Breakthrough to Literacy
A literacy curriculum for preschool through third grade that introduces students to a book-a-week throughout the year. Students gain exposure to the book-of-the week through multiple formats. They receive a Big Book, a Take-Me-Home Book, an audio book, and a computerized version. The book-of-the-week serves as the basis of classroom and independent learning activities for that week. Classroom activities that focus on the book include: (1) teacher-led whole group instruction, (2) teacher-led small group instruction, and (3) independent learning activities including individualized computer instruction that allows students to progress at their own pace. Activities for preschoolers are designed to teach oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and concepts of print. Breakthrough to Literacy also includes professional development activities for teachers that are designed to help incorporate the Breakthrough to Literacy curriculum into their day-to-day activities and improve their classroom management skills.
Reviewed Research
Beginning Reading
As of July 2007, no studies of Breakthrough to Literacy were found that fell within the scope of the Beginning Reading review protocol and met WWC evidence standards. Therefore, the WWC is unable to draw any research based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Breakthrough to Literacy to improve outcomes in this area.
Early Childhood Education
As of August 2008, no studies of Breakthrough to Literacy were found that fell within the scope of the Early Childhood Education review protocol and met WWC evidence standards. Therefore, the WWC is unable to draw any research based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Breakthrough to Literacy to improve outcomes in this area.
A group of closely related outcomes.
A summary of the effectiveness of an intervention in an outcome domain, based on the quality of research, the statistical significance of findings, the magnitude of findings, and the consistency of findings across studies.
 Positive: strong evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Positive: evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Mixed: evidence that intervention’s effect on outcomes is inconsistent. |
 No Discernible: no evidence that intervention had an effect on outcomes. |
 Potentially Negative: evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence. |
 Negative: strong evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes. |
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for rating of effectiveness.
The number of studies that met WWC design standards and provide evidence of effectiveness. Selecting an item below will display all studies that met WWC design studies in the domain. Selecting a study citation will take you to more information on that study and its findings.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for study rating.
Grades of the students examined in the studies that met WWC design standards, which may not reflect the full range of grades for which the intervention may be used.
The number of students included in the studies that met WWC design standards.
The sample size for the studies that met WWC design standards.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
The indicator represents the highest level of similarity found between your students and each of the high-quality studies of the intervention. Three filled in ovals indicates that at least one study that met standards was conducted on students very similar to yours. Clicking on the indicator for a study will provide information on the similarity for each of the characteristics you selected.