Evaluation of Reading Comprehension Programs

Contractors: Mathematica Policy Research, RG Research Group, and RMC Research Corp.

Background/Research Questions:

The Title I, Part A program is intended to help ensure that all children have the opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach proficiency on challenging state standards and assessments. As the largest federal program supporting elementary and secondary education (funded at $13.9 billion in FY 2008), these resources are targeted primarily to high-poverty districts and schools.

There are increasing cognitive demands on students' knowledge when they begin reading to learn rather than learning to read. There are multiple techniques for direct instruction of comprehension skills in narrative text that are well-demonstrated in small studies. However, there is not much research on teaching reading comprehension within content areas such as social studies or science. The study is examining:

• Can reading comprehension programs improve student reading achievement in either social studies or science?
• What are the most effective reading comprehension programs for improving student reading achievement in either social studies or science?
• Under what conditions and practices do reading comprehension interventions improve student achievement in reading in either social studies or science?

Design:

The evaluation questions are being addressed by an experimental design in which 89 schools within ten districts were randomly assigned to one of four competitively-selected reading comprehension programs or to a control group using the usual school reading program. The reading comprehension curricula being evaluated were competitively selected, and are appropriate for funding under Title I. Four programs were implemented in 5th grade classrooms during the 2006–07 school year: ReadAbout (Scholastic), Reading for Knowledge (Success for All), Project CRISS, and Read for Real (Zane-Bloser). For the 2007–08 school year, the study will evaluate teachers' second year of implementing three of the programs: ReadAbout, Project CRISS, and Read for Real.

Duration: 5 years (September 4, 2004 – September 4, 2009)

Current Status: A report on the 2006–07 school year was submitted to IES peer review in September 2008.