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Stepping Stones to Literacy (SSL) is a supplemental curriculum designed to promote listening, print conventions, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and serial processing/rapid naming (quickly naming familiar visual symbols and stimuli such as letters or colors). The program targets kindergarten and older preschool students considered to be underachieving readers, based on teacher's recommendations, assessments, and systematic screening. Students participate in 10- to 20-minute daily lessons in a small group or individually. The curriculum consists of 25 lessons, for a total of 9–15 hours of instructional time.
Two studies of Stepping Stones to Literacy met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. The two studies included 120 kindergarten students in 17 elementary schools in the Midwest. 2 The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Stepping Stones to Literacy to be small for alphabetics. No studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed fluency, comprehension, or general reading achievement.
Stepping Stones to Literacy was found to have positive effects on student outcomes in the alphabetics domain.
| Alphabetics | Fluency | Comprehension | General reading achievement | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating of effectiveness | Positive | na | na | na |
| Improvement index3 | Average: +30 percentile points Range: +14 to +40 percentile points |
na | na | na |
| na = not applicable | ||||
|Institute of Education Sciences
