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This practice guide provides four evidence-based recommendations that teachers can use to deliver reading interventions to meet the needs of their students.

This practice guide provides four recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Each recommendation includes implementation steps and solutions for common obstacles. The recommendations also summarize and rate supporting evidence. This guide is geared towards teachers, administrators, and other educators who want to improve their students’ foundational reading skills, and is a companion to the practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.

This practice guide provides four recommendations that address what works for English learners during reading and content area instruction. Each recommendation includes extensive examples of activities that can be used to support students as they build the language and literacy skills needed to be successful in school. The recommendations also summarize and rate supporting evidence. This guide is geared toward teachers, administrators, and other educators who want to improve instruction in academic content and literacy for English learners in elementary and middle school.

Students who read with understanding at an early age gain access to a broader range of texts, knowledge, and educational opportunities, making early reading comprehension instruction particularly critical. This guide recommends five specific steps that teachers, reading coaches, and principals can take to successfully improve reading comprehension for young readers.

This guide offers five specific recommendations to help educators identify struggling readers and implement evidence-based strategies to promote their reading achievement.

This guide presents strategies that classroom teachers and specialists can use to increase the reading ability of adolescent students.

Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) is a short-term, supplementary, small-group literacy intervention designed to help struggling readers achieve grade-level competency. The intervention provides explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, oral language skills, and writing. LLI helps teachers match students with texts of progressing difficulty and deliver systematic lessons targeted to a student’s reading ability.

Success for All (SFA®) is a whole-school reform model (that is, a model that integrates curriculum, school culture, family, and community supports) for students in prekindergarten through grade 8. SFA® includes a literacy program, quarterly assessments of student learning, a social-emotional development program, computer-assisted tutoring tools, family support teams for students’ parents, a facilitator who works with school personnel, and extensive training for all intervention teachers. The literacy program emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for all students. Teachers provide reading instruction to students grouped by reading ability for 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week. In addition, certified teachers or paraprofessionals provide daily tutoring to students who have difficulty reading at the same level as their classmates.

Reading Recovery® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims to improve student reading and writing skills by providing one-on-one tutoring, tailoring the content of each lesson to each student based on observations and analyses of the student strengths and weaknesses from prior lessons. Trained Reading Recovery® teachers deliver tutoring daily in 30-minute one-on-one sessions over the course of 12 to 20 weeks. Reading Recovery® teachers incorporate instruction in topics such as phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, writing, oral language, and motivation depending on student needs.

Reading Apprenticeship® is a professional development program that aims to help teachers improve their students’ literacy skills. The program also aims to improve student social-emotional learning outcomes such as belonging, social awareness, growth mindset, and self-efficacy. Reading Apprenticeship® trains teachers to model reading comprehension strategies and help students practice these strategies in their classrooms.

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition^® (CIRC^®) is a comprehensive reading and writing program for students in grades 2–8. It includes story-related activities, direct instruction in reading comprehension, and integrated reading and language arts activities. Pairs of students (grouped either by or across ability levels) read to each other, predict how stories will end, summarize stories, write responses, and practice spelling, decoding, and vocabulary. Within cooperative teams of four, students work to understand the main idea of a story and work through the writing process. The CIRC^® process includes teacher instruction, team practice, peer assessment, and team/partner recognition. A Spanish version of the program was also designed for grades 2–5.

Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies is a peer-tutoring program for grades K–6 that aims to improve student proficiency in several disciplines. During the 30-35 minute peer-tutoring sessions, students take turns acting at the tutor, coaching and correcting one another as they work through problems. The designation of tutoring pairs and skill assignment is based on teacher judgement of student needs and abilities, and teachers reassign tutoring pairs regularly.  

The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing® (LiPS®) program (formerly called the Auditory Discrimination in Depth® [ADD] program) is designed to teach students the skills they need to decode words and to identify individual sounds and blends in words. LiPS® is designed for emergent readers in kindergarten through grade 3 or for struggling, dyslexic readers. The program is individualized to meet students’ needs and is often used with students who have learning disabilities or difficulties. Initial activities engage students in discovering the lip, tongue, and mouth actions needed to produce specific sounds. After students are able to produce, label, and organize the sounds with their mouths, subsequent activities in sequencing, reading, and spelling use the oral aspects of sounds to identify and order them within words. The program also offers direct instruction in letter patterns, sight words, and context clues in reading.

Open Court Reading© is a reading program for grades K–6 that is designed to teach decoding, comprehension, inquiry, and writing in a three-part progression. Part One of each unit, Preparing to Read, focuses on phonemic awareness, sounds and letters, phonics, fluency, and word knowledge. Part Two, Reading and Responding, emphasizes reading literature for understanding, comprehension, inquiry, and practical reading applications. Part Three, Language Arts, focuses on writing, spelling, grammar, usage, mechanics, and basic computer skills.

Repeated reading is an academic practice that aims to increase oral reading fluency. Repeated reading can be used with students who have developed initial word reading skills but demonstrate inadequate reading fluency for their grade level. During repeated reading, a student sits in a quiet location with a teacher and reads a passage aloud at least three times. Typically, the teacher selects a passage of about 50 to 200 words in length. If the student misreads a word or hesitates for longer than 5 seconds, the teacher reads the word aloud, and the student repeats the word correctly. If the student requests help with a word, the teacher reads the word aloud or provides the definition. The student rereads the passage until he or she achieves a satisfactory fluency level.

Read Naturally is an elementary and middle school supplemental reading program designed to improve reading fluency using a combination of books, audiotapes, and computer software. The program has three main strategies: repeated reading of text for developing oral reading fluency, teacher modeling of story reading, and systematic monitoring of student progress by teachers and the students themselves. Students work at a reading level appropriate for their achievement level, progress through the program at their own rate, and, for the most part, work on an independent basis. Read Naturally® can be used in a variety of settings, including classrooms, resource rooms, or computer or reading labs. Although the program was not originally developed for English language learners, additional materials for these students are currently available.

Reading Recovery® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims to improve student reading and writing skills by providing one-on-one tutoring, tailoring the content of each lesson to each student based on observations and analyses of the student strengths and weaknesses from prior lessons. Trained Reading Recovery® teachers deliver tutoring daily in 30-minute one-on-one sessions over the course of 12 to 20 weeks. Reading Recovery® teachers incorporate instruction in topics such as phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, writing, oral language, and motivation depending on student needs.

Reading Plus® is a web-based reading intervention that uses technology to provide individualized scaffolded silent reading practice for students in grades 3 and higher. Reading Plus® aims to develop and improve students’ silent reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Reading Plus® is designed to adjust the difficulty of the content and duration of reading activities so that students proceed at a pace that corresponds to their reading skill level. The intervention includes differentiated reading activities, computer-based reading assessments, tools to monitor student progress, ongoing implementation support, and supplemental offline activities.

Sound Partners is a phonics-based tutoring program that provides supplemental reading instruction to elementary school students grades K–3 with below-average reading skills. The program is designed for use by tutors with minimal training and experience. Instruction emphasizes letter–sound correspondences, phoneme blending, decoding and encoding phonetically regular words, and reading irregular high-frequency words. It includes oral reading to practice applying phonics skills in text. The program consists of a set of scripted lessons in alphabetic and phonics skills and uses Bob Books beginning reading series as one of the primary texts for oral reading practice. The tutoring can be provided as a pull-out or after-school program or by parents who homeschool their children.

Reading Mastery is designed to provide systematic reading instruction to students in grades K–6. Reading Mastery can be used as an intervention program for struggling readers, as a supplement to a school’s core reading program, or as a stand-alone reading program, and is available in three versions. During the implementation of Reading Mastery, students are grouped with other students at a similar reading level, based on program placement tests. The program includes a continuous monitoring component.

Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition^® (CIRC^®) is a comprehensive reading and writing program for students in grades 2–8. It includes story-related activities, direct instruction in reading comprehension, and integrated reading and language arts activities. Pairs of students (grouped either by or across ability levels) read to each other, predict how stories will end, summarize stories, write responses, and practice spelling, decoding, and vocabulary. Within cooperative teams of four, students work to understand the main idea of a story and work through the writing process. The CIRC^® process includes teacher instruction, team practice, peer assessment, and team/partner recognition. A Spanish version of the program was also designed for grades 2–5.

Reading Apprenticeship® is a professional development program that aims to help teachers improve their students’ literacy skills. The program also aims to improve student social-emotional learning outcomes such as belonging, social awareness, growth mindset, and self-efficacy. Reading Apprenticeship® trains teachers to model reading comprehension strategies and help students practice these strategies in their classrooms.

Dialogic Reading is an interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children’s language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult, who functions as an active listener and questioner.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Lexia Reading is a computerized reading program that provides phonics instruction and gives students independent practice in basic reading skills. Lexia Reading is designed to supplement regular classroom instruction and to support skill development in the five areas of reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel.

Earobics® is an interactive software that provides students in prekindergarten through grade 3 with individual, systematic instruction in early literacy skills as students interact with animated characters. Earobics® Foundations is the version for prekindergaten, kindergarten, and grade 1. Earobics® Connections is for grades 2 and 3 and older struggling readers. The program builds students’ skills in phonemic awareness, auditory processing, and phonics, as well as the cognitive and language skills required for comprehension. Each level of instruction addresses recognizing and blending sounds, rhyming, and discriminating phonemes within words, adjusting to each student’s ability level. The software is supported by music, audiocassettes, and videotapes, and includes picture/word cards, letter–sound decks, big books, little books, and leveled readers for reading independently or in groups.

Early Intervention in Reading (EIR)® is a program designed to provide extra instruction to groups of students at risk of failing to learn to read. The program uses picture books to stress instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and contextual analysis, along with repeated reading and writing. In grades K–2, the program includes whole-class instruction followed by small-group instruction for students who score low on oral reading and literacy skills. In grades 3 and 4, the program consists of small group instruction for 20 minutes, 4 days a week. Teachers are trained for 9 months using workshops and an Internet-based professional development program.

Ladders to Literacy is a supplemental early literacy curriculum published in Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten Activity Book. The program targets children at different levels and from diverse cultural backgrounds. The activities are organized into three sections with about 20 activities each: print awareness, phonological awareness skills, and oral language skills.

The Voyager Universal Literacy System® is a core reading program designed to help students learn to read at or above grade level by the end of grade 3. This program uses strategies such as individual reading instruction, higher-level comprehension activities, problem solving, and writing. Students are also exposed to computer-based practice and reinforcement in phonological skills, comprehension, fluency, language development, and writing. The program uses whole classroom, small group, and independent group settings. Voyager Universal Literacy System® emphasizes regular assessments, with biweekly reviews for struggling students and quarterly assessments for all students.

Waterford Early Reading Program™ is a software-based curriculum for students in kindergarten through grade 2. 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.

SpellRead™ (formerly known as SpellRead Phonological Auditory Training®) is a literacy program for struggling readers in grade 2 or above, including special education students, English language learners, and students more than 2 years below grade level in reading. SpellRead integrates the auditory and visual aspects of the reading process and emphasizes specific skill mastery through systematic and explicit instruction. Students are taught to recognize and manipulate English sounds; to practice, apply, and transfer their skills using texts at their reading level; and to write about their reading.

Corrective Reading is designed to promote reading accuracy (decoding), fluency, and comprehension skills of students in grade 3 or higher who are reading below their grade level. The program has four levels that correspond to students’ decoding skills. All lessons in the program are sequenced and scripted. Corrective Reading can be implemented in small groups of 4–5 students or in a whole-class format. Corrective Reading is intended to be taught in 45-minute lessons 4–5 times a week.

Failure Free Reading is a language development program designed to improve vocabulary, fluency, word recognition, and reading comprehension for students in kindergarten through grade 12 who score in the bottom 15% on standardized tests and who have not responded to conventional beginning reading instruction. The three key dimensions of the program are: 1) repeated exposure to text, 2) predictable sentence structures, and 3) story concepts that require minimal prior knowledge. The program combines systematic, scripted teacher instruction; talking software; workbook exercises; and independent reading activities.

The Wilson Reading System® is a reading and writing program. It provides a curriculum for teaching reading and spelling to individuals of any age who have difficulty with written language. The Wilson Reading System® directly teaches the structure of words in the English language, aiming to help students learn the coding system for reading and spelling. The program provides interactive lesson plans and uses a sequential system with extensive controlled text. The Wilson Reading System® is structured to progress from phoneme segmentation to more challenging tasks, and seeks to improve sight word knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, oral expressive language development, and reading comprehension.

Waterford Early Reading Level One™ is an emergent literacy curriculum that uses computer-based technology to prepare children for reading. It begins with a tutorial to familiarize the child with the computer and mouse and a reading placement evaluation to assess and determine whether a child should work on Level One objectives: capital letters, lowercase letters, or beginning decoding skills. The computerized instruction is supplemented by activities for phonological and phonemic awareness, letter recognition, knowledge of story and print concepts, and general readiness skills.

ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) is a peer-assisted instructional strategy designed to be integrated with most existing reading curricula. This approach provides students with increased opportunities to practice reading skills by asking questions and receiving immediate feedback from a peer tutor. Pairs of students take turns tutoring each other to reinforce concepts and skills initially taught by the teacher. The teacher creates age-appropriate peer teaching materials for the peer tutors; these materials take into account tutees’ language skills and disabilities.

Start Making a Reader Today® (SMART®) is a volunteer tutoring program for students in grades K–2 who are at risk of reading failure. The program is designed to be a low-cost, easy-to-implement intervention. Volunteer tutors go into schools where at least 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and read one-on-one with students twice a week for 30 minutes. Typically, one volunteer works with two students on four types of activities: reading to the student, reading with the student, re-reading with the student, and asking the student questions about what has been read. The program also gives each student two new books a month to encourage families to read together.

Fluency Formula™ is a supplemental curriculum designed to promote reading fluency in grades 1–6. The program emphasizes automatic recognition of words, decoding accuracy, and oral expressiveness as the foundations for building reading fluency. A daily 10- to 15-minute lesson is delivered in the classroom. Students participate in whole-class, small-group, and individual practice activities using workbooks, read-aloud anthologies, library books, fluency activity cards, and audio CDs. The curriculum encourages at-home practice and includes a Fluency Formula™ Assessment System, which allows teachers to assess student fluency using 1-minute grade-level passages and a timer.

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 older preschool and kindergarten students who are 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.

Read, Write & Type!™ Learning System is a software program with supporting materials designed to teach beginning reading skills by emphasizing writing as a way to learn to read. The program was developed for students ages 6–9 years who are just beginning to read, and for students who are struggling readers and writers. The main goal of Read, Write & Type!™ is to help students develop an awareness of the 40 English phonemes and the ability to associate each phoneme with a letter or a combination of letters and a finger stroke on the keyboard. Other goals of the program include identifying phonemes in words; and fluency in sounding out, typing, and reading regularly spelled words.

The Little Books are a set of books designed for interactive book reading between parents and children or between teachers and students. The books use thematic topics familiar to children. They are written with high-frequency words and use simple phrases and sentences. The books also have strong links between illustrations and text.

Dialogic Reading is an interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children’s language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult, who functions as an active listener and questioner.

The Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC) program, an adaptation of the Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) program, was designed to help Spanish-speaking students succeed in reading Spanish and then making a successful transition to English reading. In the adaptation, students complete tasks that focus on reading, writing, and language activities in Spanish and English, while working in small cooperative learning groups. The intervention focuses on students in grades 2–5.

The Vocabulary Improvement Program for English Language Learners and Their Classmates (VIP) is a vocabulary development curriculum for English language learners and native English speakers in grades 4–6. The 15-week program includes 30–45 minute whole class and small group activities that aim to increase students’ understanding of target vocabulary words included in a weekly reading assignment.

Reading Mastery is designed to provide systematic reading instruction to students in grades K–6. Reading Mastery can be used as an intervention program for struggling readers, as a supplement to a school’s core reading program, or as a stand-alone reading program, and is available in three versions. During the implementation of Reading Mastery, students are grouped with other students at a similar reading level, based on program placement tests. The program includes a continuous monitoring component.

DaisyQuest is a software bundle that offers computer-assisted instruction in phonological awareness, targeting children 3–7 years old (or preschool to grade 2). The instructional activities, framed in a fairy tale involving a search for a friendly dragon named Daisy, teach children how to recognize words that rhyme; words that have the same beginning, middle, and ending sounds; and words that can be formed from a series of phonemes presented separately. Activities also teach children how to count the number of sounds in words.

Enhanced Proactive Reading, a comprehensive, integrated reading, language arts, and English language development curriculum, is targeted to first-grade English learners experiencing problems with learning to read through conventional instruction. The curriculum is implemented as small group daily reading instruction, during which instructors provide opportunities for participation from all students and give feedback on student responses.

Xtreme Reading is a supplemental literacy curriculum designed to improve the literacy skills of struggling students in grades 6 to 12. The curriculum is primarily designed to help students improve their vocabulary, decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension skills. To ensure a productive learning environment, students initially learn social skills associated with creating a supportive learning community, including how to participate in certain class activities (for example, whole-group discussion, small-group work, partner work, transitions). They also participate in a motivational program whereby they discuss their hopes and dreams for the future and set personal goals related to reading and other life areas. The Xtreme Reading program includes teacher-led whole-group instruction, cooperative group work, paired practice, and independent practice.

Passport Reading Journeys is a supplemental literacy curriculum designed to help improve reading comprehension, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills of struggling readers in grades 6–12. Lessons incorporate both teacher-led instruction and technology, including whole-class and small-group instruction, independent reading, video segments, and independent computer-based practice. The curriculum includes a series of two-week, ten-lesson instructional sequences on topics in science, math, fine art, literature, and social studies. Each sequence is themed as an expedition or journey for students.

Achieve3000® is a supplemental online literacy program that provides nonfiction reading content to students in grades preK–12 and focuses on building phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills. Achieve3000® is designed to help students advance their nonfiction reading skills by providing differentiated online instruction. Teachers use the program with an entire class but the assignments are tailored to each student’s reading ability level. For example, teachers assign an article and related activities to an entire class; the program then tailors the version of the article to each student by automatically increasing the difficulty of text when a student is ready for more challenging text. Achieve3000® provides lessons that follow a five-step routine: (1) respond to a Before Reading Poll, (2) read an article, (3) answer activity questions, (4) respond to an After Reading Poll, and (5) answer a Thought Question. Progress reports and student usage data, provided by the online tool, enable teachers to track both whole-class and individual student progress. The program is designed for diverse student groups, including general education students, struggling readers in need of intensive tutoring, and English learners.

Accelerated Reader™ is a computerized supplementary reading program that provides guided reading instruction to students in grades K–12. It aims to improve students’ reading skills through reading practice and by providing frequent feedback on students’ progress to teachers. The Accelerated Reader™ program requires students to select and read a book based on their area of interest and reading level. Upon completion of a book, students take a computerized quiz based on the book’s content and vocabulary. Quiz performance allows teachers to monitor student progress and to identify students who may need additional reading assistance.

Shared Book Reading encompasses practices that adults can use when reading with young children to enhance language and literacy skills. During shared book reading, an adult reads a book to an individual child or to a group of children and uses one or more planned or structured interactive techniques to actively engage the children in the text. The adult may direct the children’s attention to illustrations, print, or word meanings. The adult may engage children in discussions focused on understanding the meaning or sequence of events in a story or on understanding an expository passage. Adults may ask children questions, give explanations, and draw connections between events in the text and those in the children’s own lives as a way of expanding on the text and scaffolding children’s learning experiences to support language development, emergent reading, and comprehension. Importantly, the adult engages in one or more interactive techniques to draw attention to aspects of the text being read.

A reading program for instruction in grades K–6. It uses Big Books (authentic literature), anthologies, Read Alouds, and audio compact discs to provide step-by-step instruction in reading. According to the developer’s website, Houghton Mifflin Reading© was developed based on the findings of the National Reading Panel. The product is designed to be used as a full-year curriculum program with instruction on developing oral language and comprehension, phonemic awareness, decoding skills (phonics, analogy, context, and word recognition), fluency, reading comprehension, writing, spelling, and grammar. Instruction is organized by a set of themes (10 for grades K–1 and 6 for grades 2–6) with selected Big Books (fiction and non-fiction literature) and other classroom activities to highlight the theme.

Academy of READING® is an online program, originally developed by AutoSkill International, that aims to improve students’ reading skills using a structured and sequential approach to learning. The program breaks the task of reading into manageable pieces and provides multiple opportunities for practice in five core areas—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The Carbo Reading Styles Program® is a literacy intervention for students in grades K–12 that aims to meet the individual needs of learners through assessment and tailoring of the instruction to students’ particular reading learning styles. 

Reading Mastery is designed to provide systematic reading instruction to students in grades K–6. Reading Mastery can be used as an intervention program for struggling readers, as a supplement to a school’s core reading program, or as a stand-alone reading program, and is available in three versions. During the implementation of Reading Mastery, students are grouped with other students at a similar reading level, based on program placement tests. The program includes a continuous monitoring component.

Fast ForWord® is a computer-based reading program intended to help students develop and strengthen the cognitive skills necessary for successful reading and learning. The program, which is designed to be used 30 to 100 minutes a day, five days a week, for 4 to 16 weeks, includes two components.

Words Their Way™ is an approach to phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction for students in kindergarten through high school. The program can be implemented as a core or supplemental curriculum and aims to provide a practical way to study words with students. The purpose of word study (which involves examining, manipulating, comparing, and categorizing words) is to reveal logic and consistencies within written language and to help students achieve mastery in recognizing, spelling, and defining specific words.

The Spalding Method® is a language arts program for grades K–6 that uses explicit, integrated instruction and multisensory techniques to teach spelling, writing, and reading. The program and its textbook, The Writing Road to Reading, provide 32 weeks of lesson plans. Students work on program materials in spelling, writing, and reading for 90–120 minutes every day.

