in comparison classrooms taught the same reading material as the VSTF treatment classes, but these same texts were not reformatted using VSTF structures. (p. 292).
Teachers took park in professional development activities including discussions of the underlying research that motivates the use of the intervention, support in using technology (including iPads or Chromebooks), and explicit instruction related to teaching close reading strategies. Teachers received financial incentives to attend the professional development sessions, complete weekly reflection forms, and supply writing assessments. A "teacher-on-special-assignment" was provided additional funding to provide additional support, and teachers also received technical support from a staff member during classroom instruction (pp. 291-292).
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).
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