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Effectiveness
Findings
The WWC review of interventions for beginning reading addresses student outcomes in four domains: alphabetics, fluency, comprehension, and general reading achievement. 1 The study included here covers three domains: alphabetics, fluency, and comprehension. Within the alphabetics domain, the study reported on one construct: phonics.
Alphabetics. Torgesen et al. (2006) examined four outcomes under the phonics construct of the alphabetics domain (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test–Revised (WRMT–R) word identification and word attack subtests and the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) phonetic decoding efficiency and sight word efficiency subtest). The authors reported statistically significant positive effects of Corrective Reading on two of these outcomes (WRMT–R word identification subtest and TOWRE sight word efficiency subtest). The statistical significance of these findings was confirmed by the WWC. The average effect size across the four outcomes was neither statistically significant nor large enough to be considered substantively important (that is, an effect size greater than 0.25).
Fluency. Torgesen et al. (2006) examined one outcome in this domain (the Oral Reading Fluency test) and reported statistically significant positive effects on this outcome. The WWC analysis confirmed the statistical significance of the finding.
Comprehension. Torgesen et al. (2006) examined two outcomes in this domain (WRMT–R passage comprehension subtest and the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) passage comprehension subtest) and reported no statistically significant effects. The average effect size across the two outcomes was neither statistically significant nor large enough to be considered substantively important according to WWC criteria.
Rating of effectiveness
The WWC rates the effects of an intervention in a given outcome domain as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings,2 the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).
2 The level of statistical significance was reported by the study authors or, where necessary, calculated by the WWC to correct for clustering within classrooms or schools and for multiple comparisons. For an explanation, see the WWC Tutorial on Mismatch. See the Technical Details of WWC-Conducted Computations for the formulas the WWC used to calculate the statistical significance. In the case of Corrective Reading, no corrections for clustering or multiple comparisons were needed.