Open Court Reading© is a reading program for grades K–6 that is designed to teach decoding, comprehension, inquiry, and writing in a three-part progression. Part One of each unit, Preparing to Read, focuses on phonemic awareness, sounds and letters, phonics, fluency, and word knowledge. Part Two, Reading and Responding, emphasizes reading literature for understanding, comprehension, inquiry, and practical reading applications. Part Three, Language Arts, focuses on writing, spelling, grammar, usage, mechanics, and basic computer skills.

Reading Mastery is designed to provide systematic reading instruction to students in grades K–6. Reading Mastery can be used as an intervention program for struggling readers, as a supplement to a school’s core reading program, or as a stand-alone reading program, and is available in three versions. During the implementation of Reading Mastery, students are grouped with other students at a similar reading level, based on program placement tests. The program includes a continuous monitoring component.

Reading Edge is a middle school literacy program that emphasizes cooperative learning, goal setting, feedback, classroom management techniques, and the use of metacognitive strategy, whereby students assess their own skills and learn to apply new ones. The program is a component of the Success for All (SFA)^® whole-school reform model and provides eight levels of instruction, from beginning through eighth-grade reading levels. Students are grouped into classes based on ability, and whole-class reading instruction is delivered in daily 60-minute blocks. Instruction at the early levels uses fiction, nonfiction, and simple scripts to help students develop basic decoding skills, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. At reading level 3 and higher, students focus on developing comprehension strategies using both narrative and expository texts. All levels focus on building background knowledge and developing study skills. Although the program is often implemented in the context of the SFA^® whole-school reform, this report focuses on Reading Edge as a stand-alone program in grades 4 and higher.

Odyssey Reading, published by CompassLearning®, is a web-based K–12 reading/language arts program designed to allow for instructional differentiation and data-driven decision making. The online program includes electronic curricula and materials for individual or small-group work, assessments aligned with state curriculum standards, and a data management system that allows teachers to develop individualized instruction and assessment tools to track individual student and classroom performance.

Student team reading and writing refers to two cooperative learning programs for secondary students: (1) Student Team Reading and Writing and (2) Student Team Reading. The Student Team Reading and Writing program is an integrated approach to reading and language arts for early adolescents. Student Team Reading comprises the reading part of Student Team Reading and Writing and consists of two principal elements: (1) literature-related activities (including partner reading, treasure hunts, word mastery, story retelling, story-related writing, and quizzes) and (2) direct instruction in reading comprehension strategies (such as identifying main ideas and themes, drawing conclusions, making predictions, and understanding figurative language).

Repeated reading is an academic practice that aims to increase oral reading fluency. Repeated reading can be used with students who have developed initial word reading skills but demonstrate inadequate reading fluency for their grade level. During repeated reading, a student sits in a quiet location with a teacher and reads a passage aloud at least three times. Typically, the teacher selects a passage of about 50 to 200 words in length. If the student misreads a word or hesitates for longer than 5 seconds, the teacher reads the word aloud, and the student repeats the word correctly. If the student requests help with a word, the teacher reads the word aloud or provides the definition. The student rereads the passage until he or she achieves a satisfactory fluency level.

Corrective Reading is designed to promote reading accuracy (decoding), fluency, and comprehension skills of students in grade 3 or higher who are reading below their grade level. The program has four levels that correspond to students’ decoding skills. All lessons in the program are sequenced and scripted. Corrective Reading can be implemented in small groups of 4–5 students or in a whole-class format. Corrective Reading is intended to be taught in 45-minute lessons 4–5 times a week.

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction is a reading comprehension instructional program for grades 3–9 that integrates reading and science through activities and the use of science books during reading instruction. The program supplements a school’s standard science and reading curricula and offers instruction in reading strategies, scientific concepts, and inquiry skills. Concept- Oriented Reading Instruction intends to improve reading comprehension and increase reading engagement.

The Barton Reading & Spelling System® is a one-to-one tutoring system designed to improve the reading, writing, and spelling skills of children, teenagers, or adults who struggle due to dyslexia or another learning disability. Although the program is designed to be one-to-one, it may also be used in a small group setting, but each level will take longer to complete. The program is divided into ten levels, each with 10 to 15 lessons that cover the methodsand sequence of teaching reading, spelling, and writing.

The Wilson Reading System® is a reading and writing program. It provides a curriculum for teaching reading and spelling to individuals of any age who have difficulty with written language. The Wilson Reading System® directly teaches the structure of words in the English language, aiming to help students learn the coding system for reading and spelling. The program provides interactive lesson plans and uses a sequential system with extensive controlled text. The Wilson Reading System® is structured to progress from phoneme segmentation to more challenging tasks, and seeks to improve sight word knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, oral expressive language development, and reading comprehension.

Reading Recovery® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims to improve student reading and writing skills by providing one-on-one tutoring, tailoring the content of each lesson to each student based on observations and analyses of the student strengths and weaknesses from prior lessons. Trained Reading Recovery® teachers deliver tutoring daily in 30-minute one-on-one sessions over the course of 12 to 20 weeks. Reading Recovery® teachers incorporate instruction in topics such as phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, writing, oral language, and motivation depending on student needs.

Developed by the Houghton Mifflin Company, an integrated K–82 reading and language arts program. The philosophy behind the program is that literacy instruction should stimulate, teach, and extend the communication and thinking skills that will allow students to become effective readers, writers, communicators, and lifelong learners. The program is structured around themes. It includes hands-on activities that allow students to collaborate or share information on a theme-related project with other classrooms around the world (for example, participating in a collaborative poem-writing exercise) and virtual field trips to Internet sites that have content, activities, and projects related to the theme.

The Barton Reading & Spelling System® is a one-to-one tutoring system designed to improve the reading, writing, and spelling skills of children, teenagers, or adults who struggle due to dyslexia or another learning disability. Although the program is designed to be one-to-one, it may also be used in a small group setting, but each level will take longer to complete. The program is divided into ten levels, each with 10 to 15 lessons that cover the methodsand sequence of teaching reading, spelling, and writing.

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.

Academy of READING® is an online program, originally developed by AutoSkill International, that aims to improve students’ reading skills using a structured and sequential approach to learning. The program breaks the task of reading into manageable pieces and provides multiple opportunities for practice in five core areas—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

The Barton Reading & Spelling System® is a one-to-one tutoring system designed to improve the reading, writing, and spelling skills of children, teenagers, or adults who struggle due to dyslexia or another learning disability. Although the program is designed to be one-to-one, it may also be used in a small group setting, but each level will take longer to complete. The program is divided into ten levels, each with 10 to 15 lessons that cover the methodsand sequence of teaching reading, spelling, and writing.

Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction is a reading comprehension instructional program for grades 3–9 that integrates reading and science through activities and the use of science books during reading instruction. The program supplements a school’s standard science and reading curricula and offers instruction in reading strategies, scientific concepts, and inquiry skills. Concept- Oriented Reading Instruction intends to improve reading comprehension and increase reading engagement.

Fundations® is a prevention and early-intervention program designed to help reduce reading and spelling failure.3 The program is aimed at students in grades K–3 and involves daily 30-minute lessons which focus on carefully-sequenced skills that include print knowledge, alphabet awareness, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, decoding, spelling, and vocabulary development. Fundations® is designed to complement existing literature-based reading programs in general education classes, but can also be used in small groups of low-achieving or learning disabled students for 40–60 minutes each day. Students rotate through different targeted interactive activities. The program is based on the principles of the Wilson Reading System®.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Headsprout Early Reading is an online supplemental early literacy curriculum consisting of eighty 20-minute animated episodes. The episodes are designed to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The program adapts to a child’s responses, providing additional instruction and review if a child does not choose the correct answer. Teachers may use stories based on the episodes to reinforce instruction provided in the lessons.

Tribes is designed to teach peers collaborative group skills, social competence, and self-responsibility. According to the developer, it uses a research-based democratic process. Students are expected to commit to four “Tribes Community Agreements” that include attentive listening, mutual respect, no put downs, and positive participation. The peer learning groups develop shared goals, expectations for success, and caring support to each other. This intervention is designed for teachers to transfer responsibility to the peer assisted learning groups to work together on academic tasks, projects, and assessment of progress. The peer learning approach is designed for all types of students.

Sound Foundations, a literacy curriculum designed to teach phonological awareness to preliterate children, focuses exclusively on phoneme identity (that is, different words can start and end with the same sound). It works from the principle that phonemic awareness is necessary but not sufficient to reading. The curriculum is self-contained and can be used by teachers, parents, or teaching assistants.

In the Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) model, teachers assign students to heterogeneous teams of four to five. Team members are expected to cooperate to master specific content in a subject area. Cooperative teamwork is used in a context of a routine cycle of instruction that includes direct instruction, guided practice, team practice, individual assessment, and team rewards for success. Students can earn points for their team based on their improvement over their past performance rather than their absolute test score. Recognition is given to the teams in the class that qualify for various levels of awards based on the team’s mean. A variety of rewards, such as certificates or free time, can be used. According to the developer, the cooperative study structure, individual accountability, and equal opportunities for success create an engaging instructional process and strong motivations for team success.

The SuccessMaker program is a set of computer-based courses used to supplement regular classroom reading instruction in grades K–8. Using adaptive lessons tailored to a student’s reading level, SuccessMaker aims to improve understanding in areas such as phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and concepts of print.

Pause, Prompt, and Praise is a technique originally designed to help parents improve their children’s levels of literacy. The technique is now used by many schools as part of their peer tutoring programs and is adapted for use in curricula such as daily reading. In this Shared Reading version of the technique, the peer tutor must listen to the tutee read continuous prose at the appropriate reading level. If the tutee makes a mistake, the tutor must wait five seconds (pause) for the tutee correct the error. If the child does not correct the error, the tutor prompts the tutee with the appropriate clues related to the story’s meaning. If the tutee does not solve the error after two attempts, the tutor corrects the student. Finally, the tutor is encouraged to praise the tutee as often as possible. The goal of the peer version of Pause, Prompt, and Praise is to increase reading ability in both the tutors and the tutees.

Project LISTEN (Literacy Innovation that Speech Technology ENables) is a tool developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University aimed at improving early literacy for children First through Fourth Grade.1 It is an automated Reading Tutor (RT) that displays stories on a computer screen, and listens to children read aloud. The RT lets children choose from a list of stories from multiple sources, including user-authored stories. RT responses are modeled after expert reading teachers and adapted to fit technological capabilities and limitations. It utilizes speech recognition technology to analyze children’s oral reading and intervenes and provides help when children read incorrectly, encounter difficulty, or click for help.

It is currently not a commercial product, but is utilized by many children who have participated in studies to test its effectiveness. The current version runs under Windows(TM) 2000 or XP on a computer with at least 128MB of memory.

Footnote:

1 Most of the information cited on this page are derived from Carnegie Mellon University’s Project LISTERN website: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~listen/

Project Read® is a multisensory language arts curriculum designed for use in a classroom or group setting. Two main objectives of the program are to use language in all its forms, and to use responsive instruction rather than preplanned textbook lessons. The program emphasizes direct instruction, and lessons move from letter-sounds to words, sentences, and stories. Project Read® has three strands: Phonics/Linguistics, Reading Comprehension, and Written Expression, which are integrated at all grade levels, though the emphasis of the specific strands differs by grade.

Read Well® is a reading curriculum to increase the literacy abilities of students in kindergarten and grade 1. The program provides instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency. Students are given opportunities to discuss the vocabulary concepts that are presented in each story. The program is based on the tenets of scaffolded instruction, where teachers begin by presenting models, and gradually decrease their support by providing guided practice, before students are asked to complete the skill or strategy independently. For example, the student and teacher read new text aloud, with the teacher reading the difficult or irregular words. As student skills (and motivation) increase, the amount of teacher-read text decreases, and the student is given greater independence. The program combines daily whole class activities with small group lessons.

Open Court Reading© is a reading program for grades K–6 that is designed to teach decoding, comprehension, inquiry, and writing in a three-part progression. Part One of each unit, Preparing to Read, focuses on phonemic awareness, sounds and letters, phonics, fluency, and word knowledge. Part Two, Reading and Responding, emphasizes reading literature for understanding, comprehension, inquiry, and practical reading applications. Part Three, Language Arts, focuses on writing, spelling, grammar, usage, mechanics, and basic computer skills.

This report presents the findings from an independent evaluation conducted by WestEd on the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC). Funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) Validation grant, the ERWC is a grade 11 and grade 12 English language arts (ELA) curriculum developed by the California State University. The independent evaluation includes an evaluation of the fidelity of implementation of the curriculum and an impact evaluation that took place during the 2020/21 school year. The fidelity of implementation evaluation found that a high percentage of teachers participated in the professional learning with fidelity but that few teachers taught the full curriculum with fidelity, and these results were due to many factors, including time constraints and shifts in instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The grade 11 impact evaluation found that assignment to the ERWC had a positive and statistically significant impact on student achievement as measured by the Non-Performance Task Interim Comprehensive Assessment; however, no statistically significant impact was detected among the students who took the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment. In the grade 12 impact evaluation, there was no statistically significant difference in achievement between students who had enrolled in the ERWC and students who had enrolled in the comparison English course. Further evaluation of the ERWC in a non-pandemic year during which schooling takes place in person is recommended.

This study examines the impacts of two AmeriCorps programs, Minnesota Reading Corps and Wisconsin Reading Corps, where AmeriCorps volunteers provide literacy tutoring to at-risk kindergarten through third-grade (K-3) students utilizing a response-to-intervention framework. This evaluation replicates a prior randomized controlled trial evaluation of the program 4 years later and for the first time evaluates the program model replicated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The results of the two evaluations showed that kindergarten and first-grade students who received a single semester of Reading Corps tutoring achieved significantly higher literacy assessment scores, and demonstrated meaningful and significant effects after a full-school year of the intervention for second- and third-grade students.

This report presents the results of a two-year randomized control trial evaluation of the SPARK foundational literacy program. SPARK is an early grade literacy program developed by Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee that pairs one-on-one tutoring with parent engagement. In 2010, SPARK was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) U.S. Department of Education grant to test its impact in seven low-income and low-achieving Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). In the fall of 2013, 286 students were randomly assigned to receive SPARK for two years and 290 assigned to the control condition. Overall attrition rates ranged from 34.4% to 38.7% and differential attrition rates between SPARK and control students ranged from 1.2% to 3.0%, depending on the outcome. Most participants received a high dosage of both tutoring and family engagement across their two years of participation. Although SPARK had statistically significant positive impacts on literacy development and regular school day attendance, most, if not all, of the impact was realized during the first year of participation. The impact of SPARK was also found to be greatest for students with the greatest need for additional literacy support.

Preschool teachers from a high-poverty, urban school district were trained to implement Story Talk, a book reading intervention designed to increase children's vocabulary and language development using supportive materials and strategic individualized coaching. Thirty-five teachers were randomly assigned by site to the intervention (20) or the control condition (15). Teachers in the intervention were provided with training; one-to-one, bi-monthly coaching; and Story Maps that included target vocabulary, open-ended questions to promote conversations during book reading, and suggested extension activities that support use of target vocabulary. The results suggested that teachers in the intervention increased on the global quality of their instruction, as well as on their fidelity to the project's strategies and their use of target vocabulary words. In addition, children in the intervention classrooms performed significantly better on measures of taught vocabulary words, and HLM analyses found gains on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (d?=?0.19) and the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (d?=?0.14), both standardized measures of vocabulary development. The results suggest that Story Talk holds promise as a relatively resource-conservative PD intervention that can be implemented with fidelity and can significantly improve children's vocabulary development, especially among children in high-poverty schools.

We investigated whether individual differences in overall receptive vocabulary knowledge measured at the beginning of the year moderated the effects of a kindergarten vocabulary intervention that supplemented classroom vocabulary instruction. We also examined whether moderation would offset the benefits of providing Tier-2 vocabulary intervention within a multitiered-system-of-support (MTSS) or response-to-intervention framework. Participants included students from two previous studies identified as at risk for language and learning difficulties who were randomly assigned in clusters to receive small-group vocabulary intervention in addition to classroom vocabulary instruction (n = 825) or to receive classroom vocabulary instruction only (n = 781). A group of not-at-risk students (n = 741) who received classroom vocabulary instruction served as a reference group. Initial vocabulary knowledge measured at pretest moderated the impact of intervention on experimenter-developed measures of expressive vocabulary learning and listening comprehension favoring students with higher initial vocabulary knowledge. Tier-2 intervention substantially counteracted the Matthew effect for target word learning. Intervention effects on listening comprehension depended on students' initial vocabulary knowledge. Implications present benefits and challenges of supporting vocabulary learning within an MTSS framework.

Reading Recovery is an example of a widely used early literacy intervention for struggling first-grade readers, with a research base demonstrating evidence of impact. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education's i3 program, researchers conducted a 4-year evaluation of the national scale-up of Reading Recovery. The evaluation included an implementation study and a multisite randomized controlled trial with 6,888 participating students in 1,222 schools. The goal of this study was to understand whether the impacts identified in prior rigorous studies of Reading Recovery could be replicated in the context of a national scale-up. The findings of this study reaffirm prior evidence of Reading Recovery's immediate impacts on student literacy and support the feasibility of successfully scaling up an effective intervention.

UPSTART is a federally funded i3 validation project that uses a computer-based program to develop the school readiness skills of preschool children in rural Utah. Researchers used a randomized control trial design to evaluate the impact of the program in advancing children's early literacy skills. Preschoolers in the experimental group were randomly assigned to the UPSTART Reading software, while control group students were assigned to UPSTART Math. Standardized early literacy assessments were administered prior to program commencement and upon completion. Results revealed that there was a significant difference in children's mean scores on measures of letter knowledge and phonological awareness, after controlling for prior knowledge, missing pre-test data, and children's school district between those who participated in UPSTART Reading and those in the comparison group. There were no differences between the two groups on assessments measuring vocabulary and oral language or listening comprehension.

This study examined the efficacy of a supplemental, multicomponent adolescent reading intervention for middle school students who scored below proficient on a state literacy assessment. Using a within-school experimental design, the authors randomly assigned 483 students in grades 6-8 to a business-as-usual control condition or to the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI), a supplemental reading program involving instruction to support word-reading skills, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, and peer talk to promote reading engagement and comprehension. The authors assessed behavioral engagement by measuring how much of the STARI curricular activities students completed during an academic school year, and collected intervention teachers' ratings of their students' reading engagement. STARI students outperformed control students on measures of word recognition (Cohen's d = 0.20), efficiency of basic reading comprehension (Cohen's d = 0.21), and morphological awareness (Cohen's d = 0.18). Reading engagement in its behavioral form, as measured by students' participation and involvement in the STARI curriculum, mediated the treatment effects on each of these three posttest outcomes. Intervention teachers' ratings of their students' emotional and cognitive engagement explained unique variance on reading posttests. Findings from this study support the hypothesis that (a) behavioral engagement fosters struggling adolescents' reading growth, and (b) teachers' perceptions of their students' emotional and cognitive engagement further contribute to reading competence.

This study reports the results of a cluster RCT evaluating the impact of Enhanced Core Reading Instruction on reading achievement of grade 1 at-risk readers. Forty-four elementary schools, blocked by district, were randomly assigned to condition. In both conditions, at-risk readers received 90 minutes of whole-group instruction (Tier 1) plus an additional 30 minutes of daily, small-group intervention (Tier 2). In the treatment condition, Tier 1 instruction included enhancements to the core program and Tier 2 intervention was highly aligned with the core program. In the comparison condition, Tier 1 instruction used the same core program as treatment schools in the district and Tier 2 intervention followed standard district protocol. Significant treatment effects were found on measures of phonemic decoding and oral reading fluency from fall to winter and word reading from fall to spring. Student- and classroom-level variables predicted student response to instruction differentially by condition.

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term, one-to-one intervention designed to help the lowest achieving readers in first grade. This article presents first-year results from the multisite randomized controlled trial (RCT) and implementation study under the $55 million Investing in Innovation (i3) Scale-Up Project. For the 2011-2012 school year, the estimated standardized effect of RR on students' Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) Total Reading Scores was 0.69 standard deviations relative to the population of struggling readers eligible for RR under the i3 scale-up and 0.47 standard deviations relative to the nationwide population of all first graders. School-level implementation of RR was, in most respects, faithful to the RR "Standards and Guidelines," and the intensive training provided to new RR teachers was viewed as critical to successful implementation.

This study reports on an evaluation of the "Reading Partners" program, which uses community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring to struggling readers in underresourced elementary schools. Established in 1999 in East Menlo Park, California, the mission of "Reading Partners" is to help children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results. This report builds on those initial findings by describing the "Reading Partners" program and its implementation in greater detail, exploring whether the program is more or less effective for particular subgroups of students, and assessing some of the potential explanations for the program's success to date. In addition, this report includes an analysis of the cost of implementing the Reading Partners program in 6 of the 19 sites. The following are appended: (1) Implementation Study Methods; (2) Impact Study Methods and Teacher Survey; (3) Tutor Background Characteristics and Additional Impact Findings; (4) Cost Study Methods; and (5) Additional Cost Findings. [This report was written with A. Brooks Bowden and Yilin Pan.]

Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) is the largest AmeriCorps State program in the country. The goal of MRC is to ensure that students become successful readers and meet reading proficiency targets by the end of the third grade. To meet this goal, the MRC program, and its host organization, ServeMinnesota Action Network, recruit, train, place and monitor AmeriCorps members to implement research-based literacy enrichment activities and interventions for at-risk Kindergarten through third grade (K-3) students and preschool children. Starting in 2011, the "Corporation for National and Community Service" (CNCS) sponsored a randomized controlled trial (RCT) impact evaluation of over 1,300 K-3 students at 23 participating schools who were determined to be eligible for the MRC program during the 2012-2013 school year. The goal of the impact evaluation was to determine both the short- and long-term impacts of the MRC program on elementary students' literacy outcomes. Key findings from the evaluation include: (1) Kindergarten, first, and third grade students who received MRC tutoring achieved significantly higher literacy assessment scores than students who did not; (2) MRC tutoring resulted in statistically significant impacts across multiple racial groups. In Kindergarten and first grade tutoring was effective despite important risk factors, including Dual Language Learner status and Free and Reduced Price Lunch eligibility; and (3) The MRC program is replicable in multiple school settings using AmeriCorps members with varied backgrounds. The study provides details of the: Impact Evaluation Methodology, School and Student Selection, Data Collection, Analysis, and Findings and Conclusions. [For the Appendices, see ED560019.]

