Research

Two studies reviewed by the WWC investigated the effects of the Little Books program. One study (Phillips, Norris, Mason, & Kerr, 1990) was a randomized controlled trial that met WWC evidence standards. The other did not meet evidence screens for the Beginning Reading topic.

Met evidence standards

Phillips et al. (1990) included 325 kindergartners in 12 schools and presented final results for 314 students. The schools were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: those that used Little Books at home only, used Little Books at home and school, used Little Books at school only, or did not use Little Books but continued using the prescribed language development program (comparison group). Schools were distributed across three types of geographic areas: rural (drawing students from one small community), rural collector (drawing students from a number of small communities), and small urban communities. ³

Extent of Evidence

The WWC categorizes the extent of evidence in each domain as small or medium to large (see the What Works Clearinghouse Extent of Evidence Categorization Scheme). The extent of evidence takes into account the number of studies and the total sample size across the studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations. ⁴

The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Little Books to be small for general reading achievement.