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Overview1
Waterford Early Reading Program™ is a software-based curriculum for students in Kindergarten through second grade. The curriculum is designed to promote reading, writing, and typing, incorporating literacy skills such as letter mastery, language stories, spelling, basic writing skills, reading and listening development, and comprehension strategies. It can be used as a supplement to the regular reading curriculum. Program materials include classroom lessons and take-home materials in addition to the Waterford software. Waterford Early Reading Program™ offers pretest placement and posttest assessments, in addition to ongoing assessments throughout the program.
Research
One study of Waterford Early Reading Program™ met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards with reservations. The single study included more than 70 Kindergarten students from six schools in Ohio. 2 The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Waterford Early Reading Program™ to be small for alphabetics and for comprehension. No studies that met WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed fluency or general reading achievement.
Effectiveness
Waterford Early Reading Program™ was found to have potentially positive effects on alphabetics and no discernible effects on comprehension.
| Alphabetics | Fluency | Comprehension | General reading achievement | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating of effectiveness | Potentially positive effects | na | No discernible effects | na |
| Improvement index3 | Average: +19 percentile points Range: –26 to +37 percentile points |
na | Average: +4 percentile points | na |
| na = not applicable | ||||
2 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research. Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available.
3 These numbers show the average and range of student-level improvement indices for all findings across the study.