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a period of 12 to 20 weeks. The purpose of these lessons is to support rapid acceleration of each child's literacy learning. In 2010, The Ohio State University received a Scaling Up What Works grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund to expand the use of Reading Recovery across the country. The award was intended to fund the scale-up of Reading Recovery by training 3,675 new RR Teachers in U.S. schools, thereby expanding capacity to allow service to an additional 88,200 students. The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) was contracted to conduct an independent evaluation of the i3 scale up of Reading Recovery over the course of five years. The evaluation includes parallel rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs for estimating program impacts, coupled with a large-scale mixed-methods study of program implementation under the i3 scale-up. This report presents findings through the second year of the evaluation. The primary goals of this evaluation were: (1) to assess the success of the scale-up in meeting the i3 grant's expansion goals; (2) to document the implementation of scale-up and fidelity to program standards; and (3) to provide experimental evidence of the impacts of Reading Recovery on student learning under this scale-up effort. This document is the first in a series of three annual reports produced based on our external evaluation of the Reading Recovery i3 Scale-Up. This report presents early results from the experimental impact and implementation studies conducted over the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. An appendix includes: Statistical Model for Impacts of Reading Scores. [For "WWC Review of the Report 'Evaluation of the i3 Scale-up of Reading Recovery Year One Report, 2011-12.' What Works Clearinghouse Single Study Review," see ED547670.]

The Louisiana Striving Readers evaluation assessed the implementation and effectiveness of the Voyager "Passport Reading Journeys" (PRJ), a widely used supplemental literacy intervention for struggling adolescent readers that reflects the research-based practices recommended by the National Reading Panel (2000) and other more recent syntheses (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; Edmonds, et al., 2009; Kamil, et al., 2008; Scammacca et al., 2007; Torgesen et al., 2007). To date, PRJ has been adopted in 45 states across the country in almost 470 districts and over 2,200 schools, and has served over 268,000 students. PRJ offers four levels of instruction appropriate for middle and high school students. The PRJ curriculum uses direct, explicit instruction in reading comprehension, vocabulary, and word study for adolescents who struggle with reading using age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction texts. The Louisiana Striving Readers Program, funded by the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, targeted over 1,200 struggling readers in grades 6-7 from ten middle schools across the state of Louisiana. The grant required a rigorous, independent experimental evaluation, conducted by SEDL, addressing fidelity of program implementation and program impacts on student motivation and reading achievement. The study reported here had two specific aims: (1) determine the fidelity of implementation, or the extent to which the program was delivered as the grant indicated it should be implemented; and (2) determine the impacts of PRJ on student reading and other related outcomes (i.e., student motivation and engagement in reading) and how the effects may have varied by student subgroups. This report details the intervention, the implementation study design and results, and the impact study design and results.

This study estimates the effect of one year of Fusion Reading implementation, a multistrategy intervention, builds on the work of the Strategic Instruction Model's Learning Strategies Curriculum and Xtreme Reading by integrating some of the same strategies (e.g., paraphrasing, visual imagery, and self-questioning for information acquisition; mnemonics for information study; and writing and error monitoring for information expression), focusing on reading, and extending the time frame from 1 to 2 years in duration. Specifically, the study addressed the following: (1) What are the intent-to-treat impacts of the Fusion Reading intervention on the reading outcomes and motivation to read of struggling readers after receipt of 1 year of the intervention?; (2) For which students are the interventions most and least effective?; and (3) In what ways are implementation factors associated with impacts (or lack of impacts) on reading and motivation outcomes? The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial to estimate the effect of Fusion Reading on struggling readers in grades 6 through 10. Students in the intervention condition received the Fusion Reading intervention as a supplemental reading intervention in the 2010-11 school year, whereas students in the control condition engaged in nonliteracy, "business-as-usual" activities. After one year of implementation of a two year intervention, the authors learned that when vocabulary, paraphrasing and word study strategies are explicitly taught by following a specific instructional routine supported by motivation strategies (e.g., setting goals and reading text relevant for the age group), word reading outcomes will significantly improve compared to control middle and high school students. Future research is needed to fully understand whether the intended two year intervention will improve struggling adolescent's reading comprehension outcomes. Appended are: (1) References; and (2) Tables and Figures. (Contains 2 figures and 5 tables.)

Reading comprehension is a challenge for K-12 learners and adults. Nonfiction texts, such as expository texts that inform and explain, are particularly challenging and vital for students' understanding because of their frequent use in formal schooling (e.g., textbooks) as well as everyday life (e.g., newspapers, magazines, and medical information). The structure strategy is explicit instruction about how to strategically use knowledge about text structures for encoding and retrieval of information from nonfiction and has consistently shown significant improvements in reading comprehension. We present the delivery of the structure strategy using a web-based intelligent tutoring system (ITSS) that has the potential to offer consistent modeling, practice tasks, assessment, and feedback to the learner. Finally, we report on statistically significant findings from a large scale randomized controlled efficacy trial with rural and suburban 4th-grade students using ITSS.

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that helping preschoolers learn words through categorization may enhance their ability to retain words and their conceptual properties, acting as a bootstrap for self-learning. We examined this hypothesis by investigating the effects of the World of Words instructional program, a supplemental intervention for children in preschool designed to teach word knowledge and conceptual development through taxonomic categorization and embedded multimedia. Participants in the study included 3- and 4-year-old children from 28 Head Start classrooms in 12 schools, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Children were assessed on word knowledge, expressive language, conceptual knowledge, and categories and properties of concepts in a yearlong intervention. Results indicated that children receiving the WOW treatment consistently outperformed their control counterparts; further, treatment children were able to use categories to identify the meaning of novel words. Gains in word and categorical knowledge were sustained six months later for those children who remained in Head Start. These results suggest that a program targeted to learning words within taxonomic categories may act as a bootstrap for self-learning and inference generation. (Contains 2 notes, 10 tables, and 1 figure.)

Too many children fail to learn how to read proficiently with serious consequences for their overall well-being and long-term success in school. This may be because providing effective instruction is more complex than many of the current models of reading instruction portray; there are Child Characteristic x Instruction (CXI) interactions. Here we present efficacy results for a randomized control field trial of the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention, which relies on dynamic system forecasting intervention models to recommend amounts of reading instruction for each student, taking into account CXI interactions that consider his or her vocabulary and reading skills. The study, conducted in seven schools with 25 teachers and 396 first graders, revealed that students in the ISI intervention classrooms demonstrated significantly greater reading skill gains by spring than did students in control classrooms. Plus, they were more likely to receive differentiated reading instruction based on CXI interaction guided recommended amounts than were students in control classrooms. The precision with which students received the recommended amounts of each type of literacy instruction, the distance from recommendation, also predicted reading outcomes. (Contains 7 figures and 6 tables.)

State education departments, in discussions with Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southeast, identified low reading achievement as a critical issue for their students and expressed an interest in identifying effective strategies to promote the foundational skills in young students that might improve reading achievement. The Mississippi State Department of Education has focused specifically on interventions that might enhance students' vocabulary knowledge. Kindergarten PAVEd for Success (K-PAVE) was selected to be tested in Mississippi for three reasons. First, there were only a small number of vocabulary interventions appropriate for this age group to be considered. Second, among these, PAVE--the preschool version of the intervention--was the only one for which an impact study had been completed that provided some evidence of effects. Third, K-PAVE was the only curriculum that had developed teacher training materials and a training protocol, which meant that it could be implemented with sufficient fidelity across a variety of districts and school settings. The primary research question for the study addressed the impact of K-PAVE on kindergarten students' expressive vocabulary. Secondary research questions addressed the impacts on kindergarten students' academic knowledge and listening comprehension. Although the study was concerned primarily with the impacts of K-PAVE on students, impacts on intermediate classroom instruction outcomes were also assessed to provide context for understanding potential impacts on students. The study addressed research questions about impacts on classroom instruction in vocabulary and comprehension support, instructional support, and emotional support. Finally, the study examined whether the introduction of K-PAVE had the unintended consequence of reducing the time spent on areas of literacy instruction other than vocabulary and comprehension (such as phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, print concepts, and decoding). The study found that kindergarten students in schools using K-PAVE as a supplement to the regular literacy instruction performed better than kindergarten students in control schools on the Expressive Vocabulary Test-2 administered at the end of the school year. The study also found that kindergarten students in K-PAVE schools performed better than students in control schools on the measure of academic knowledge administered at the end of the year. K-PAVE caused a positive and statistically significant impact on one of the three kindergarten classroom instructional practices examined: vocabulary and comprehension support, which includes introducing vocabulary words during read-alouds, introducing vocabulary words throughout the school day, asking higher order questions during read-alouds, and providing comprehension support during book read-alouds. Appendices include: (1) Mississippi Counties with Study Schools, by County; (2) Statistical Power Analysis; (3) Random Assignment; (4) Recruitment and Random Selection of the Student Sample; (5) Comparison of Students Missing and Not Missing Baseline Assessment; (6) Classroom Observation Measures for Impact Evaluation; (7) Teacher Survey; (8) K-PAVE Fidelity Observer Handbook and Training Fidelity Checklist; (9) Data Collection Procedures; (10) Data Quality Assurance Procedures; (11) Model Specifications; (12) Flowchart Illustrating Sample Attrition from Data Collection; (13) Missing Data Imputation; (14) Sensitivity Analyses; (15) School, Teacher, and Student Covariates; (16) List of K-PAVE Materials Provided to Teachers; (17) Sample Weekly Unit from K-PAVE Program; (18) List of the 240 K-PAVE Target Words; (19) K-PAVE Teacher Training Agenda; (20) K-PAVE Teacher Phone Follow-Up Agenda; (21) Sample Means and Standard Deviations for Student and Classroom Outcome Measures, by Intervention Status; (22) Checking Model Assumptions; and (23) Translating Impacts on Students into Age-Equivalent Differences in Posttest Outcomes. (Contains 53 tables, 16 figures, 1 map, 3 boxes, and 86 footnotes

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

Successful implementation of evidence-based educational practices at scale is of great importance but has presented significant challenges. In this article, the authors address the following questions: How does the level of on-site technical assistance affect student outcomes? Do teachers' fidelity of treatment implementation and their perceptions of school climate mediate effects on student performance? Using a randomized control trial at scale, the authors examine Kindergarten Peer Assisted Learning Strategies, which previously has been shown to be effective in increasing student reading achievement. Analyzing data from 2 years and three sites, the analyses show that the level of on-site technical support has significant effects on reading achievement gains, are robust across multiple sites, and are mediated by fidelity of implementation within teachers' classrooms. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

In this article, the authors report achievement outcomes of a multisite cluster randomized field trial of Open Court Reading 2005 (OCR), a K-6 literacy curriculum published by SRA/McGraw-Hill. The participants are 49 first-grade through fifth-grade classrooms from predominantly minority and poor contexts across the nation. Blocking by grade level within schools, the trial includes 27 classrooms receiving the OCR curricular materials and professional development and 22 "business-as-usual" control classrooms. Multilevel analyses of classroom-level effects of assignment to OCR reveal statistically significant treatment effects on all three of the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, 5th edition, Terra Nova literacy posttests. The OCR effect sizes are d = 0.16 for the Reading Composite, d = 0.19 for Vocabulary, and d = 0.12 for Reading Comprehension. These effects achieved across 27 classrooms and 5 schools demonstrate the potential for replicating improved literacy outcomes through the scale-up of OCR. (Contains 4 tables and 1 note.)

Using a cluster randomization design, schools were randomly assigned to implement Success for All, a comprehensive reading reform model, or control methods. This article reports final literacy outcomes for a 3-year longitudinal sample of children who participated in the treatment or control condition from kindergarten through second grade and a combined longitudinal and in-mover student sample, both of which were nested within 35 schools. Hierarchical linear model analyses of all three outcomes for both samples revealed statistically significant school-level effects of treatment assignment as large as one third of a standard deviation. The results correspond with the Success for All program theory, which emphasizes both comprehensive school-level reform and targeted student-level achievement effects through a multi-year sequencing of literacy instruction. (Contains 5 tables.)

The UPSTART Summer program is a federally funded i3 validation project that uses a computer-based program to maintain and develop the literacy skills of elementary school students in rural Utah during the summer months when school is out of session. Researchers used a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the impact of the program in forestalling literacy learning loss during several summer periods. Students in the treatment group participated in the UPSTART Summer program, in the summer periods after kindergarten, first grade, and/or second grade. A second group of children, who were not enrolled in the program served as a comparison. Statistical matching procedures were used to create separate treatment and comparison analytic samples for each outcome measure that were equivalent on baseline scores and demographic variables (e.g., school, gender, race, language learner status, household income, Title 1 school enrollment, etc.). Standardized literacy assessments of letter knowledge, phonics, and reading fluency were administered prior to program commencement at the end of the academic school year and upon program completion at the beginning of the following school year. Results revealed that the UPSTART Summer program had a significant impact in reducing literacy learning loss in rising first graders on assessments of letter naming fluency, nonsense word fluency (correct letter sounds), and a reading composite score when compared to a matched comparison group. There were no differences in learning loss rates between rising first graders and comparison students on assessments measuring phoneme segmentation fluency or nonsense word reading (whole words read). Additionally, the UPSTART Summer program did not have an impact on literacy learning loss prevention in rising second or third grade students as measured by assessments of nonsense word reading, oral reading fluency, or overall reading composites. Taken together these results suggest that the UPSTART program helps to maintain early literacy skills in the summer months between Kindergarten and first grade.

This study evaluated the efficacy of the Word Learning Strategies (WLS) supplementary program to improve elementary students' vocabulary skills and reading comprehension. The study used a multi-site cluster randomized, experimental design, which randomly assigned 92 4th grade classrooms (n=2558 students) from two cohorts to a treatment or control group. Results indicated that the program was positively associated with gains in students' vocabulary learning and knowledge as measured by the Word Learning Strategies Test and the VASE Assessment, and in students' reading comprehension as measured by the Gates-MacGrinitie Reading Test, after accounting for differences in baseline measures. The use of the WLS program also led to increases in teachers' awareness of strategies to support their students' vocabulary and reading comprehension. [This paper was published in the Proceedings of the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Toronto, Canada.]

Reading comprehension in the content areas is a challenge for many middle grade students. Text structure-based instruction has yielded positive outcomes in reading comprehension at all grade levels in small and large studies. The text structure strategy delivered via the web, called Intelligent Tutoring System for the Text Structure Strategy (ITSS), has proven successful in large-scale studies at 4th and 5th grades and a smaller study at 7th grade. Text structure-based instruction focuses on selection and encoding of strategic memory. This strategic memory proves to be an effective springboard for many comprehension-based activities such as summarizing, inferring, elaborating, and applying. This was the first large-scale randomized controlled efficacy study on the web-based delivery of the text structure strategy to 7th-grade students. 108 classrooms from rural and suburban schools were randomly assigned to ITSS or control and pretests and posttests were administered at the beginning and end of the school year. Multilevel data analyses were conducted on standardized and researcher designed measures of reading comprehension. Results showed that ITSS classrooms outperformed the control classrooms on all measures with the highest effects reported for number of ideas included in the main idea. Results have practical implications for classroom practices.

This study examined the effects of Reading Recovery on children's motivational levels, and how motivation may contribute to the effect of the intervention on literacy achievement. Prior studies concluded that Reading Recovery was positively associated with increased student motivation levels, but most of those studies were limited methodologically. The achievement and motivation levels before and after the intervention of Reading Recovery students and similarly low-performing first-grade students were compared using structural equation modeling. It was found that Reading Recovery had a 0.31 treatment effect on achievement after controlling for baseline achievement and motivational differences among the treatment and comparison students. Reading Recovery also was associated with greater average levels of posttest motivation, and motivation was found to mediate the treatment-achievement relationship. This study highlights how important it is for early reading interventions to consider the role motivation plays in literacy acquisition.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested in the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) as one strategy to support teachers' and students' transition to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts. This report provides an early look at the implementation of LDC in sixth-grade Advanced Reading classes in a large Florida district, and the effectiveness of the intervention in this setting. The study found that teachers understood LDC and implemented it with fidelity and that curriculum modules were well crafted. Teachers also generally reported positive attitudes about the effectiveness of LDC and its usefulness as a tool for teaching CCSS skills. Although implementation results were highly positive, quasi-experimental analyses employing matched control group and regression discontinuity designs found no evidence of an impact of LDC on student performance on state reading or district writing assessments. Furthermore, students generally performed at basic levels on assessments designed to align with the intervention, suggesting the challenge of meeting CCSS expectations. Exploratory analyses suggest that LDC may have been most effective for higher achieving students. However understandable, the findings thus suggest that, in the absence of additional scaffolding and supports for low-achieving students, LDC may be gap enhancing. Two appendices are included: (1) LDC Instruments and Rubrics; and (2) Summary Report: Developing an Assignment Measure to Assess Quality of LDC Modules (Abby Reisman, Joan Herman, Rebecca Luskin, and Scott Epstein).

This evaluation report presents implementation and impact findings to date regarding the Striving Readers grant as implemented by the Springfield and Chicopee Public School Districts. Any questions regarding this final report should be directed to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) at the U.S. Department of Education. There were 25,213 students enrolled in Springfield and 7,845 in Chicopee in the 2010-11 school year. The districts differed in terms of student demographics as well as in size. In Springfield, 88% to 92% of the students were designated as minority in the participating schools as compared to 25% to 35% in Chicopee. Over three-quarters of the students in Springfield were also eligible for free or reduced lunch (80% to 84%) as compared to approximately one half in Chicopee (44% to 51%). [This report was prepared by the Research & Evaluation Division at the Education Alliance at Brown University.]

The effectiveness study examined a supplemental reading intervention that may be appropriate as one component of a response-to-intervention (RTI) system. First-grade students in 31 schools who were at risk for reading difficulties were randomly assigned to receive Responsive Reading Instruction (RRI; Denton, 2001; Denton & Hocker, 2006; n = 182) or typical school practice (TSP; n = 240). About 43% of the TSP students received an alternate school-provided supplemental reading intervention. Results indicated that the RRI group had significantly higher outcomes than the TSP group on multiple measures of reading. About 91% of RRI students and 79% of TSP students met word reading criteria for adequate intervention response, but considerably fewer met a fluency benchmark. (Contains 8 tables.)

This study was conducted by members of a site of the California Writing Project in partnership with a large, urban, low-SES school district where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight-year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers engaged in ongoing professional development implemented a cognitive strategies approach to reading and writing instruction, making visible for approximately 2000 students per year the thinking tools experienced readers and writers access in the process of meaning construction. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of this approach on the reading and writing abilities of English language learners (ELLs) in all 13 secondary schools in the district. Students receiving cognitive strategies instruction significantly out-gained peers on holistically scored assessments of academic writing for seven consecutive years. Treatment-group students also performed significantly better than control-group students on GPA, standardized tests, and high-stakes writing assessments. Findings reinforce the importance of having high expectations for ELLs; exposing them to a rigorous language arts curriculum;explicitly teaching, modeling and providing guided practice in a variety of strategies to help students read and write about challenging texts; and involving students as partners in a community of learners. What distinguishes the project is its integrity with respect to its fidelity to three core dimensions: Teachers and students were exposed to an extensive set of cognitive strategies and a wide array of curricular approaches to strategy use (comprehensiveness) in a manner designed to cultivate deep knowledge and application of those strategies in reading and writing (density) over an extended period of time (duration). The consistency of positive outcomes on multiple measures strongly points to the efficacy of using this approach with ELLs. Appended are: (1) Great Expectations Writing Prompt; and (2) Student Models. (Contains 1 note, 5 tables, and 6 figures.)

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 created the Early Reading First (ERF) program to enhance teacher practices, instructional content, and classroom environments in preschools and to help ensure that young children start school with the skills needed for academic success. This report to Congress describes the impacts of the Early Reading First program on the language and literacy skills of children and on the instructional content and practices in preschool classrooms. The main findings of the national evaluation of ERF show that the program had positive, statistically significant impacts on several classroom and teacher outcomes and on one of four child outcomes measured. The program had no effect on children's phonological awareness or oral language. This report contains an executive summary and eight chapters: (1) Introduction and Study Background; (2) Study Design; (3) Characteristics of Participating Children and Families; (4) Characteristics of Programs Receiving ERF Funding; (5) Professional Development, Instructional Practices, and Classroom Environments in ERF Preschools; (6) Impacts on Teachers and Classroom Practices; (7) Impact Findings: ERF Impacts on Children's Language and Literacy Skills and Social-Emotional Outcomes; and (8) Analysis of Mediators of ERF's Impacts on Classroom Instructional Practice and Children's Language and Literacy Skills. Appendices include: (A) Impact Analysis Methods and Sensitivity of Results; (B) Data-Collection Methods; (C) Assessment and Observation Measures Used for ERF Data Collection; (D) Supplementary Tables on the Impacts of ERF on Teachers and Classroom Environments; (E) ERF Impacts on Teacher and Classroom Outcomes; Subgroups Analyses; (F) ERF Impacts on Child Outcomes; Subgroups Analyses; and (G) Supplemental Descriptive Tables for Teacher Outcomes and Classroom Practice. (Contains 63 tables, 12 figures, and 5 exhibits.) [This report was produced by the National Center for Education Evaluation and RegionalAssistance, Institute of Education Sciences.]

