Technical Assistance to Local Impact Evaluations of Striving Readers Projects
Contract Information
Current Status:
This study has been completed.
Duration:
August 2006 – October 2015
Cost:
$2,252,318
Contract Number:
ED-IES-10-O-0006
Contractor(s):
Abt Associates
Dillon-Goodson Research Associates
Contact:
Reports
Striving Readers was a discretionary grant program authorized as part of the Fiscal Year 2005 Appropriations Act under the Title I demonstration authority (Part E, Section 1502 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act). The program was focused on raising reading achievement of middle school and high school students through intensive interventions for struggling readers and enhancing the quality of literacy instruction across the curriculum. The program provided over $150 million to fund two cohorts of grantees, one in Fiscal Year 2006 (eight grantees) and one in Fiscal Year 2009 (eight grantees).
Grantees were required to implement intensive interventions targeted towards struggling readers. Because the program aimed to build a strong, scientific research base around reading strategies that improve adolescent literacy skills, grantees were required to use independent researchers to conduct rigorous evaluations of their targeted intervention that used experimental designs. The Fiscal Year 2006 grantees were also required to implement school-wide literacy-across-the-curriculum interventions, and to conduct evaluations of the school-wide interventions using experimental or quasi-experimental designs.
The primary purpose of this study was to provide technical assistance to both cohorts of grantees and their evaluation partners to strengthen their experimental evaluation designs and successfully implement those designs. In addition, this study developed annual cross-site tables and project profiles that summarized the key features of the interventions tested, and the designs and findings of the evaluations. These tables and project profiles were synthesized to help describe how findings from the evaluations funded by Striving Readers expanded the evidence base on effective reading interventions for adolescents.
- To what extent did intensive, targeted interventions improve reading proficiency among struggling adolescent readers?
- To what extent were the intensive, targeted interventions implemented with fidelity?
- To what extent did school-wide literacy-throughout-the-curriculum interventions improve reading proficiency among secondary students?
- To what extent were the school-wide literacy-throughout-the-curriculum interventions implemented with fidelity?
- What did the evaluations funded by the Striving Readers program tell us about effective interventions for improving the achievement of struggling adolescent readers?
This study primarily involved providing technical assistance to local independent evaluators. This was conducted through monthly phone calls and annual conferences of evaluators. Information was also gathered from the local evaluators and synthesized in cross-site tables and project profiles that were updated annually. The study also included a systematic review of 17 evaluations of the 10 different interventions funded by the Striving Readers grant program. To determine the extent to which these evaluations contribute to the evidence base, all 17 evaluations were reviewed against What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards.
A report, titled Summary of Research Generated by Striving Readers on the Effectiveness of Interventions for Struggling Adolescent Readers, was released in October 2015.
Additional information on the studies of individual Striving Readers projects from the Fiscal Year 2006 and Fiscal Year 2009 cohorts can be found at https://www2.ed.gov/programs/strivingreaders/performance.html.
- Fifteen of the 17 independent evaluations of the interventions funded by the Striving Readers grant program met What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards with or without reservations. In other words, we can have a high degree of confidence in the findings that these studies produced. The individual evaluations can be found in the WWC database of reviewed studies at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reviewedstudies.aspx.
- Based on findings from the 15 studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations, four of the ten interventions funded by the Striving Readers grant program had positive, potentially positive, or mixed effects on reading achievement.
- The Striving Readers studies not only expanded the evidence base on effective reading interventions for adolescents, but also increased the number of high-quality effectiveness studies reviewed by the WWC on this topic. Three of the four interventions that had positive, potentially positive, or mixed effects on reading achievement had not previously been reviewed by the WWC.