Two studies evaluated the use of the Student Team Reading (STR) and Student Team Writing (STW) program in urban middle schools. The first study investigated the use of STR in 20 experimental sixth-grade classes in three schools matched with 39 classes in three control schools. The second study investigated the use of STR and STW in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in two urban middle schools in Maryland matched with three control schools. In the first study, experimental students achieved significantly higher on a standardized measure of reading comprehension. The reading comprehension achievement of academically handicapped students, analyzed separately, was highly significant in favor of the experimental group. In the second study, the STR and STW students had significantly higher achievement on measures of reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, and language expression. (Two tables of data are included in the first study, and one table of data is included in the second study; 25 references are attached to the first study, and 22 references are attached to the second study.) (Author/RS)

Future Forward is an early primary literacy program that pairs one-on-one tutoring with family engagement. The approach of Future Forward is informed by both systems theory and a school-family-community partnership model. With its school-family-community partnership approach, schools are not solely responsible for developing student literacy. Instead of viewing families and communities as barriers that need to be overcome, they are viewed as having untapped potential for contributing to student literacy development. Although historically, participation in Future Forward lasted the whole school year, so that Future Forward could serve more students in the wake of COVID-19 school disruptions, in the 2021-22 school year program participation was shortened to one semester. As part of an Education Intervention and Research Mid-phase grant, the 2021-22 evaluation included 127 students across two Alabama and one Wisconsin school. Sixty-five were randomly assigned to receive Future Forward in the fall and 62 to business-as-usual (BAU) reading instruction. The 62 BAU students would receive Future Forward in the spring. Only five students left the study in the fall semester. All but two students received the intended amount of tutoring of at least two sessions per week. Regarding family engagement, 64.5% were contacted at least once per month. The results of a randomized control trial impact evaluation found a statistically significant overall positive impact of 0.30 standard deviations on reading achievement and a differential positive impact of 0.83 standard deviations on the reading achievement of students of color. Future Forward was not found to impact school attendance. Based on the positive impacts of this study, Future Forward will continue with the one semester implementation model in its EIR Expansion-phase grant.

This study examines the effectiveness of scaling up a vocabulary intervention, pre-K-first grade, using a structured adaptation of the World of Words that allowed teachers some autonomy over its implementation. The purpose was to determine whether such an adaptation could maintain fidelity and promote positive child outcomes. Classrooms (pre-K through grade 1) from 12 elementary schools in a large metropolitan area were randomly selected into treatment (N = 39) and control groups (N = 34). The 21-week intervention involved a shared book reading about science topics, using cross-cutting concepts and vocabulary within taxonomic categories to build knowledge networks. Pre- and posttests examined child outcomes in vocabulary, concepts, and expressive language. Results indicated that fidelity was largely maintained, with significant standardized gains in language and vocabulary for pre-K children. Conversational turns predicted statistically significant improvements in language, suggesting that such adaptations may hold promise for scaling up an intervention.

Inference skill is one of the most important predictors of reading comprehension. Still, there is little rigorous research investigating the effects of inference instruction on reading comprehension. There is no research investigating the effects of inference instruction on reading comprehension for English learners with reading comprehension difficulties. The current study investigated the effects of small-group inference instruction on the inference generation and reading comprehension of sixth- and seventh-grade students who were below-average readers (M = 86.7, SD = 8.1). Seventy-seven percent of student participants were designated limited English proficient. Participants were randomly assigned to 24, 40-min sessions of the inference instruction intervention (n = 39) or to business-as-usual English language arts instruction (n = 39). Membership in the treatment condition statistically significantly predicted higher outcome score on the "Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test" Reading Comprehension subtest (d = 0.60, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.16, 1.03]), but not on the other measures of inference skill.

This study examined the effects of a small group intervention targeting paraphrasing and text structure instruction on the main idea generation and reading comprehension of students with reading disabilities in Grades 4 and 5. Students (N = 62) were randomly assigned to receive the Tier 2-type intervention or business-as-usual instruction. Students in the intervention received 25, 40-minute lessons focused on paraphrasing sections of text by identifying the main topic and the most important idea about that topic. Students utilized the text structure organization to inform their main idea generation. Results yielded statistically significant, positive effects in favor of the intervention group on near-transfer and mid-transfer measures of text structure identification (g = 0.75) and main idea generation (g = 0.70), but no statistically significant effect on a far-transfer measure of reading comprehension. These findings provide initial support for utilizing this instruction to improve students' main idea generation on taught and untaught structures.

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of an intervention aimed at improving multisyllabic word reading (MWR) skills among fourth- and fifth-grade struggling readers (n = 109, 48.6% male), as well as the relative effects of an embedded motivational beliefs training component. This study was a closely aligned replication of our earlier work. The intervention was replicated with a three-condition design: MWR only, MWR with a motivational beliefs component, and business-as-usual control. Students were tutored in small groups for 40 lessons (four 40-min lessons each week). When we combined performance of students in both MWR conditions, intervention students significantly outperformed controls on proximal measures of affix reading and MWR, as well as standardized measures of decoding, spelling, and text comprehension. Furthermore, there was a noted interaction between English learner status and treatment on spelling performance. There were no statistically significant main effects between the MWR groups on proximal or standardized measures of interest. Findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to MWR instruction for students with persistent reading difficulties and considerations for future research related to the malleability of motivation.

We examine the efficacy of an intervention to improve word reading and reading comprehension in fourth- and fifth-grade students with significant reading problems. Using a randomized control trial design, we compare the fourth- and fifth-grade reading outcomes of students with severe reading difficulties who were provided a researcher-developed treatment with reading outcomes of students in a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition. A total of 280 fourth- and fifth-grade students were randomly assigned within school in a 1:1 ratio to either the BAU comparison condition (n = 139) or the treatment condition (n = 141). Treatment students were provided small-group tutoring for 30 to 45 minutes for an average of 68 lessons (mean hours of instruction = 44.4, SD = 11.2). Treatment students performed statistically significantly higher than BAU students on a word reading measure (effect size [ES] = 0.58) and a measure of reading fluency (ES = 0.46). Though not statistically significant, effect sizes for students in the treatment condition were consistently higher than BAU students for decoding measures (ES = 0.06, 0.08), and mixed for comprehension (ES = -0.02, 0.14).

Reading and comprehending content area texts is important for academic and professional success as well as life skills necessary to maintain good health and quality lifestyle. Spanish speaking English language learners have shown poor performance on high-stakes assessments in reading comprehension. The number of Spanish speaking English learners (ELs) in our schools continues to increase at a fast pace, and therefore it is imperative that we address their reading comprehension needs swiftly and effectively. The text structure strategy has shown positive results on comprehension outcomes in many research studies with students at Grades 2, 4, 5, and 7. This study is the first implementation of instruction about the text structure strategy expressly designed to accommodate the linguistic and comprehension needs of Spanish speaking ELs in Grades 4 and 5. Strategy instruction on the web for English learners (SWELL) was designed to deliver instruction about the text structure strategy to Spanish speaker English learners. A randomized controlled study with pre and post-tests was conducted with 14 classrooms at fourth-grade and 17 classrooms at fifth-grade in high poverty schools where over 85% of students were Spanish speaking bilinguals or ELs. Analysis of data using multi-level models show moderate to large-effects favoring the students in the SWELL classrooms over the business as usual control classrooms on important measures such as a standardized reading comprehension test and main idea and cloze tasks. This research has practical implications for the use of web-based tools to provide high-quality and supportive instruction to improve Spanish speaking ELs reading comprehension skills.

This article presents findings from an intervention across sixth and seventh grades to teach academic words to middle school students. The goals included investigating a progression of outcomes from word knowledge to comprehension and investigating the processes students use in establishing word meaning. Participants in Year 1 were two sixth-grade reading teachers and 105 students (treatment n = 62; control n = 43) and in Year 2, one seventh-grade reading teacher and 87 students (treatment n = 44; control n = 43) from the same public school. In both years, results favored instructed students in word knowledge, lexical access, and morphological awareness on researcher-designed measures. In Year 2, small advances were also found for comprehension. Transcripts of lessons shed light on processes of developing representations of unfamiliar words.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effect of an intensive vocabulary intervention embedded in e-books on the vocabulary skills of young Spanish-English speaking English learners (ELs) from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds. Method: Children (N = 288) in kindergarten and 1st grade were randomly assigned to treatment and read-only conditions. All children received e-book readings approximately 3 times a week for 10-20 weeks using the same books. Children in the treatment condition received e-books supplemented with vocabulary instruction that included scaffolding through explanations in Spanish, repetition in English, checks for understanding, and highlighted morphology. Results: There was a main effect of the intervention on expressive labeling (g = 0.38) and vocabulary on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Fourth Edition (g = 0.14; Dunn & Dunn, 2007), with no significant moderation effect of initial Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test score. There was no significant difference between conditions on children's expressive definitions. Conclusion: Findings substantiate the effectiveness of computer-implemented embedded vocabulary intervention for increasing ELs' vocabulary knowledge.

The acquisition of early mathematical knowledge is critical for successful long-term academic development. Mathematical language is one of the strongest predictors of children's early mathematical success. Findings from previous studies have provided correlational evidence supporting the importance of mathematical language to the development of children's mathematics skills, but there is limited causal evidence supporting this link. To address this research gap, 47 Head Start children were randomly assigned to a mathematical language intervention group or a business-as-usual group. Over the course of eight weeks, interventionists implemented a dialogic reading intervention focused on quantitative and spatial mathematical language. At posttest, students in the intervention group significantly outperformed the students in the comparison group not only on a mathematical language assessment, but on a mathematical knowledge assessment as well. These findings indicate that increasing children's exposure to mathematical language can positively affect their general mathematics skills. This study is an important first step in providing causal evidence of the importance of early mathematical language for children's general mathematical knowledge and the potential for mathematical language interventions to increase children's overall mathematics abilities.

Reading achievement scores for adolescents with disabilities are markedly lower than the scores of adolescents without disabilities. For example, 62% of students with disabilities read "below" the basic level on the NAEP Reading assessment, compared to 19% of their nondisabled peers. This achievement gap has been a continuing challenge for more than 35 years. In this article, we report on the promise of a comprehensive 2-year reading program called Fusion Reading. Fusion Reading is designed to significantly narrow the reading achievement gap of middle school students with reading disabilities. Using a quasi-experimental design with matched groups of middle school students with reading disabilities, statistically significant differences were found between the experimental and comparison conditions on multiple measures of reading achievement with scores favoring the experimental condition. The effect size of the differences were Hedges's g = 1.66 to g = 1.04 on standardized measures of reading achievement.

Efficacy of an intensive reading intervention implemented during the nonacademic summer was evaluated in children with reading disabilities or difficulties (RD). Students (ages 6-9) were randomly assigned to receive Lindamood-Bell's "Seeing Stars" program (n = 23) as an intervention or to a waiting-list control group (n = 24). Analysis of pre- and posttesting revealed significant interactions in favor of the intervention group for untimed word and pseudoword reading, timed pseudoword reading, oral reading fluency, and symbol imagery. The interactions mostly reflected (a) significant declines in the nonintervention group from pre- to posttesting, and (2) no decline in the intervention group. The current study offers direct evidence for widening differences in reading abilities between students with RD who do and do not receive intensive summer reading instruction. Intervention implications for RD children are discussed, especially in relation to the relevance of summer intervention to prevent further decline in struggling early readers.

This report presents the final results of a four-year independent external evaluation of the impacts and implementation of the scale-up of Reading Recovery, a literacy intervention targeting struggling 1st-grade students. The evaluation of Reading Recovery includes parallel rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs for estimating program impacts, coupled with a large-scale, mixed-methods study of program implementation under the Investing in Innovation (i3) scale-up. The primary goals of the evaluation are to: (1) Provide experimental evidence of the short- and long-term impacts of Reading Recovery on student learning in schools that are part of the i3 scale-up; and (2) Assess the implementation of Reading Recovery under the i3 grant, including fidelity to the program model and progress toward the scale-up goals. The impact evaluation includes a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT) for estimating immediate impacts, a regression discontinuity study (RD) for estimating longterm impacts, and an implementation study for assessing fidelity of implementation and exploring program implementation in depth. The RCT includes nearly 7,000 randomized students in more than 1,200 schools over four years. The RD study measures Reading Recovery's impacts at the end of first grade and in third grade, and replicates the RCT's immediate post-treatment findings in a separate sample of students. The implementation study involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative research executed on a large scale over the same four-year timeframe. The evaluation's key findings pertain to the following topics: (1) Scale-Up Processes, Challenges, and Outcomes; (2) Immediate Impacts of Reading Recovery; (3) Sustained Impacts of Reading Recovery; and (4) Implementation Fidelity. The authors' analysis revealed strong fidelity to the program model in all of these areas and all years of the scale-up. This suggests that the intervention was delivered as designed to the students in the scale-up, and that teachers delivering Reading Recovery lessons were properly trained. In total, the results of the fidelity analysis support the validity of their impact findings. Three appendices are included. [To view the brief for this report, "Evidence for Early Literacy Intervention: The Impacts of Reading Recovery," see ED586802.]

Purpose: We examined the effects of a text-processing reading comprehension intervention emphasizing listening comprehension and expressive language practices with middle school students with reading difficulties. Method: A total of 134 struggling readers in grades 6-8 were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 83) and control conditions (n = 51) using a 2:1 ratio (two students randomized to treatment for every one student randomized to control). Students in the treatment condition received 40 min of daily instruction in small groups of four to six students for approximately 17 hr. Results: One-way analysis of covariance models on outcome measures with the respective pretest scores as a covariate revealed significant gains on proximal measures of vocabulary and key word and main idea formulation. No significant differences were found on standardized measures of listening and reading comprehension. Discussion: Results provide preliminary support for integrating listening comprehension and expressive language practices within a text-processing reading comprehension intervention framework for middle-grade struggling readers.

The purpose of this report is to present the results of a two-year randomized control trial evaluation of the SPARK literacy program. SPARK is an early grade literacy program developed by Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. In 2010, SPARK was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) Department of Education grant to further develop the program and test its impact in seven Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). The evaluation used a randomized control trial selection to test the impact of SPARK across three domains: reading achievement, literacy, and school attendance. Informed consent was obtained from 576 parents for their students to participate in the study. A random sample of kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students in seven MPS schools was selected in October and November of 2013 to participate. 286 students were randomly selected as SPARK participants and 290 students were randomly selected as control students. Stratification was done by school and grade level within school. The specific number of students selected to receive SPARK within each strata was determined both by the number of consented students and the capacity to serve students within each site. Students with a reading-related IEP or who were English Language Learners were not eligible to participate in the evaluation but were eligible to receive tutoring. All other students were eligible to participate. The results suggest that SPARK had statistically significant, positive impacts on reading achievement, literacy, and regular school day attendance. Tables are appended. [SREE documents are structured abstracts of SREE conference symposium, panel, and paper or poster submissions.]

This study examined benefits of connecting meaning, speech, and print in vocabulary learning for kindergarten English learners. Students screened eligible with limited English proficiency were randomly assigned to two instruction conditions. Both groups received direct instruction in high frequency root words. One condition featured added attention to orthographic and phonological word features. Increased attention to the spoken and printed word forms was associated with significantly greater gains in general vocabulary and word reading, and in taught-word spelling. Results suggest features of effective vocabulary instruction for young and English learner students.

A two-cohort cluster randomized trial was conducted to estimate effects of small-group supplemental vocabulary instruction for at-risk kindergarten English learners (ELs). "Connections" students received explicit instruction in high-frequency decodable root words, and interactive book reading (IBR) students were taught the same words in a storybook reading context. A total of 324 EL students representing 24 home languages and averaging in the 10th percentile in receptive vocabulary completed the study ("Connections" n = 163 in 75 small groups; IBR n = 161 in 72 IBR small groups). Although small groups in both conditions made significant immediate gains across all measures, "Connections" students made significantly greater gains in reading vocabulary and decoding (d = 0.64 and 0.45, respectively). At first-grade follow-up, longer-term gains were again greater for Connections students, but with smaller effect sizes (d = 0.29 and 0.27, respectively). Results indicate that explicit "Connections" instruction features designed to build semantic, orthographic and phonological connections for word learning were effective for improving proximal reading vocabulary and general decoding; however, increases in root word reading vocabulary did not transfer to general vocabulary knowledge. Additional tables are presented in two appendices. [At time of submission to ERIC this article was in press with the "Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness."]

The purpose of this experimental study is to investigate the effects of using content acquisition podcasts (CAPs), an example of instructional technology, to provide vocabulary instruction to adolescents with and without learning disabilities (LD). A total of 279 urban high school students, including 30 with LD in an area related to reading, were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions with instruction occurring at individual computer terminals over a 3-week period. Each of the four conditions contained different configurations of multimedia-based instruction and evidence-based vocabulary instruction. Dependent measures of vocabulary knowledge indicated that students with LD who received vocabulary instruction using CAPs through an explicit instructional methodology and the keyword mnemonic strategy significantly outperformed other students with LD who were taught using the same content, but with multimedia instruction that did not adhere to a specific theoretical design framework. Results for general education students mirrored those for students with LD. Students also completed a satisfaction measure following instruction with multimedia and expressed overall agreement that CAPs are useful for learning vocabulary terms.

The purpose of this study was to support teachers' child-directed language and student outcomes by enhancing the educative features of an intervention targeted to vocabulary, conceptual development and comprehension. Using a set of design heuristics (Davis & Krajcik, 2005), our goal was to support teachers' professional development within the curriculum materials. Ten pre-K classrooms with a total of 143 children were randomly selected into treatment and control groups. Observations of teacher talk, including characteristics of lexically-rich and cognitively demanding language were conducted before and during the intervention. Measures of child outcomes, pre- and post-intervention included both standardized and curriculum-based assessments. Results indicated significant improvements in the quality of teachers' talk in the treatment compared to the control group, and significant gains for child outcomes. These results suggest that educative curriculum may be a promising approach to facilitate both teacher and student learning.

The Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) was developed by California State University (CSU) faculty and high school educators to improve the academic literacy of high school seniors, thereby reducing the need for students to enroll in remedial English courses upon entering college. This report, produced by Innovation Studies at WestEd, presents the findings of an independent evaluation of the ERWC funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The study sample for the evaluation included more than 5,000 12th grade students in 24 high schools across nine California school districts in the 2013/14 school year. The authors of the report found that the ERWC has a statistically significant positive impact on student achievement. Results from an analysis of implementation fidelity are also presented, along with qualitative findings based on survey data from study participants. Appendixes include: (1) Statistical Power for Impact Estimates; (2) Data Collection Instruments to Measure Fidelity of Implementation; and (3) Rubric for Calculating Fidelity of Implementation for Each Component of the Expository Reading and Writing Course.

This chapter concerns a year-long, United States federally-funded evaluation of Educate Online, an online, at home, 1:1 tutoring program aimed at improving reading performance for middle school students who are below grade level. Participating students receive after-school instruction from teachers in real-time over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connections. The researcher discusses study findings, the methodological challenges of conducting research on online tutoring, the multiple perspectives for understanding the effectiveness of a tutoring program, and areas for additional research. The chapter examines a key aspect of the evaluation, a delayed treatment control group design study to determine the effect that involvement in the tutoring program has upon student academic achievement in reading. [This chapter was published in: F. J. García-Peñalvo, A. M. Seoane Pardo (Eds.), "Online Tutor 2.0: Methodologies and Case Studies for Successful Learning," (pp. 264-279). Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2014. (978-1-4666-5832-5 / 2326-8905).]

This article describes a randomized controlled trial conducted to evaluate the effects of an intensive, individualized, Tier 3 reading intervention for second grade students who had previously experienced inadequate response to quality first grade classroom reading instruction (Tier 1) and supplemental small-group intervention (Tier 2). Also evaluated were cognitive characteristics of students with inadequate response to intensive Tier 3 intervention. Students were randomized to receive the research intervention (N = 47) or the instruction and intervention typically provided in their schools (N = 25). Results indicated that students who received the research intervention made significantly better growth than those who received typical school instruction on measures of word identification, phonemic decoding, and word reading fluency and on a measure of sentence- and paragraph-level reading comprehension. Treatment effects were smaller and not statistically significant on phonemic decoding efficiency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension in extended text. Effect sizes for all outcomes except oral reading fluency met criteria for substantive importance; however, many of the students in the intervention continued to struggle. An evaluation of cognitive profiles of adequate and inadequate responders was consistent with a continuum of severity (as opposed to qualitative differences), showing greater language and reading impairment prior to the intervention in students who were inadequate responders.

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of a content acquisition and reading comprehension treatment implemented by eighth-grade social studies teachers. Using a within-teacher design, the eighth-grade teachers' social studies classes were randomly assigned to treatment or comparison conditions. Teachers (n = 5) taught the same instructional content to both treatment and comparison classes, but the treatment classes used instructional practices focused on teaching essential words, text as a source for reading and discussion, and team-based learning approaches. Students in the treatment conditions (n = 261) scored statistically higher than students in the comparison conditions (n = 158) on all three outcomes: content acquisition (ES = 0.17), content reading comprehension (ES = 0.29), and standardized reading comprehension (ES = 0.20). Findings are interpreted as demonstrating support for the treatment in improving both knowledge acquisition and reading comprehension within content area instruction. (Contains 8 tables, 1 figure, and 1 note.)

This study evaluated whether the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), a classroom teacher professional development program delivered through webcam technology literacy coaching, could provide rural classroom teachers with the instructional skills to help struggling readers progress rapidly in early reading. Fifteen rural schools were randomly assigned to the experimental or control condition. Five struggling readers and 5 non-struggling readers were randomly selected from eligible children in each classroom. There were 75 classrooms and 631 children in the study. Teachers in experimental schools used the TRI in one-on-one sessions with 1 struggling reader in the regular classroom for 15 min a day until that struggler made rapid reading progress. Teachers then moved on to another struggling reader until all 5 struggling readers in the class received the TRI during the year. Biweekly webcam coaching sessions between the coach and teacher allowed the coach to see and hear the teacher as she instructed a struggling reader in a TRI session, and the teacher and child could see and hear the coach. In this way the classroom teacher was able to receive real-time feedback from the coach. Three-level hierarchical linear models suggested that struggling readers in the intervention schools significantly outperformed the struggling readers in the control schools, with effect sizes from 0.36 to 0.63 on 4 individualized achievement tests. Results suggested that struggling readers were gaining at the same rate as the non-struggling readers, but they were not catching up with their non-struggling peers.

Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds (SES) are at increased risk of reading problems. Although phonological awareness consistently emerges as a critical literacy skill for children, little research exists regarding the effects of the acquisition of phonological awareness skills on decreasing the reading achievement gap between children of different SES levels. In this study, 50 first graders from low SES backgrounds were randomly assigned to receive 10 weeks of phonological awareness intervention or a control condition. In addition, 25 first graders from middle-high SES backgrounds served as a comparison group. A significant difference in phonological awareness skills was found between children in the low SES intervention group who received the phonological awareness intervention and similar children in the control group who did not receive the intervention. Reading skill differences between the low SES intervention and control groups were found at follow-up 24 weeks later but not immediately following intervention. Although the gap in reading skills of children from the low SES intervention group and the middle-high SES comparison group decreased, reading differences remained. Implications of findings with regard to prevention and identification of children at-risk for reading difficulties, as well as planning and implementing early literacy intervention for children from disadvantaged backgrounds are provided.

Longitudinal results for a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) assessing the impact of increasing preschoolers' attention to print during reading are reported. Four-year-old children (N = 550) in 85 classrooms experienced a 30-week shared reading program implemented by their teachers. Children in experimental classrooms experienced shared-book readings 2 or 4 times per week during which their teachers verbally and nonverbally referenced print. Children in comparison classrooms experienced their teachers' typical book reading style. Longitudinal results (n = 356, 366) showed that use of print references had significant impacts on children's early literacy skills (reading, spelling, comprehension) for 2 years following the RCT's conclusion. Results indicate a causal relation between early print knowledge and later literacy skills and have important implications concerning the primary prevention of reading difficulties.

The purpose of this design experiment was to research, test, and iteratively derive principles of word learning and word organization that could help to theoretically advance our understanding of vocabulary development for low-income preschoolers. Six Head Start teachers in morning and afternoon programs and their children (N = 89) were selected to participate in the World of Words, a 12-min daily supplemental vocabulary intervention; six classes (N = 89) served as a comparison group. Our questions addressed whether the difficulty of words influenced the acquisition and retention of words and whether learning words in taxonomies might support vocabulary development and inference generation. We addressed these questions in two design phases for a total intervention period of 16 weeks. Pre- and post-unit assessments measured children's expressive language gains, categorical development, and inference generation. Significant differences were recorded between treatment and comparison groups on word knowledge and category development. Furthermore, children in the treatment group demonstrated the ability to infer beyond what was specifically taught. These results suggest that instructional design features may work to accelerate word learning for low-income children. (Contains 2 notes, 6 tables, and 2 figures.)

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a Tier 2 standard protocol supplemental intervention designed simultaneously to develop root word vocabulary and reinforce decoding skills being taught to all students in the core beginning reading program with kindergarten Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). Participating students were drawn from six public elementary schools in the Midwest. Within classrooms, students were randomly assigned to either the supplemental intervention (treatment) or the specified control condition (i.e., used to control for instructional time and consistency). All instruction in both conditions was delivered by paraeducator tutors and occurred in small groups for approximately 20 min a day, 5 days a week, for 20 weeks (October to April). At posttest, treatment students (n = 93) in the experimental condition significantly outperformed controls (n = 92) on a proximal (i.e., linked directly with the instructional focus of the intervention) measure of root word vocabulary (d = 1.04) and word reading (d = 0.69). Treatment students did not significantly outperform controls on a distal (i.e., not linked directly to the instructional focus of the intervention) measure of reading vocabulary (d = 0.38). The results, practical importance, and limitations are discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)

Portland Public Schools (PPS), the largest school district in Oregon, serves more than 46,000 students in regular and special programs. More than 2,900 classroom teachers address the needs of a diverse student population (44% minority, 46% low income, 14% special education, 9% English language learners). A district needs assessment in fall 2005 revealed that 13 of Portland's 85 regular schools were eligible to participate in the Striving Readers program. Four of the high schools and 5 of the middle schools determined that they could meet the program's research requirements. All 9 schools had at each grade level a significant number of students who were at least 2 years behind in reading achievement; all received Title I funding; and none had achieved Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind at the time of the Striving Readers application. School leaders expected the Striving Readers program to impact more than 6,400 students and 450 teachers in the 9 participating schools. After examining adolescent reading programs and studying the research on adolescent literacy, Portland Public Schools selected the Strategic Instruction Model Content Literacy Continuum developed by the University of Kansas' Center for Research on Learning to improve teacher instruction and student reading achievement in the participating middle and high schools. This report summarizes Year 1 (2006-2007), Year 2 (2007-2008), Year 3 (2008-2009), Year 4 (2009-2010), and Year 5 (2010-2011) of implementation of the targeted intervention for students reading at least 2 years below grade level in Grades 7-10 and the whole school intervention designed to help all students in Grades 6-12 learn the critical content in all curricular areas.

This experimental study reports findings on the effects from a year-long reading intervention providing daily 50-min sessions to middle school students with identified learning disabilities (n = 65) compared with similar students who did not receive the reading intervention (n = 55). All students continued to receive their special education services as provided by the school. Statistically significant results favored the treatment group for sight word reading fluency following intervention. Small effects were found for phonemic decoding fluency and passage comprehension. No other statistically significant differences were noted between groups. The findings suggest that although gains on word reading fluency resulted from the additional reading treatment, accelerating the reading performance of students identified with learning disabilities may be unlikely to result from a 1-year daily intervention provided in groups of 10 to 15 students. (Contains 2 tables.)

The authors describe an independent evaluation of the READ 180 Enterprise intervention designed by Scholastic, Inc. Despite widespread use of the program with upper elementary through high school students, there is limited empirical evidence to support its effectiveness. In this randomized controlled trial involving 312 students enrolled in an after-school program, the authors generated intention-to-treat and treatment-on-the-treated estimates of the program's impact on several literacy outcomes of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders reading below proficiency on a state assessment at baseline. READ 180 Enterprise students outperformed control group students on vocabulary (d = 0.23) and reading comprehension (d = 0.32) but not on spelling and oral reading fluency. The authors interpret the findings in light of the theory of instruction underpinning the READ 180 Enterprise intervention. (Contains 2 figures, 7 tables, and 4 notes.)

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the causal effects of READ 180, a mixed-methods literacy intervention, on measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and oral reading fluency and (2) to examine whether print exposure among children in the experimental condition explained variance in posttest reading scores. A total of 294 children in Grades 4-6 were randomly assigned to READ 180 or a district after-school program. Both programs were implemented 4 days per week over 23 weeks. Children in the READ 180 intervention participated in three 20-min literacy activities, including (1) individualized computer-assisted reading instruction with videos, leveled text, and word study activities, (2) independent and modeled reading practice with leveled books, and (3) teacher-directed reading lessons tailored to the reading level of children in small groups. Children in the district after-school program participated in a 60-min program in which teachers were able to select from 16 different enrichment activities that were designed to improve student attendance. There was no significant difference between children in READ 180 and the district after-school program on norm-referenced measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Although READ 180 had a positive impact on oral reading fluency and attendance, these effects were restricted to children in Grade 4. Print exposure, as measured by the number of words children read on the READ 180 computer lessons, explained 4% of the variance in vocabulary and 2% of the variance in word reading efficiency after all pretest reading scores were partialed out.

This study examined the effectiveness of a yearlong, researcher-provided, Tier 2 (secondary) intervention with a group of sixth-graders. The intervention emphasized word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Participants scored below a proficiency level on their state accountability test and were compared to a similar group of struggling readers receiving school-provided instruction. All students received the benefits of content area teachers who participated in researcher-provided professional development designed to integrate vocabulary and comprehension practices throughout the school day (Tier 1). Students who participated in the Tier 2 intervention showed gains on measures of decoding, fluency, and comprehension, but differences relative to students in the comparison group were small (median d = +0.16). Students who received the researcher-provided intervention scored significantly higher than students who received comparison intervention on measures of word attack, spelling, the state accountability measure, passage comprehension, and phonemic decoding efficiency, although most often in particular subgroups. (Contains 2 tables.)

The primary purpose of this study was to explore if there could be a more beneficial method in organizing the individual instructional reading components (phonological decoding, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension) within a remedial reading program to increase sensitivity to instruction for middle school students with reading disabilities (RD). Three different modules (Alternating, Integrated, and Additive) of the Reading Achievement Multi-Modular Program were implemented with 90 middle school (sixth to eighth grades) students with reading disabilities. Instruction occurred 45 min a day, 5 days a week, for 26 weeks, for approximately 97 h of remedial reading instruction. To assess gains, reading subtests of the Woodcock Johnson-III, the Gray Silent Reading Test, and Oral Reading Fluency passages were administered. Results showed that students in the Additive module outperformed students in the Alternating and Integrated modules on phonological decoding and spelling and students in the Integrated module on comprehension skills. Findings for the two oral reading fluency measures demonstrated a differential pattern of results across modules. Results are discussed in regards to the effect of the organization of each module on the responsiveness of middle school students with RD to instruction.

Improving reading rate can be difficult for poor readers. In this experiment, we investigated the impact of improvement in reading rate on other aspects of reading, including word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension. Poor readers in Grades 2 or 4 (N = 123) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: practice reading text at their independent reading level (92%-100% word reading accuracy), practice reading text at a difficult reading level (80%-90% accuracy), or an untreated control. Students in practice conditions read aloud to an adult listener who assisted with difficult words. Before, midway, and following 20 weeks of treatment, we assessed improvement in reading rate, word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension across conditions and determined the impact of improved rate on comprehension. We found significant differences favoring the treatment groups in rate, word recognition, and comprehension, but not in decoding or vocabulary. We found no significant differences in growth between levels of text difficulty. (Contains 8 tables and 1 figure.)

As an increasing number of studies document the link between the development of student academic and social behavior, there is a growing need to create and evaluate interventions that address both types of skill development in school contexts. It is of particular importance to focus on interventions that improve the learning environment to maximize student success. The Good Behavior Game (TGBG) is an example of a research-based intervention that can be easily modified and implemented in conjunction with academic interventions to maximize effectiveness of student supports. The present study focused on the development and implementation of a modified version of TGBG implemented during the delivery of a secondary level early literacy intervention for students at-risk for reading difficulties. Specifically, this study examined whether instructional assistants' implementation of TGBG was functionally related to changes in student and instructor outcomes. The student outcomes assessed were (1) problem behavior, (2) academic engagement, and (3) pre-literacy skill development. The instructor outcomes assessed were provision of opportunities to respond to instruction, specific praise, and corrective statements for student social behavior. Data were also collected on fidelity of implementation, contextual fit, and social validity of TGBG. A concurrent multiple baseline design across five instructional reading groups was used to evaluate effects of TGBG. Results indicated that TGBG was functionally related to reductions in student problem behavior. In addition, a functional relation was established between implementation of TGBG and increases in instructor provision of specific praise statements and decreases in provision of corrective statements. Academic engagement and provision of opportunities to respond remained high and stable throughout the study. Pre-literacy trajectories did not appear to be functionally related to TGBG implementation; however, this may have been due to the short timeframe of the study. Instructional assistants implementing TGBG as well as students participating in TGBG rated it positively. Conceptual, practical, and future research implications are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study investigates the effects of rich explanation, baseline vocabulary, and home reading practices on English language learning (ELL) preschoolers' sophisticated vocabulary learning from storybook reading. Eighty typically developing preschoolers were pretested in L1 (Portuguese) and L2 (English) receptive vocabulary and were assigned to experimental or control groups. Eight books were selected and paired. Experimental participants heard books read three times over a 3-week period with rich explanations of target vocabulary. Controls heard stories read without explanations. Parents completed questionnaires about the frequency, content, and language of home reading practices. Rich explanation, initial L2 vocabulary, and frequency of home reading make significant contributions to sophisticated word learning from storyreading. Findings have important implications for L2 vocabulary acquisition in ELL preschoolers. (Contains 4 tables.)

The relative effectiveness of two computer-assisted instructional programs designed to provide instruction and practice in foundational reading skills was examined. First-grade students at risk for reading disabilities received approximately 80 h of small-group instruction in four 50-min sessions per week from October through May. Approximately half of the instruction was delivered by specially trained teachers to prepare students for their work on the computer, and half was delivered by the computer programs. At the end of first grade, there were no differences in student reading performance between students assigned to the different intervention conditions, but the combined-intervention students performed significantly better than control students who had been exposed to their school's normal reading program. Significant differences were obtained for phonemic awareness, phonemic decoding, reading accuracy, rapid automatic naming, and reading comprehension. A follow-up test at the end of second grade showed a similar pattern of differences, although only differences in phonemic awareness, phonemic decoding, and rapid naming remained statistically reliable.

Vocabulary knowledge at school entry is a robust predictor of later reading achievement. Many children begin formal reading instruction at a significant disadvantage due to low levels of vocabulary. Until recently, relatively few research studies examined the efficacy of vocabulary interventions for children in the early primary grades (e.g., before fourth grade), and even fewer addressed vocabulary intervention for students at increased risk for reading failure. In more recent work, researchers have begun to explore ways in which to diminish the "meaningful differences" in language achievement noted among children as they enter formal schooling. This article provides a review of a particularly effective model of vocabulary intervention based on shared storybook reading and situates this model in a context of tiered intervention, an emerging model of instructional design in the field of special education. In addition, we describe a quasi-experimental posttest-only study that examines the feasibility and effectiveness of the model for first-grade students. Participants were 224 first-grade students of whom 98 were identified as at risk for reading disability based on low levels of vocabulary. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences on measures of target vocabulary knowledge at the receptive and context level, suggesting that students at risk for reading failure benefit significantly from a second tier of vocabulary instruction. Implications for classroom practice as well as future research are provided.

This experimental study was designed to validate a short-term supplemental reading intervention for at-risk first-grade children. Although substantial research on long-term supplemental reading interventions exists, less is known about short-term interventions. Thirty first-grade children were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. Students in the intervention received 16 hours of instruction. Analyses of pre- and posttest data and growth measures suggest that short-term supplemental reading intervention had a significant effect on children's reading skills; however, effects were not consistent across measures. Parent and teacher ratings moderated significant effects. Findings support the validity of a brief intervention for students at risk for reading failure that may inform Tier 2 interventions within a Response to Intervention framework. (Contains 9 tables and 2 figures.)

Much research has established the contribution of summer reading setback to the reading achievement gap that is present between children from more and less economically advantaged families. Likewise, summer reading activity, or the lack of it, has been linked to summer setback. Finally, family socioeconomic status has been linked to the access children have to books in their homes and neighborhoods. Thus, in this longitudinal experimental study we tested the hypothesis that providing elementary school students from low-income families with a supply of self-selected trade books would ameliorate summer reading setback. Thus, 852 students from 17 high-poverty schools were randomly selected to receive a supply of self-selected trade books on the final day of school over a 3-year period, and 478 randomly selected students from these same schools received no books and served as the control group. No further effort was provided in this intervention study. Outcomes on the state reading assessment indicated a statistically significant effect (p = 0.015) for providing access to books for summer reading along with a significant (d = 0.14) effect size. Slightly larger effects (d = 0.21) were found when comparing the achievement of the most economically disadvantaged students in the treatment and control groups. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

This study reports a randomized controlled trial evaluation of a computer-based balanced literacy intervention, ABRACADABRA (http://grover.concordia.ca/abra/version1/abracadabra.html). Children (N = 144) in Grade 1 were exposed either to computer activities for word analysis, text comprehension, and fluency, alongside shared stories (experimental groups), or to balanced literacy approaches delivered by their classroom teachers (control group). Two computer-based interventions--a phoneme-based synthetic phonics method and a rime-based analytic phonics method--were contrasted. Children were taught 4 times per week for 12 weeks in small groups. There were significant improvements in letter knowledge in the analytic phonics program and significant improvements in phonological awareness, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension at immediate posttest and in phonological awareness and reading fluency at a delayed posttest in the synthetic phonics program. Effect size analyses confirmed that both interventions had a significant impact on literacy at both posttests. (Contains 2 tables.)

Shared book reading, and the conversation that accompanies it, can facilitate young children's vocabulary growth. To identify the features of extratextual questions that help 3-year-olds learn unfamiliar words during shared book reading, two experiments explored the impact of cognitive demand level, placement, and an approximation to scaffolding. Asking questions about target words improved children's comprehension and production of word-referent associations, and children with larger vocabularies learned more than children with smaller vocabularies. Neither the demand level nor placement of questions differentially affected word learning. However, an approximation to scaffolding, in which adults asked low demand questions when words first appeared and high demand questions later, did facilitate children's deeper understanding of word meanings as assessed with a definition task. These results are unique in experimentally demonstrating the value for word learning of shifting from less to more challenging input over time. Discussion focuses on why a scaffolding-like procedure improves children's acquisition of elaborated word meanings. (Contains 4 tables.)

In this article, we report kindergarten student and teacher outcomes from a quasi-experimental evaluation of The Superkids, a systematic, phonics-based, comprehensive K-2 reading program. We recruited 23 kindergarten teachers to implement The Superkids program from a diverse, yet predominantly ethnic minority, group of classrooms from across the United States. We then employed a precise computerized matching methodology to derive a statistically equivalent comparison group of 20 control teachers who implemented their standard "business as usual" core literacy program. Multilevel analyses of classroom-level effects of The Superkids revealed achievement advantages of more than 1/10 of a standard deviation, d = 0.11, to 1/4 of a standard deviation, d = 0.25, for the treatment group on the 5 subtests from the Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition (SAT-10). Four measures of teachers' self-reported satisfaction with the core reading program used in their classrooms also revealed statistically significant advantages for Superkids of nearly three-quarters of a standard deviation, d = 0.72, to nearly 1 1/2 standard deviation units, d = 1.49. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)

This study replicates research on the efficacy of a repeated reading intervention with word-level instruction for students in Grades 2 and 3 with low to moderate fluency skills, examines differences between treatment implementers, and tests unique contributions of treatment-related variables on outcomes. Students from 13 schools were randomly assigned to dyads; dyads were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Schools were matched into treatment implementer groups (teachers or paraeducators) at study onset. Tutoring occurred during school hours for 15 weeks (M = 25.5 hr). Multilevel model results showed treatment students (n = 98) gained more than controls (n = 104) on measures of letter-sound knowledge (d = 0.41), fluency (d = 0.37-0.38), and comprehension (d = 0.30-0.31); students tutored by teachers gained more than their paraeducator-tutored peers on word reading and fluency. Finally, dyads tutored with greater fidelity gained more in word reading and fluency; dyads that read more complex words in their texts gained less on letter-sounds, fluency, and comprehension. (Contains 9 tables.)

Direct, explicit, and systematic instruction of critical skills has been a hallmark of effective teaching for many years. In this study, we implemented a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test design with nonequivalent groups to determine the effectiveness of syllable skills instruction on reading achievement. Classes were randomly assigned to control or treatment groups. Participants included middle-school students with high incidence disabilities, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their peers at risk for reading failure. The syllable skills intervention included instruction in syllable patterns, syllabication steps and rules, and accenting patterns. Students practiced skills by decoding and encoding nonsense and low-frequency mono- and multisyllabic words. Statistically significant differences were evident between pre-test and post-test scores for three dependent measures: (a) word identification, (b) word attack, and (c) reading comprehension. The treatment group demonstrated greater increase from pre-test to post-test on word identification, word attack, and reading comprehension; and the gap in fluency performance between the groups decreased. We discuss these outcomes with regard to their implications for practice and future research. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

This study examined the effects of individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach on struggling readers' comprehension scores obtained from oral narrative, silent narrative, and silent expository passages at three levels: below-grade, on-grade, and above-grade levels. Students (N = 93) in grades four through eight, who were reading below grade level, participated in the study. Treatment group students (n = 51) received individualized, integrated language arts as a reading approach once a week in place of basal reading instruction. Comparison group students (n = 42) received basal reading instruction for the duration of the study. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze posttest Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI) comprehension scores. Several statistically significant (p less than 0.001) differences in comprehension performance were found for on-grade-level scores and for above-grade-level scores, but few differences were found between treatment and comparison groups on below-grade-level scores. All statistically significant differences favored students in the treatment group. The findings of the study strongly suggest that the use of individualized, integrated language arts as a method for teaching reading is an effective approach for improving the reading comprehension performance of struggling readers. (Contains 5 tables.)

Many students have difficulty achieving reading fluency, and nearly half of fourth graders are not fluent readers in grade-level texts. Intensive and focused reading practice is recommended to help close the gap between students with poor fluency and their average reading peers. In this study, the "Quick Reads" fluency program was used as a supplemental fluency intervention for fourth and fifth graders with below-grade-level reading skills. "Quick Reads" prescribes a repeated reading procedure with short nonfiction texts written on grade-appropriate science and social science topics. Text characteristics are designed to promote word recognition skills. Students were randomly assigned to "Quick Reads" instruction that was implemented by trained paraeducator tutors with pairs of students for 30 minutes per day, 4 days per week, for 18 weeks. At posttest, "Quick Reads" students significantly outperformed classroom controls in vocabulary, word comprehension, and passage comprehension. Fluency rates for both treatment and control groups remained below grade level at posttest. (Contains 5 tables.)

The purposes of this study were to replicate previous research on phonics-based tutoring in kindergarten and to compare treatment effects for students who received individual instruction compared to instruction in dyads. Thirty classroom teachers from 13 urban elementary schools referred at-risk students for participation. Students who met screening criteria were quasi-randomly assigned, within classroom, to one of three conditions: individual tutoring (n = 22), tutoring in dyads (n = 32), or no tutoring (n = 22, classroom instruction only). Twenty-one paraeducators provided 18 weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic skills and the alphabetic code to students during the latter half of kindergarten. Multilevel model results showed that tutored students outperformed non-tutored controls on posttest measures of phonological awareness, word reading accuracy, oral reading fluency, spelling, and comprehension. However, no significant differences were found between the two tutored groups on any measure, suggesting that code-oriented tutoring for pairs of students is a viable alternative to the gold standard of individual instruction.

This naturalistic inquiry evaluated the impact of early literacy intervention on children in London schools. The progress, in the 2005-06 school year, was compared for 234 of the lowest-achieving children in 42 schools serving disadvantaged urban areas. The children, aged around 6 years who received Reading Recovery in their schools, were compared with those in schools which provided them with a range of other interventions. Both groups started the year with literacy levels below that of a 5-year-old. Comparison between the groups was made for reading and writing and phonic knowledge as well as oracy, work habits, social skills, and attitudes to learning. Those children who received Reading Recovery achieved significant gains in all assessments compared with those who did not. At the end of the year the children who had received Reading Recovery had an average reading age of 6 years 7 months, in line with their chronological age. The comparison group was 14 months behind, with an average reading age of 5 years 5 months. The study also evaluated classroom literacy. A word recognition and phonic skills measure was used with all children in the sample Year 1 (age 5-6) classroom in schools with Reading Recovery (605 children) and without Reading Recovery (566 children). Children in sample classrooms, with Reading Recovery available to the lowest group, ended the year with an average reading age 4 months above that of children in comparison classrooms. (Contains 9 figures, 9 tables, and 2 footnotes.)

This report describes the effects of Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) on student progress at three high schools in Houston (the initiative's original site) and at high schools in two other school districts (Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia). MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization--conducted a third-party evaluation to determine the effects of Project GRAD by comparing the changes in student outcomes at Project GRAD schools with changes at similar, non-Project GRAD schools in the same districts. (A companion report discusses findings for Project GRAD elementary schools.) In general, Project GRAD student outcomes are tracked from the implementation of the first components of the model at each site until the 2002-2003 school year. The key findings of this report are: At Jefferson Davis High School in Houston, the initiative's flagship school, Project GRAD had a statistically significant positive impact on the proportion of students who completed a core academic curriculum on time--that is, received an average grade of 75 out of 100 in their core courses; earned four credits in English, three in math, two in science, and two in social students; and graduated from high school within four years. As Project GRAD expanded into two other Houston high schools, these positive effects on students' academic preparation were not evident. Student outcomes at the newer Project GRAD high schools improved, but generally this progress was matched by progress at the comparison high schools. Improvements in graduation rates at the three Project GRAD Houston high schools were generally matched by improvements in graduation rates at the comparison schools. Looking at early indicators of student success, the initial Project GRAD high schools in Columbus and Atlanta showed improvements in attendance and promotion to tenth grade that appear to have outpaced improvements at the comparison schools, although the differences are only sometimes statistically significant. The following are appended: (1) The Impacts on High School Graduation among All Ninth-Grade Students in Houston; (2) High School Achievement in Houston: Was There Shifting of the Pool of Test-Takers?; and (3) Selecting Comparison Schools. (Contains 3 boxes, 6 tables, and 20 figures.) [Additional supplemental funding for this document was provided by the Lucent Technologies Foundation; and Project GRAD USA.]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of code-oriented supplemental instruction for kindergarten students at risk for reading difficulties. Paraeducators were trained to provide 18 weeks of explicit instruction in phonemic skills and the alphabetic code. Students identified by their teachers meeting study eligibility criteria were randomly assigned to 2 groups: individual supplemental instruction and control. Students were pretested in December, midtested, and posttested in May-June of kindergarten. At posttest, treatment students significantly outperformed controls on measures of reading accuracy, reading efficiency, oral reading fluency, and developmental spelling. Treatment students had significantly higher linear growth rates in phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge during the kindergarten treatment. At a 1-year follow-up, significant group differences remained in reading accuracy and efficiency. Ethical challenges of longitudinal intervention research are discussed. Findings have policy implications for making supplemental instruction in critical early reading skills available.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

Research was conducted to ascertain if a combined repeated reading and question generation intervention was effective at improving the reading achievement of fourth through eighth grade students with learning disabilities or who were at risk for reading failure. Students were assigned to a treatment or control group via a stratified random sampling. Instructional components and training were based on best practices reported in the literature. Students receiving intervention significantly improved their reading speed and ability to answer inferential comprehension questions on passages that were reread. Compared to the control group, students in the intervention group also made significant gains in oral reading fluency on independent passages.

There are few research studies on the effects of teaching comprehension strategies to young children in the primary grades. Using a Dominant-Less Dominant Mixed Model design employing both qualitative and quantitative data collection, we evaluated two approaches for teaching comprehension strategies to 7- and 8-year-old children in four second-grade classrooms using science information texts. The first approach focused upon explicitly teaching a series of single comprehension strategies, one-at-a-time (SSI). The second approach focused on teaching a ''set'' or ''family'' of transacted comprehension strategies within a collaborative, interactive and engaging routine (TSI). Results showed no difference between teaching young children a ''set'' of comprehension strategies and teaching comprehension strategies explicitly, one-at-a-time on their reading comprehension performance as measured by a standardized test of reading comprehension, recall of main ideas from reading two 200 word passages from information texts, a reading motivation survey and a strategy use survey. Results showed significant differences between students taught a set of comprehension strategies on measures of elaborated knowledge acquisition from reading science books (detail idea units recalled), retention of science content knowledge, and significantly improved criterion or curriculum-based reading comprehension test scores. These benefits favoring TSI over SSI are important because the learning curve is relatively steep for teachers to develop the ability to teach and for young children to develop the ability to coordinate a ''set'' of transacted comprehension strategies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a cohesive and intensive preventive prereading intervention on the phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming skills of children at risk of emotional disturbance and reading problems. Thirty-six children were assigned randomly to an experimental or comparison condition. Children in the experimental condition received "Stepping Stones to Literacy". "Stepping Stones" includes 25 lessons designed to teach children pivotal prereading skills (e. g., phonological awareness, letter identification). Children in the experimental condition showed statistically significant improvements in their phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming skills relative to children in the comparison condition. Effect size estimates indicate that the improvements were moderate to large across all of the phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming measures. Treatment nonresponder analyses indicated that a relatively small number of children in the experimental group failed to show satisfactory gains in their phonological awareness (n = 3), word reading (n = 1), and rapid naming (n = 3) skills.

This study investigated the effects of an intensive prereading intervention on the beginning reading skills and social behavior of kindergarten children at risk for behavioral disorders and reading difficulties. Children identified through a systematic screening process were assigned randomly to experimental or nonspecific treatment conditions. Children who received the intensive prereading intervention showed statistically and educationally significant gains in their beginning reading skills relative to their counterparts in the nonspecific treatment condition. In contrast, improvements in teacher ratings of the classroom competence, emotional and behavioral self-control, and self-confidence of children in the experimental and nonspecific treatment conditions were not statistically significant from one another. (Contains 3 tables.)

This study evaluated the efficacy of a preventative program delivered in kindergarten to children who were identified as being at risk for experiencing reading difficulties. It also examined the effects of two 1st-grade intervention programs delivered to children who demonstrated substantial difficulty with reading development at the beginning of 1st grade. The 1st-grade programs differed in the amount of emphasis placed on helping the children to develop phonological skills versus providing the children with the opportunity to read connected text with guidance. These kindergarten and 1st-grade intervention approaches were instituted in an effort to identify instructional approaches that would reduce the incidence of reading difficulties among at-risk children. Of particular interest was reduction in the incidence of treatment resisters--children who continue to experience serious reading difficulties despite being provided with early and intensive intervention services to alleviate their early difficulties. The results indicated that the kindergarten intervention program was effective in reducing the number of children who qualified as poor readers in 1st grade and in reducing the incidence of treatment resistance at the end of 1st grade regardless of the type of intervention provided in 1st grade. The data further suggested that the 1st-grade intervention approach that emphasized the development of phonological skills was more effective in reducing the incidence of treatment resistance than the program that emphasized engaging the children in reading connected text.

In this quasi-experimental study, which is part of a series of investigations on supplemental reading tutoring variations, the relative effectiveness of more intense decoding instruction or text reading practice was examined. Fifty-seven first-grade students scoring in the lowest quartile for reading skills received either classroom reading instruction or one of two treatments: tutoring in word study with text reading practice, or word study tutoring alone. Individual instruction was provided by trained paraprofessional tutors. At the end of first grade, treatment students significantly out performed their nontutored peers on measures of reading accuracy, reading comprehension, reading efficiency, passage reading fluency, and spelling. Differential treatment effects on passage reading fluency are examined, taking into consideration pretest skill levels and text reading practice characteristics.

This study investigated the effectiveness and efficiency of the Reading Recovery early intervention. At-risk 1st-grade students were randomly assigned to receive the intervention during the 1st or 2nd half of the school year. High-average and low-average students from the same classrooms provided additional comparisons. Thirty-seven teachers from across the United States used a Web-based system to register participants (n = 148), received random assignment of the at-risk students from this system, and submitted complete data sets. Performance levels were measured at 3 points across the year on M. M. Clay's (1993a) observation survey tasks, 2 standardized reading measures, and 2 phonemic awareness measures. The intervention group showed significantly higher performance compared with the random control group and no differences compared with average groups. Further analyses explored the efficiency of Reading Recovery to identify children for early intervention service and subsequent long-term literacy support.

Second- and 3rd-grade children with poor word-level skills were randomly assigned to 8 months of explicit instruction emphasizing the phonologic and orthographic connections in words and text-based reading or to remedial reading programs provided by the schools. At posttest, treatment children showed significantly greater gains than control children in real word and nonword reading, reading rate, passage reading, and spelling, and largely maintained gains at a 1-year follow-up. Growth curve analyses indicated significant differences in growth rate during the treatment year, but not during the follow-up year. Results indicate that research-based practices can significantly improve reading and spelling outcomes for children in remedial programs.

At-risk 1st graders were randomly assigned to tutoring in more or less decodable texts, and instruction in the same phonics program. The more decodable group (n = 39) read storybooks that were consistent with the phonics program. The less decodable group (n = 40) read storybooks written without phonetic control. During the first 30 lessons, storybook decodability was 85% versus 11% for the 2 groups. Tutoring occurred 4 days per week for 25 weeks. A control group did not receive tutoring in phonics or story reading. Both tutored groups significantly surpassed the control on an array of decoding, word reading, passage reading, and comprehension measures. However, the more and less decodable text groups did not differ on any posttest.

In Experiment 1, it was found that 5-year-old new school entrants taught by a synthetic phonics method had better reading, spelling and phonemic awareness than two groups taught analytic phonics. The synthetic phonics children were the only ones that could read by analogy, and they also showed better reading of irregular words and nonwords. For one analytic phonics group the programme was supplemented by phonological awareness training; this led to gains in phonemic awareness but not reading or spelling compared with the other analytic phonics group. The synthetic phonics programme was taught to the analytic phonics groups after their initial programmes had been completed and post-tested. The group that had had phonological awareness training did not perform better than the other two groups when tested 15 months later; this was also the case when the same comparison was made for the subset of children that had started school with weak phonological awareness skill. Speed of letter learning was controlled for in Experiment 2; it was found that the synthetic phonics group still read and spelt better than the analytic phonics group. It was concluded that synthetic phonics was more effective than analytic phonics, and that with the former approach it was not necessary to carry out supplementary training in phonological awareness.

Describes an applied training study investigating the differential effect of two instructional methods on the reading performance of British primary school children with reading difficulties. Explains that children ages 7 to 10 (n=65) were separated into two groups: (1) based on different types of phonological awareness instruction, and (2) a control group. (CMK)

Finds teaching prereading kindergartners in the rime analogy strategy and prereading skills resulted in more reading than teaching either alone. Notes many children developed the untaught abilities of medial and final phoneme identity and the letter recoding reading strategy; and children were able to generalize the rime analogy strategy to read words with unfamiliar rime spellings. (RS)

Investigated factors that predicted variability in responses to analytic and synthetic phonemic awareness training with kindergartners living in poverty. Found that spelling skills were the most consistent predictor of variability in phonemic awareness in response to instruction. Amount of exposure children had to the intervention contributed to individual differences in phonemic awareness and spelling. (JPB)

The effects of a book reading technique called interactive book reading on the language and literacy development of 4-year-olds from low-income families were evaluated. Teachers read books to children and reinforced vocabulary in the books by presenting objects that represented the words and providing opportunities to use the words. (BF)

Sixty children (ages 8-10) with severe reading disabilities received daily intensive one-to-one instruction that differed in depth and extent of instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding. Both approaches were highly effective in improving reading accuracy and comprehension although measures of reading rate showed continued severe impairment. Twenty-four children were judged to no longer need special education. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a phonologically based reading program delivered to first- through sixth-grade impaired readers (N=115) in small groups. Post-tests after program completion found the program resulted in significantly better phonological awareness, decoding, reading accuracy, comprehension, and spelling. Improved skills were evident regardless of original level of deficiency and were not limited to specific grades. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

Examines teaching rime analogy or letter recoding reading strategies to prereaders. Results reveal that experience with rime analogy increased letter recoding ability, but teaching in letter recoding did not enhance rime analogy. Children learned to read with a rime analogy or letter recoding reading strategy, and many developed new reading strategies independently. (Contains 46 references and 11 tables.) (GCP)

Twenty-three first-graders at risk for learning disabilities received one-to-one tutoring from noncertified tutors for 30 minutes, 4 days a week, for one school year. Tutoring included instruction in phonological skills, explicit decoding, writing, spelling, and reading phonically controlled text. Participants significantly outperformed controls on measures of reading, spelling, and decoding. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Compared effects of a computer-assisted remedial reading program providing speech-supported reading in context with or without explicit phonological training. Found that phonologically trained second to fifth graders gained more in phonological skills and untimed word reading than untrained children. Children with more contextual reading gained more in time-limited word reading. Lower level readers benefited more than higher level readers. (Author/KB)

The effects of 2 preschool-based shared reading interventions were evaluated with 95 children (ages 2-5) from low-income families. Results favoring dialogic (interactive) reading were found on a measure of descriptive use of language, whereas results favoring typical shared reading were found on measures of listening comprehension and alliteration detection. (Author/CR)

The effects of a cooperative learning program, Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC), on the Spanish and English reading, writing, and language achievement of second and third graders of limited English proficiency in Spanish bilingual programs in El Paso (Texas) were studied. BCIRC was expected to improve student achievement during the transition from Spanish to English by giving students daily opportunities to use language to find meanings and solve problems, and by applying well- established principles of cooperative learning to increase student motivation and achievement. A comparison of standardized test scores in three BCIRC and four comparison schools generally supported these expectations. On the Spanish Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, second graders scored significantly better than comparison students in writing and marginally better in reading. On the English Norm-referenced Assessment Program for Texas third graders scored better than comparison students in reading, but not language. Third graders in BCIRC for 2 years scored better than control students on both scales, and BCIRC third graders met criteria for exit from bilingual education at a significantly higher rate than did comparison students. Qualitative evidence shows that students in cooperative groups are making meaning for themselves, enjoying the program and having success in writing contests. (Contains 6 tables and 43 references.) (Author/SLD)

This study evaluated effects of training parents of 33 children (ages 3 to 6) with mild/moderate language delays in either effective joint book-reading techniques (using the Whitehurst Dialogic Reading Training Program) or more general conversational instruction. Results suggest the potential of the book-reading training for facilitating language development in children with language delays. (Author/DB)

A study tested the long-term (end of Grade 1) effects of phonological skills treatment in kindergarten for children across a range of abilities. In Grade 1, 80 children from treatment and control classes participated in the study, along with 16 children in self-contained special education classes. In an earlier study with these same children, 6 kindergarten teachers in regular and special education classes were taught to conduct activities designed to stimulate their students' phonological manipulation skills such as blending and segmenting. Compared to controls, children with and without disabilities ended the year with significant treatment effects that transferred to measures of reading and writing. In the present study, for children without disabilities the early effects were no longer evident. Children from treated and control kindergartens gained in phonological, reading, and writing skills during Grade 1. For children with disabilities, the treatment continued to show significant effects on standardized measures of reading and writing, and on oral reading fluency and spelling. These long-term effects were found regardless of the setting (general or special education) in which children received kindergarten instruction. (Contains 3 tables of data and 38 references.) (Author/NKA)

The cooperative elementary school model uses cooperation, particularly cooperative learning, as a philosophy for educational change. A 2-year study of the cooperative elementary school model in 2 treatment and 3 comparison schools involving 1,012 students demonstrates positive effects on academic achievement and social relations. (SLD)

Studied effects of an interactive book-reading program with children attending day-care centers whose language development was delayed by 10 months. Children were read to by teachers and parents; read to by parents only; or in a control group. Educationally and statistically significant effects of the reading intervention were found at posttest and follow-up for expressive vocabulary. (TM)

Examines the effectiveness of Reading Recovery as compared to a one-on-one skills practice model, group treatment taught by trained Reading Recovery teachers, and a treatment modeled on Reading Recovery provided by teachers trained in a shortened program. Finds that Reading Recovery children performed significantly better than any other treatments and the comparison group. (RS)

The impact of direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies and the degree to which cooperative learning processes enhanced students' learning of strategies were studied using 486 third and fourth graders in Pennsylvania. Subjects identified main ideas of passages. Pretest-posttest data highlight the significant impact of direct instruction and cooperative learning. (SLD)

This monograph presents information about Reading Recovery, describes the latest research concerning the program, and summarizes practical experience concerning the implementation of this innovation in reading instruction. Chapter 1 presents a general description of Reading Recovery instructional procedures. Chapter 2 contains three case studies that provide a more concrete look at how the program works with individual children and teachers. Chapter 3 discusses a longitudinal study conducted in the Columbus Public Schools to determine both the short-range and the long-range effects of Reading Recovery on a group of at-risk students. Chapter 4 describes the studies of Reading Recovery at sites throughout the state of Ohio during the years of 1985-86, 1986-87, and 198-88. Chapter 5 describes the Reading Recovery staff development component, along with studies of teacher training and development in program techniques. Chapter 6 presents suggestions for school districts or state agencies that wish to implement Reading Recovery. Thirty-three references and three appendixes containing a list of books used in Reading Recovery, a description of the alternative intervention program employed during the first year of the longitudinal study, and measures used to assess children in the Reading Recovery Program are attached. (MS)

This investigation was designed to address whether specific prereading skills are related to success in word recognition, regardless of instructional method. Half of the sample received prereading skills training, then the entire sample were taught word recognition by one of three methods. Results are discussed. (MT)

This pilot study investigated the efficacy of the Promoting Adolescent Comprehension Through Text (PACT) intervention, a social studies content knowledge and reading comprehension set of practices implemented with social studies classes including students with disabilities. Social studies general education teachers were provided with professional development on the PACT and differentiation practices to support students with disabilities in the general education classroom. A total of 28 teachers and 893 students (58 students with disabilities) participated in the study, across 20 rural and urban middle schools. Effect sizes (ES) ranged from 0.21 to 0.36 on measures of content knowledge acquisition and reading comprehension for students with disabilities in the treatment classes. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Remedial and Special Education."]

Preschool-age children identified as at risk for later reading difficulties can benefit from supplemental, small-group emergent literacy intervention. As such interventions become commercially available and marketed to preschool programs, it is important to understand their impacts when implemented by intended end users under routine conditions. In this study, we examined the effects of the Nemours BrightStart! (NBS!) intervention on children's emergent literacy skills when implemented by teachers and community aides in authentic preschool classrooms. We randomly assigned 98 classrooms to one of three conditions (NBS! teacher-implemented, NBS! community aide-implemented, or control). Children enrolled in these classrooms who met eligibility criteria and were identified as at risk via an early literacy screener (n = 281) completed pretest and posttest emergent literacy assessments; those assigned to NBS! conditions received intervention from their classroom teacher or a community aide affiliated with a local kindergarten-readiness initiative. Intent-to-treat analyses showed no significant impacts of NBS! on any outcome, and an instrumental variable, as-treated approach showed one significant intervention effect on letter writing. Consequently, we did not replicate results of prior highly controlled efficacy trials. Findings have implications for revising the NBS! theory of change, conducting dosage and as-treated analyses, and moving research-based interventions toward scale-up.

Narration has been shown to be a foundational skill for literacy development in school-age children. Elementary teachers routinely conduct classroom lessons that focus on reading decoding and comprehension, but they rarely provide instruction in oral narration (Hall et al., 2021). This multisite randomized controlled trial was designed to rigorously evaluate the efficacy of the "Supporting Knowledge of Language and Literacy" ("SKILL") intervention program for improving oral narrative comprehension and production. Three hundred fifty-seven students who were at-risk for language and literacy difficulties in Grades 1-4 in 13 schools across seven school districts were randomly assigned to the "SKILL" treatment condition or a business as usual (BAU) control condition. "SKILL" was provided to small groups of two to four students in 36 thirty-minute lessons across a 3-month period. Multilevel modeling with students nested within teachers and teachers nested within schools revealed students who received the "SKILL" treatment significantly outperformed students in the BAU condition on measures of oral narrative comprehension and production immediately after treatment. Oral narrative production for the "SKILL" treatment group remained significantly more advanced at follow-up testing conducted 5 months after intervention ended. Improvements in oral narration generalized to a measure of written narration at posttest and the treatment advantage was maintained at follow-up. Grade level did not moderate effects for oral narration, but it did for reading comprehension, with a higher impact for students in grades 3 and 4. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED622886.]

We evaluated the impact of a supplemental, small-group kindergarten vocabulary intervention designed to reinforce content taught in core classroom instruction implemented within a multitiered system of support (MTSS) framework. Kindergarten teachers implemented a published vocabulary program with all their students during whole-class instruction for 15 min to 20 min per day over the course of the year. We identified students at risk for language and learning difficulties who scored below the 30th percentile on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (PPVT-4; Dunn & Dunn, 2007) and randomly assigned them in clusters to either the control group (n = 453) that received only the classroom vocabulary instruction, or to the treatment group (n = 468) that received the classroom instruction plus small-group supplemental intervention for 30 min, four times per week between November and May. Analyses using multilevel modeling indicated that students who received supplemental vocabulary intervention outperformed control group students on measures of target vocabulary taught during whole-class and small-group instruction and listening comprehension of passages that included taught vocabulary. There were no effects on standardized measures of vocabulary. At-risk students who received the supplemental intervention also eliminated vocabulary learning differences with typically achieving students (n = 430) who received only classroom vocabulary instruction on words targeted for instruction. Findings suggest that supplemental vocabulary intervention that reinforces content taught during classroom instruction implemented within an MTSS framework can accelerate the learning of at-risk students on proximal and near transfer outcomes that are aligned with the content and focus of the instruction and that MTSS offer a feasible framework for schools to provide effective and efficient vocabulary supports to students in the primary grades.

Since 2007, nineteen Houston Independent School District (HISD) campuses have partnered with Literacy Now to offer the Reading Intervention program. The Reading Intervention program provides individualized, small group reading tutorials for at-risk students in kindergarten to second grade to create proficient readers by the end of third grade. Literacy Now also supports literacy development at home (Parent Engagement Workshops, Book Distribution, Family Literacy Night, and monthly newsletters). Between 2015 and 2019, 996 students in kindergarten to second grade from 11 HISD campuses participated in the Reading Intervention program. During this period, results from a post-program survey, on a 3.0 scale, found that teachers observed that the program was beneficial to students (M = 2.62), grades improved (M = 2.51), and students displayed greater confidence in reading (M = 2.48). The evaluation employed a two-group quasi-experimental design with an intervention group and a control group to examine the effectiveness of the program on two cohorts of students from 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. The evaluation found that kindergarten and first-grade students in both cohorts who participated in the reading intervention program showed significant differences between the pre-and post-test scores on Istation for the average proficiency rate in reading immediately after completing the program. Compared to their grade-level peers, first graders, English language learners, Black, or economically disadvantaged students who participated in the Reading Intervention program showed higher percentage points increase in their reading performance on STAAR grade 3 reading assessment. The three-year mean percentage of the students who met the Approaches grade-level benchmark score fell within 15 percentage points of their campus-level peers on STAAR grade 3 reading at Piney Point (6%), Walnut Bend (10%), Ross (11%), Bruce (15%), and McGowen (15%).

We attempted to strengthen an evidence-based, peer-mediated, first-grade reading program (First Grade Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies [PALS]) by modestly revising its content and adding a repeated-reading (RR) component. In a cluster-randomized trial, we conducted a component analysis of the revised program by creating two versions of it. "PALS+Fluency" represented the modified program with an RR component, whereas "PALS-Only" represented the same program without RR. We tested the efficacy of the two PALS versions together against controls and against each other to determine if peer-mediated RR had "value added." With moderator analyses, we further explored whether the PALS programs benefited weaker and stronger readers alike. Thirty-three first-grade classroom teachers (and 491 students) from eight urban schools were randomly assigned to the three study groups within their schools. The PALS-Only and PALS+Fluency programs ran for 22 weeks. Multilevel modeling showed that the combined effects of the two PALS programs on phonological awareness (PA), word reading, and reading fluency were superior to those of controls. Students' pretreatment PA moderated combined program effects on PA and word reading, indicating stronger effects for students with weaker PA. PALS-Only students improved PA skills (over PALS+Fluency students) with stronger effects for those with weaker pretreatment PA.

Istation is a digital-based instructional intervention tool for various content areas aimed at pre-K through 8th grade learners. The Istation Reading program consists of formative assessments, named Istation Indicators of Progress (ISIP™), which are computer-adaptive and diagnostic literacy assessments designed to track student growth over time. Istation Reading also includes an adaptive, online curriculum, which generates personalized learner data profiles that teachers can use to make data-driven instructional decisions and assign custom learning interventions. Istation's Early Reading (ER) program was designed specifically for students in grades K-3, focusing on the critical areas of early reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and fluency. The ISIP became the state of Idaho's early literacy assessment in the 2018-19 school year. The state-mandated early literacy assessment for students in grades K-3 is referred to as the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI). The state of Idaho used a different assessment in previous years and switched to using the ISIP for the IRI in the 2018-19 school year. The IRI is administered to all K-3 public school students in the state, and is intended to serve as an early reading diagnostic and screener. A sample of public elementary schools in Idaho piloted the ISIP and the Istation curriculum during the 2017-18 school year. In the 2018-19 school year, all public elementary schools in Idaho administered the ISIP. Schools were required to administer the ISIP in both the fall and spring, and had the option to administer it more frequently for yearly progress monitoring. Schools also had the option of purchasing Istation's related curricular resources. This study examines effects of the Istation ER program on student reading achievement in the state of Idaho and the validity of the ISIP for predicting student performance on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). It also highlights implementation successes and challenges experienced by educators who piloted Istation's ER program during the 2017-18 school year. [Istation contracted with the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to conduct a study of the predictive validity of Istation's Early Reading (ER) program in the state of Idaho.]

Curriculum Associates' "i-Ready® Personalized Instruction" ("i-Ready") is a supplemental, online personalized instruction program available for reading and mathematics. Prior research has indicated "i-Ready" has a positive impact on K-8 student achievement for students overall (e.g., Swain, Randel, & Norman Dvorak, 2020). The present study furthers that work by examining the impacts of "i-Ready" for striving learners specifically, to provide schools and districts with more targeted information on its effectiveness for these struggling students. The Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO), in collaboration with Century Analytics, implemented a quasi-experimental design (QED) using academic year 2018-19 "i-Ready" data to evaluate the impact of "i-Ready" reading instruction on student reading achievement for striving learners in grades 2-5 on a nationally normed cognitive assessment. Two populations of striving learners were examined at each grade -- those who tested two or more grade levels below their current grade in reading at baseline and a subset of these students who fell at the bottom 20th percentile of reading achievement. The percentiles were based on reading achievement measured by the "i-Ready® Diagnostic" (Diagnostic) at baseline. It was hypothesized student achievement, as measured by the Diagnostic, would be higher for striving learners using "i-Ready" for reading over comparison groups of students who did not use this instruction. Exploratory analyses examined whether the findings for the striving learners were consistent for Black or African American striving learners and those of Hispanic origin. Matching was conducted at each grade level to meet two needs: 1) identify a set of comparison schools demographically similar to our "i-Ready" schools, and 2) identify a set of academically equivalent comparison students within the matched comparison schools. Students who received "i-Ready" and students in the comparison group took the reading version of the Diagnostic assessment. To estimate impacts, hierarchical-linear modeling (HLM) was conducted separately for each grade level with students at level 1 and schools at level 2. This process was conducted for the full sample of striving learners and again for the subsample of students at the bottom 20th percentile. Results suggest both the striving learners and students at the bottom 20th percentile using "i-Ready" with fidelity in the treatment schools performed statistically significantly better on reading than students in the comparison schools who did not use this instruction. The effect sizes fell within the range which recent research characterizes as modest for an education intervention (Kraft, 2019). These findings provide support that "i-Ready" for reading used with fidelity in schools can lead to higher reading achievement for striving learners. Exploratory analyses found that these impacts were consistent for the Black or African American striving learners and for striving learners of Hispanic origin at grades 2-4. A positive Hispanic origin by treatment group interaction was present at grade 5, indicating "i-Ready" had greater impacts on reading achievement of striving learners of Hispanic origin as compared to striving learners not of Hispanic origin who used "i-Ready."

In this experimental study, we examined the effects of a technology-mediated intervention to improve students' understanding of academic vocabulary and its impact on measures of vocabulary and comprehension. The Vocabulators program was implemented in two states involving 24 teachers and 200 third-grade students identified as in need of supplemental vocabulary instruction. Individual students within each classroom were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 100) or typical instructional practices (n = 100) conditions. In the treatment condition, students received, on average, 29 lessons on vocabulary and comprehension. Results of linear regression analyses showed statistically significant and practical effects on experimenter-developed proximal measures of decoding (ES = 0.52), expressive vocabulary (ES = 0.78), receptive vocabulary (ES = 0.51), and near transfer measures of understanding vocabulary in sentences (ES = 0.65), and informational text comprehension (ES = 0.28). Group performance did not differ statistically on near transfer measures of sentence verification with vocabulary and narrative text comprehension as well as distal standardized measures of general vocabulary or reading comprehension. Findings suggest the potential impact of technology-based vocabulary/comprehension lessons to supplement typical instruction.

Summer reading programs are a form of extended school year services for students in special education. However, previous studies have not reported including high percentages of participants in special education, nor have studies sufficiently controlled for selection bias. This study combined propensity score weighting with partially clustered models to examine the effects of a summer reading program on the growth in reading skills of K-4 students, roughly 50% to 75% of whom were in special education. Results suggest that students in most grades improved on some but not all skills. However, fewer improvements were apparent when participating students were compared with peers via propensity score analyses. In addition, Grade 3 students in the control group outperformed their peers who attended summer school.

A two-cutoff regression discontinuity design (RDD) was used to assign 321 students in grades 1 through 6 at a Title I elementary school to two types of Tier 2 reading interventions administered by paraeducators: (a) direct instruction (DI) and (b) computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Students scoring at or below a lower cutoff pretest score were assigned to the DI reading intervention. Students scoring between the lower cutoff score and an upper cutoff score on the pretest were assigned to a CAI reading intervention. Student reading ability was reassessed in January and May. Results indicated that the DI intervention was significantly more effective than the CAI interventions at the lower cutoff (p < 0.01). No significant treatment effect was detected at the upper cutoff, but the estimation power of the design at this cutoff was limited to medium-to-large effect size. Findings suggest that the DI intervention was superior to the CAI interventions for at-risk readers. Implications for practice, including fidelity of paraeducator implementation, are discussed.

This study examined the effects of a phonics-based intervention on the reading outcomes of non-Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs). Thirty-six K-3, primarily Karen- and Hmong-speaking ELs were randomly assigned to receive a modified version of Kindergarten Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (K-PALS; Fuchs et al., 2001b) combined with Incremental Rehearsal (IR; Tucker, 1989; treatment), 30 min per day for 27-36 sessions in small groups or to continue with business as usual (control). A between-subjects pre-/post-test design using five Formative Assessment System for Teachers™ (FAST; Christ et al., 2014) earlyReading and CBMReading subtests was implemented. Multivariate and univariate analyses of variances (MANOVAs and ANOVAs) on the fluency and error rate of participants indicated treatment students outperformed control students at post-test in letter-sound identification (p = 0.006) with a large effect size (g = 0.88) and had significantly fewer errors (p = 0.002) with a moderately-strong effect size (g = 0.69). There were no significant differences between the treatment and control group in consonant-vowel-constant, nonsense and sight words or passage reading fluency or error rate. Effect sizes were small to moderate (g = -0.28-0.45). Results suggest that modified K-PALS with IR may be an effective intervention to improve the letter-sound identification skills of non-Spanish-speaking ELs, but further research is needed to verify this claim. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Dialogic reading is an evidence-based practice for preschool children who are typically developing or at-risk; yet there is limited research to evaluate if it has similar positive effects on the language and preliteracy skills of children with disabilities. This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of dialogic reading, with the incorporation of pause time, on the language and preliteracy skills of 42 preschool children with disabilities. Following random assignment of students at the classroom level, participants were equally distributed into an intervention (n = 21) and a comparison group (n = 21). Children received either dialogic reading or typical storybook reading for 10 to 15 min per day, 3 days per week, for 6 weeks. Children in the intervention group scored significantly higher on receptive and expressive near-transfer vocabulary assessments. This occurred both for words that were specifically targeted during dialogic reading, and for additional vocabulary words in the storybook.

National reports reveal one third of American fourth graders read below basic level on measures of comprehension. One critical component of comprehension is fluency: rapid, accurate, expressive reading with automaticity and prosody. Many fluency studies and classroom interventions focus only on reading rate, but this alone is not sufficient. This experimental study focused on QuickReads, which uses science and social studies texts to build reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. We explored the impact of QuickReads in print-only and print + technology formats for 1,484 students in second through fifth grades. Using hierarchical linear modeling with pre-post design, we found significant gains in fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary for students in all grades using either QuickReads format over control. Results generalized across achievement groups, ethnicities, and ELL levels. Implementation measures indicated high teacher fidelity to intervention techniques, lending robustness to student results. This study provides an example of scaling up validated instructional practices and lends support for important elements of fluency instruction: emphasizing prosody as well as rate, including content area topics, supported and independent practice, vocabulary and comprehension development, and motivational aspects such as ease of use.

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were rank-ordered within schools and then randomly assigned to a treatment condition (n = 39) or a comparison condition (n = 39). Students in the treatment condition received instruction on transition elements that supported their transfer of skills from Spanish to English. Students in the comparison condition received Business as Usual instruction from a variety of commercially available programs. Findings indicated that ELs in both conditions made significant gains from pretest to posttest on all reading outcomes even though instruction in the treatment condition focused significantly more on higher order skills (i.e., vocabulary, comprehension, and transition elements) whereas instruction in the comparison condition focused significantly more on lower order skills (i.e., phonics, word work, and sentence reading). Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

This study investigated the potential benefits of a blended learning approach on the reading skills of low socioeconomic status students in Grades 1 and 2. Treatment students received English language arts instruction that was both teacher-led and technology-based. Comparisons were made with control students who received the same English language arts instruction without the blended learning component. Results showed significantly greater pretest/posttest gains on a standardized reading assessment for the treatment students compared to the control students. The greatest discrepancy occurred in reading comprehension. A sub-analysis of low-performing English language learner students in the treatment group revealed the largest reading gains. At posttest, these students performed at the level of non-English language learner students in the control group. Results indicated a blended learning approach can be effective in enhancing the reading skills of low socioeconomic students.

This study was designed to examine the effects of an intervention program aimed at improving reading, spelling, and vocabulary skills through linguistically explicit instruction in morphological awareness. Sixteen children, diagnosed with language impairment, participated in this study. Instruction for the experimental group focused on increasing their knowledge of the morphological structure of words and teaching them to apply this information to reading, spelling, and vocabulary tasks. The control group was exposed to the same treatment stimuli, but no attention was given to the semantic or orthographic changes associated with the use of the affixes. Participants in the experimental group made significantly greater gains in both spelling and vocabulary skills than did the control group with large effect sizes noted on the experimental measures. The participants also demonstrated the ability to generalize this information to untaught words as well. The results suggest that linguistically explicit instruction in morphological awareness is beneficial for improving the literacy and language skills of children with language impairment.

In this exploratory study we examine the value of exposure to the spelling and pronunciation of word forms when introducing the meanings of new and difficult vocabulary words. Kindergarten English learners were randomly assigned to one of two types of storybook reading delivered by tutors. Students in both treatments listened to short stories containing novel target words. In both groups, students were told the meanings of the difficult words when they first appeared in the stories. However, in one of the groups (Definitions-Plus), students were also shown the printed words when they first appeared in the stories, and were asked to pronounce and spell the words aloud. Vocabulary learning was assessed with three researcher-designed measures including receptive vocabulary, vocabulary definitions, and spelling. Results showed that both groups made significant gains on all three measures, with average gains of 8, 4, and 3%, respectively. Moreover, the Definitions-Plus group had significantly greater spelling gains (d = 0.57), and exhibited similar, albeit nonsignificant, trends on vocabulary gains (ds = 0.30 and 0.41 for receptive and definitional vocabulary, respectively). Results extend previous studies' results to younger English learner students on general benefits of novel word exposure in story contexts, and specific benefits for spelling and pronunciation practice in learning new words.

This research investigated the immediate and long-term effects of a Tier 2 intervention for beginning readers identified as having a high probability of reading failure using a randomized control trial. First-grade participants (n = 123) were randomly assigned either to a 25-session intervention targeting key reading components, including decoding, spelling, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension, or to a no-treatment control condition. Analyses of immediate posttests (end of first grade) indicated significant differences in measures of Decodable Word Fluency (effect size = 0.40) favoring the intervention group. Within the intervention group, tutor ratings of attention were significantly related to growth in Passage Reading Fluency and Spelling Fluency. Longitudinal assessments (end of second grade) indicated no significant differences by group. Analysis of responder status indicated that students defined as responders maintained gains to the end of second grade.

Considerable research evidence supports the provision of explicit instruction for students at risk for reading difficulties; however, one of the most widely implemented approaches to early reading instruction is Guided Reading (GR; Fountas & Pinnel, 1996), which deemphasizes explicit instruction and practice of reading skills in favor of extended time reading text. This study evaluated the two approaches in the context of supplemental intervention for at-risk readers at the end of Grade 1. Students (n = 218) were randomly assigned to receive GR intervention, explicit intervention (EX), or typical school instruction (TSI). Both intervention groups performed significantly better than TSI on untimed word identification. Significant effects favored EX over TSI on phonemic decoding and one measure of comprehension. Outcomes for the intervention groups did not differ significantly from each other; however, an analysis of the added value of providing each intervention relative to expected growth with typical instruction indicated that EX is more likely to substantially accelerate student progress in phonemic decoding, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension than GR. Implications for selection of Tier 2 interventions within a response-to-intervention format are discussed.

The purpose of this varied replication study was to evaluate the effects of a supplemental reading intervention on the beginning reading performance of kindergarten students in a different geographical location and in a different instructional context from the initial randomized trial. A second purpose was to investigate whether students who received the intervention across both the initial and replication studies demonstrated similar learning outcomes. Kindergarten students (n = 162) identified as at risk of reading difficulty from 48 classrooms were assigned randomly at the classroom level either to a commercial program (i.e., Early Reading Intervention; Pearson/Scott Foresman, 2004) that included explicit/systematic instruction (experimental group) or school-designed typical practice intervention (comparison group). Both interventions were taught by classroom teachers for 30 min per day in small groups for approximately 100 sessions. Multilevel hierarchical linear analyses revealed no statistically significant differences between conditions on any measure. Combined analyses that included students from both the initial and replication studies suggested that differences in the impact of the intervention across studies were largely explained by mean differences in the comparison group students' response to school-designed intervention. (Contains 10 tables, 1 figure, and 1 footnote.)

The Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) Program was developed by integrating eight evidence-based fluency-building instructional strategies into a systematic program that can be feasibly implemented and accessed for free by all educators. This study examined the effects of HELPS when implemented by teachers with low-performing second-grade readers. Findings showed that students receiving HELPS significantly outperformed control group students across five measures of early reading, with effect sizes ranging from medium to large. Previous research indicated positive effects for students receiving HELPS, but this was the first study in which HELPS was implemented by classroom teachers (opposed to research assistants) and solely with low-performing readers. Implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.

This study investigated the effectiveness of the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a content literacy intervention, on first graders' science domain knowledge, reading engagement, and reading comprehension. The MORE intervention emphasizes the role of domain knowledge and reading engagement in supporting reading comprehension. MORE lessons included a 10-day thematic unit that provided a framework for students to connect new learning to a meaningful schema (i.e., Arctic animal survival) and to pursue mastery goals for acquiring domain knowledge. A total of 38 first-grade classrooms (N = 674 students) within 10 elementary schools were randomly assigned to (a) MORE at school (MS), (b) MORE at home, (MS-H), in which the MS condition included at-home reading, or (c) typical instruction. Since there were minimal differences in procedures between the MS and MS-H conditions, the main analyses combined the two treatment groups. Findings from hierarchical linear models revealed that the MORE intervention had a positive and significant effect on science domain knowledge, as measured by vocabulary knowledge depth (effect size [ES] = 0.30), listening comprehension (ES = 0.40), and argumentative writing (ES = 0.24). The MORE intervention effects on reading engagement as measured by situational interest, reading motivation, and task orientations were not statistically significant. However, the intervention had a significant, positive effect on a distal measure of reading comprehension (ES = 0.11), and there was no evidence of Treatment × Aptitude interaction effects. Content literacy can facilitate first graders' acquisition of science domain knowledge and reading comprehension without contributing to Matthew effects.

Read It Again! PreK (RIA) is a whole-class, teacher-implemented intervention that embeds explicit language and literacy instruction within the context of shared book reading and has prior evidence of supporting the language and literacy skills of preschool children. We conducted a conceptual replication to test its efficacy when implemented in early childhood special education classrooms relative to regular shared book reading. The randomized controlled trial involved 109 teachers and 726 children (341 with disabilities and 385 peers). Compared to the rigorous counterfactual condition, RIA significantly increased teachers' provision of explicit instruction targeting phonological awareness, print knowledge, narrative, and vocabulary during shared book readings but had limited impact on children's language and literacy skills. Findings underscore the need to conduct replication studies to identify interventions that realize effects for specific populations of interest, such as children with disabilities served in early childhood special education classrooms.

There is a need for empirically based educational practices shown to support learning, yet validation tends to require a high degree of experimental control that can limit ecological validity and translation to classrooms. We describe our iterative intervention design to support preschoolers' vocabulary through book reading coupled with playful learning, including the process of translating research-based methods to an authentic teacher-delivered intervention. Effectiveness of the teacher-implemented intervention was examined by comparing book reading alone versus book reading plus play in supporting vocabulary development in preschoolers (N = 227) from low-income families with diverse backgrounds. Teachers used definitions, gestures, and pictures to teach vocabulary. During play, teachers led play with story-related figurines while using target vocabulary. Ten teachers read books and engaged children in play (read + play [R + P]), and 6 used only book reading (read-only [RO]). For children in both the R + P and RO conditions, within-subjects analyses of gains on taught versus control words revealed large effects on receptive (R + P, d = 1.08; RO, d = 0.92) and expressive vocabulary (R + P, d = 1.41; RO, d =1.23). Read-only had a statistically significant effect (d = 0.20) on a standardized measure of receptive vocabulary, but there were no statistically significant differences between conditions. Moderate to large effects were found using an expressive task when words were tested 4 months after they were taught. Implications for curriculum design and the potential benefits of enhancing children's vocabulary through book reading and playful learning are discussed.

Preschoolers can learn vocabulary through shared book reading, especially when given the opportunity to predict and/or reflect on the novel words encountered in the story. Readers often pause and encourage children to guess or repeat novel words during shared reading, and prior research has suggested a positive correlation between how much readers dramatically pause and how well words are later retained. This experimental study of 60 3- to 5-year-olds compared the effects of placing pauses before target words to encourage predictions, placing pauses after target words to encourage reflection, or not pausing at all on children's retention of novel monster names in a rhymed storybook. Children who heard dramatic pauses that invited prediction before the monsters were named identified more at test than children who heard either post-target pauses or the story read verbatim. In addition, there was an interaction between pre- vs. post-target pausing and whether the pauses were silent or replaced with an eliciting question, such that silent pauses were more effective before the target words, while eliciting questions were more effective after. Overall, dramatic silent pauses before new words in a story were found to best help children attend to and remember those new words.

Important strides have been made in the science of learning to read. Yet, many students still struggle to attain reading proficiency. This calls for sustained efforts to bridge theoretical insights with applied considerations about ideal pedagogy. The current study was designed to contribute to this conversation, namely by looking at the efficacy of an online reading program. The chosen reading program, referred to as MindPlay Virtual Reading Coach (MVRC), emphasizes the mastery of basic reading skills to support the development of reading fluency. Its focus on basic skills diverges from the goal of increasing reading motivation. And its focus on reading fluency, vs. broad literacy achievement, offers an alternative to already existing reading enrichment. In order to test the efficacy of MVRC, we recruited three school districts. One district provided data from elementary schools that used the MVRC program in Grades 2 to 6 (N = 2,531 total). The other two districts participated in a quasi-experimental design: Six 2nd-grade classrooms and nine 4th-grade classrooms were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) instruction as usual, (2) instruction with an alternative online reading program, and (3) instruction with MVRC. Complete data sets were available from 142 2nd-graders and 172 4th-graders. Three assessments from the MVRC screener were used: They assessed reading fluency, phonic skills, and listening vocabulary at two time points: before and after the intervention. Results show a clear advantage of MVRC on reading fluency, more so than on phonics or listening vocabulary. At the same time, teachers reported concerns with MVRC, highlighting the challenge with reading programs that emphasize basic-skills mastery over programs that seek to encourage reading.

This randomized controlled trial examined the impact of adaptive, web-based, scaffolded silent reading instruction on 426 fourth- and fifth-grade students in an urban US school district. Reading proficiency was evaluated in the fall and spring using the Group Reading Assessment Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) and an eye movement recording system (Visagraph). Fall GRADE scores and demographic factors were used to pair students. One member of each pair was then randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition and their pair to the alternate condition. During scheduled 25-minute supplemental literacy blocks, students in the control group received "business-as-usual" reading instruction, whereas the treatment group engaged in scaffolded silent reading instruction. Structural equation modeling indicated that scaffolded silent reading instruction produced significantly larger gains on measures of reading efficiency in grade 4 and significantly larger gains on the GRADE reading achievement measures in grade 5. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Reading Apprenticeship is a model of academic literacy instruction designed by the Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) at WestEd to improve student literacy skills and academic achievement. Based on understandings of the close relationship between curricular reform and professional development, Reading Apprenticeship includes an instructional framework and associated professional development model for secondary and post-secondary teachers across the academic subject areas. Teachers across the subject areas learn how to build student capacities to carry out intellectually engaged reading, make meaning, acquire academic and disciplinary language, read independently, and set personal goals for literacy development. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education awarded SLI a three-year Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant to disseminate Reading Apprenticeship professional learning through the Reading Apprenticeship Across the Disciplines (RAAD) project, a cross-disciplinary blended model of Reading Apprenticeship. Through RAAD, WestEd served 2,240 teachers from 570 schools in 6 states (California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin). As part of the grant, IMPAQ International conducted an independent evaluation of RAAD effectiveness. This report presents findings from the randomized controlled trial conducted in California, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. The impact evaluation employed a group-randomized controlled trial (RCT) in which 40 middle schools from 6 blocks, labeled A through F, were randomly assigned to a treatment group (19 schools), which received the RAAD intervention; or a control group (21 schools), which was set to receive delayed professional development. Grade 7 or 8 English Language Arts (ELA), science, and social studies teachers recruited from treatment schools received the RAAD professional development and ongoing support during the 2016-18 study period, while control schools conducted business as usual. Two years of data were collected from the study schools. Findings from this study demonstrate the success of the RAAD project in offering teachers professional learning and support to scale to help them change their instructional practices to foster metacognitive inquiry, increase class time spent reading, and encourage use of collaboration and reading strategies by students. These findings were accompanied by significant reduction in traditional teacher practices and are consistent with positive findings from other studies of Reading Apprenticeship. However, this study also shows that this iteration of the Reading Apprenticeship fell short of improving student literacy and achievement as measured by standardized assessments.

We examined the efficacy of an afterschool multicomponent reading intervention for third- through fifth-grade students with reading difficulties. A total of 419 students were identified for participation based on a 90 standard score or below on a screening measure of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension. Participating students were randomly assigned to a business as usual comparison condition or one of two reading treatments. All treatment students received 30 min of computer-based instruction plus 30 min of small-group tutoring for four to five times per week. No statistically significant reading comprehension posttest group differences were identified (p > 0.05). The limitations of this study included high attrition and absenteeism. These findings extend those from a small sample of experimental studies examining afterschool reading interventions and provide initial evidence that more instruction, after school, may not yield the desired outcome of improved comprehension.

Testing a component model of reading comprehension in a randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of 4 interventions that were designed to target components of language and metacognition that predict children's reading comprehension: vocabulary, listening comprehension, comprehension of literate language, academic knowledge, and comprehension monitoring. Third- and 4th-graders with language skills falling below age expectations participated (N = 645). Overall, the component interventions were only somewhat effective in improving the targeted skills, compared to a business-as-usual control (g ranged from -0.14 to 0.33), and no main effects were significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. Effects did not generalize to other language skills or to students' reading comprehension. Moreover, there were Child Characteristic × Treatment interaction effects. For example, the intervention designed to build sensorimotor mental representations was more effective for children with weaker vocabulary skills. Implications for component models of reading and interventions for children at risk of reading comprehension difficulties are discussed.

This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive reading intervention targeting current and former English learners identified as struggling readers based on their performance on the state accountability assessment. Students who enrolled at three participating urban high schools were randomly assigned to the Reading Intervention for Adolescents treatment condition (n = 175) or a business-as-usual comparison condition. Students assigned to the treatment condition participated in the intervention for approximately 50 minutes daily for 2 school years in lieu of a school-provided elective course, which business-as-usual students took consistent with typical scheduling. Findings revealed significant effects for the treatment condition on sentence-level fluency and comprehension (g = 0.18) and on a proximal measure of vocabulary learning (g = 0.41), but not on standardized measures of word reading, vocabulary, or reading comprehension (g range: -0.09 to 0.06). Posthoc moderation analyses investigated whether initial proficiency levels interacted with treatment effects. On sentence-level fluency and comprehension and on vocabulary learning, initial scores were significantly associated with treatment effects--however, in opposite directions. Students who scored low at baseline on sentence reading and comprehension scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure, whereas students who scored high at baseline on the proximal vocabulary measure scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure. The discussion focuses on the difficulty of remediating persistent reading difficulties in high school, particularly among English learners, who are often still in the process of acquiring academic proficiency in English. [This paper was published in the "Journal of Educational Psychology," 2018.]

A randomized control trial compared the effects of two kinds of vocabulary instruction on component reading skills of adult struggling readers. Participants seeking alternative high school diplomas received 8 h of scripted tutoring to learn forty academic vocabulary words embedded within a civics curriculum. They were matched for language background and reading levels, then randomly assigned to either morpho-phonemic analysis teaching word origins, morpheme and syllable structures, or traditional whole word study teaching multiple sentence contexts, meaningful connections, and spellings. Both groups made comparable gains in learning the target words, but the morpho-phonemic group showed greater gains in reading unfamiliar words on standardized tests of word reading, including word attack and word recognition. Findings support theories of word learning and literacy that promote explicit instruction in word analysis to increase poor readers' linguistic awareness by revealing connections between morphological, phonological, and orthographic structures within words.

During the fall of the 2016-17 school year, first, second, and third grade students in six elementary schools -- two in St. Paul and Eagan, Minnesota, and four in Bedford County in the Piedmont region of Virginia -- were assigned to take part in randomized efficacy trials carried out for the purpose of rigorously evaluating the impact of "Tutoring with the Lightning Squad" on reading outcomes. The study was designed to follow procedures that could qualify for "meets standards without reservation" in the What Works Clearinghouse (Standards 3.0). "Tutoring with the Lightning Squad" showed a significant and substantial impact on Woodcock measures of Passage Comprehension and Word Attack for students who received at least 25 sessions of tutoring. No significant differences were seen for Letter-Word Identification -- a result which can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that this skill is specifically addressed only in the earliest levels of the program. Results did not vary for students by grade, gender, or ethnicity. In summary, this efficacy study suggests that "Tutoring with the Lightning Squad" has the potential to provide schools with a cost-effective tool for increasing reading levels, as the impacts of our program among students in small groups supervised by a paraprofessional tutor compare favorably with the much more expensive one-to-one tutoring models considered the most effective intervention for struggling readers.

We explore the potential of a computer-adaptive decoding game in Spanish to increase the decoding skills and oral reading fluency in Spanish and English of bilingual students. Participants were 78 first-grade Spanish-speaking students attending bilingual programs in five classrooms in Texas. Classrooms were randomly assigned to the treatment (i.e., where students played Graphogame Spanish) for 16 weeks for ten minutes per day (n = 3) versus business as usual instruction (n = 2). Results indicate that students at some risk on Spanish pseudoword reading appeared to benefit the most from playing the game. Analysis of gains suggests a potentially small, but meaningful educational effect of the game on Spanish oral reading fluency and English pseudoword reading when taking Spanish decoding skills at pretest into account. Students indicated that they enjoyed playing the game, and that the game helped them improve their reading skills. Teachers perceived the game as an engaging tool for students to use during small-group instruction or during independent time in a Response-to-Intervention approach. We discuss our mixed results in the context of using computer-adaptive games to improve the academic outcomes of bilingual students. [This is the online version of an article published in "Bilingual Research Journal." For the final version of this article, see EJ1143411.]

This study evaluated the effects of a cross-age peer learning program targeting vocabulary and comprehension in kindergarten and fourth-grade classrooms with substantial proportions of English Learners (ELs). The study followed a quasi-experimental design with 12 classrooms (6 kindergarten and 6 fourth grade) in the intervention group and 12 classrooms (6 kindergarten and 6 fourth grade) in the comparison group. Students were assessed before and after the 14-week intervention via curriculum-aligned and norm-referenced vocabulary and comprehension assessments. Findings of analyses of researcher-developed measures showed positive and significant intervention effects on receptive and expressive vocabulary in kindergarten and fourth grade and comprehension (i.e., understanding of text and strategy use) in fourth grade. Findings of analyses of norm-referenced measures showed positive and significant intervention effects on receptive vocabulary in kindergarten. In general, the intervention had similar effects for ELs and non-ELs.

Research examining effective reading interventions for students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades is limited relative to the information available for the early elementary grades. In the current study, we examined the effects of a multicomponent reading intervention for students with reading comprehension difficulties. We employed a partially nested analysis with latent variables to adequately match the design of the study and provide the necessary precision of intervention effects. We examined the effects of the intervention on students' latent word reading, latent vocabulary, and latent reading comprehension. In addition, we examined whether these effects differed for students of varying levels of reading or English language proficiency. Findings indicated the treatment significantly outperformed the comparison on reading comprehension (ES = 0.38), but no overall group differences were noted on word reading or vocabulary. Students' initial word reading scores moderated this effect. Reading comprehension effects were similar for English learner and non-English learner students. [This article was published in "Journal of Educational Psychology" (EJ1160638).]

Research examining effective reading interventions for students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades is limited relative to the information available for the early elementary grades. In the current study, we examined the effects of a multicomponent reading intervention for students with reading comprehension difficulties. We used a partially nested analysis with latent variables to adequately match the design of the study and provide the necessary precision of intervention effects. We examined the effects of the intervention on students' latent word reading, latent vocabulary, and latent reading comprehension. In addition, we examined whether these effects differed for students of varying levels of reading or English language proficiency. Findings indicated the treatment significantly outperformed the comparison on reading comprehension (Effect Size = 0.38), but no overall group differences were noted on word reading or vocabulary. Students' initial word reading scores moderated this effect. Reading comprehension effects were similar for English learner and non-English learner students.

In this experimental study we examined the effects of a technology-mediated, multicomponent reading comprehension intervention, Comprehension Circuit Training (CCT), for middle school students, the majority of whom were struggling readers. The study was conducted in three schools, involving three teachers and 228 students. Using a within-teacher design, middle school teachers' reading classes were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 9) or business as usual (n = 7) conditions. In the CCT condition, students received, on average, 39 lessons of video-modeled instruction in word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension instruction during reading intervention classes. Results of multilevel structural equation models indicated statistically significant effects favoring the CCT condition on three measures: reading comprehension latent variable (ES = 0.14), proximal vocabulary (ES = 0.43), and silent reading efficiency (ES = 0.28). Subgroup analyses indicated that students with lower entry-level reading comprehension tended to benefit more from the CCT intervention in reading comprehension, silent reading efficiency, and state test scores.

Purpose: We examined the effectiveness of a multistrategy inference intervention designed to increase inference making and reading comprehension for middle-grade struggling readers. Method: A total of 66 middle-grade struggling readers were randomized to treatment (n = 33) and comparison (n = 33) conditions. Students in the treatment group received explicit instruction in 4 inference strategies (i.e., clarification using text clues; activating and using prior knowledge; understanding character perspectives and author's purpose; answering inferential questions). In addition, narrative and informational texts were carefully chosen and sequenced to build requisite background knowledge to form inferences. Intervention was delivered in small groups of 3 students for 10 days of instruction. Results: One-way analysis of covariance models on outcome measures with the respective pretest scores as a covariate revealed significant gains on a proximal measure of Egyptian-content knowledge (g = 1.37) and on a standardized measure of reading comprehension--i.e., Wechsler Individual Achievement Test--Third Edition Reading Comprehension (g = 0.46). Conclusion: The moderate effect on a standardized measure of reading comprehension provides preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of this multistrategy inference intervention in improving reading comprehension of middle-grade struggling readers.

Upper elementary school students who have reading problems may have difficulty in one or more areas of reading, each requiring specific types of interventions. This study evaluated a short-term reading intervention for 46 fifth-grade students with poor reading comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to an intervention or no treatment control condition. The 40 session (20 hr) intervention targeted reading comprehension strategy instruction in the context of informational science texts. Analyses showed statistically significant effects favoring the intervention on two proximal measures (i.e., measures closely related to the intervention content). The effects for the outcomes were moderate (gs = 0.61 and 0.72). There were no statistically significant differences on distal measures (i.e., measures less closely aligned with the intervention). The findings provide support for the efficacy of a reading comprehension intervention that may inform short-term interventions within a Response to Intervention framework.

The present study used a randomized control trial to examine the effects of a widely used multicomponent Tier 2-type intervention, Passport to Literacy, on the reading ability of 221 fourth graders who initially scored at or below the 30th percentile in reading comprehension. Intervention was provided by research staff to groups of 4-7 students for 30 min, 4 days a week throughout the school year (M = 90.45 lessons). Tier 1 instruction was observed to be of generally high quality and intervention fidelity was strong. Findings revealed small, average effects (ES = -0.14-0.28) in favor of intervention students on standardized measures of comprehension, but no effects on word reading or fluency measures. Exploratory analyses indicated that intervention effects may differ by students' comprehension abilities. Implications for intervention implementation and directions for future research are discussed.

The present study used a randomized control trial to examine the effects of a widely-used multi-component Tier 2 type intervention, Passport to Literacy, on the reading ability of 221 fourth graders who initially scored at or below the 30th percentile in reading comprehension. Intervention was provided by research staff to groups of 4-7 students for 30 min, 4 days a week throughout the school year (M = 90.45 lessons). Tier 1 instruction was observed to be of generally high quality and intervention fidelity was strong. Findings revealed small, average effects (ES = 0.14 -0.28) in favor of intervention students on standardized measures of comprehension, but no effects on word reading or fluency measures. Exploratory analyses indicated intervention effects may differ by students' comprehension abilities. Implications for intervention implementation and directions for future research are discussed. [This paper was published in "Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness" (EJ1115336).]

This study examined the effectiveness of a researcher-provided intervention with fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. The intervention emphasized multisyllable word reading, fluent reading of high-frequency words and phrases, vocabulary, and comprehension. To identify the participants, 1,695 fourth-grade students were screened using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, and those whose standard scores were 85 or lower were included in the study (N = 483). Participants were randomly assigned (2:1) to receive either researcher-provided intervention (n = 323) or intervention provided by school personnel (business as usual, BAU) (n = 161). Findings revealed no statistically significant differences between students in the researcher-provided intervention and BAU groups. Using effect sizes as an indicator of impact, students in the researcher-implemented treatment generally outperformed students in the school-implemented treatment (BAU). Examining growth in standard scores, both groups made significant gains in reading outcomes with standard score growth from pretest to posttest of 3 standard score points on decoding, 5 on fluency, and 2.0 to 7 standard score points on reading comprehension measures.

To improve the reading comprehension outcomes of children in high-poverty schools, policymakers need to identify reading interventions that show promise of effectiveness at scale. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a low-cost and large-scale summer reading intervention that provided comprehension lessons at the end of the school year and stimulated home-based summer reading routines with narrative and informational books. We conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 59 elementary schools, 463 classrooms, and 6,383 second and third graders and examined outcomes on the North Carolina End-of-Grade (EOG) reading comprehension test administered nine months after the intervention, in the children's third- or fourth-grade year. We found that on this delayed outcome, the treatment had a statistically significant impact on children's reading comprehension, improving performance by 0.04 SD (standard deviation) overall and 0.05 SD in high-poverty schools. We also found, in estimates from an instrumental variables analysis, that children's participation in home-based summer book reading routines improved reading comprehension. The cost-effectiveness ratio for the intervention compared favorably to existing compensatory education programs that target high-poverty schools.

In 2012, WestEd received a "Development" grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) competition to develop and implement Internet-based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education ("iRAISE"). "iRAISE" was implemented in Michigan and Pennsylvania and was provided to over 100 teachers who served approximately 20,000 students during the grant period. This report presents findings from the randomized control trial of "iRAISE," which took place during the 2014-15 school year and investigated the impact of the program on teacher and student outcomes. Data sources for this report include teacher surveys; PD observations and attendance records; school district student records; and an assessment of students' literacy skills. Despite levels of implementation that did not meet the expectations of the program developers, teachers self-reported that they did change their classroom practice as a result of the "iRAISE" program, and impacts of "iRAISE" were greater for students who were performing at lower levels of incoming achievement. Given that "iRAISE" had an impact on teacher practices in literacy instruction and increased benefits for low-achieving students-consistent with positive findings from prior studies, evaluators express confidence in the promise of low-cost, accessible, and high-quality online-only professional Development (PD), addressing the needs of schools struggling to meet the demands of literacy for college and career readiness. Appended are the following: (1) Considerations for Statistical Power; (2) Details of the Approach to Estimating Impacts; (3) Reporting the Results; (4) A Post-Experimental Method to Assessing Impact under Strong Implementation; (5) Fidelity of Implementation; and (6) Teacher Survey Constructs.

The Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework was developed by WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) two decades ago to help teachers provide the literacy support students need to be successful readers in the content areas. It has since reached over 100,000 teachers in schools across the country, at the middle school, high school, and college levels. The Reading Apprenticeship framework focuses on four interacting dimensions of classroom learning culture: Social, Personal, Cognitive, and Knowledge-Building. These four dimensions are woven into subject-area teaching through metacognitive conversation--conversations about the thinking processes students and teachers engage in as they read. The context in which this all takes place is extensive reading--increased in-class opportunities for students to practice reading complex academic texts in more skillful ways. Teachers also work with students on explicit comprehension strategy instruction, vocabulary and academic language development techniques, text-based discussion, and writing. Reading Apprenticeship is designed to help teachers create classroom cultures in which students feel safe to share reading processes, problems, and solutions. In 2010, WestEd received a "Validation" grant from the Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) competition to scale-up and conduct a randomized controlled trial of the intervention through a project called Reading Apprenticeship Improving Secondary Success (RAISE). RAISE took place in California, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, and Indiana and worked with nearly 2,000 teachers who served approximately 630,000 students during the grant period. This report presents findings from the randomized controlled trial conducted in two of those states: California and Pennsylvania. The report presents key implementation and impact findings from the i3 impact evaluation of the RAISE project. Most of the findings in this report are from the sample of students and data collected during teachers' second year in the study, after treatment teachers had received the full "dose" of professional development delivered over 12 months and could therefore be expected to fully implement Reading Apprenticeship. Data sources for this report include principal, teacher, and student surveys; professional development observations and attendance records; school district student records; and an assessment of students' literacy skills. Overall, the study's findings demonstrate the potential of RAISE to address the paucity of content-specific reading instruction in U.S. secondary schools--especially in science, where the need may be greatest. Appended are the following: (1) Impact Estimation Model; (2) Student Survey Constructs; (3) Teacher Survey Constructs; (4) Analytic Sample Baseline Equivalence; (5) Student Literacy Assessment; (6) Sample Attrition; (7) Additional Impact Analyses for Teacher Mediating Outcomes; (8) Additional Impact Analyses for Student Mediating Outcomes; (9) Additional Impact Analyses for Student Literacy; (10) Fidelity of Implementation Summary; and (11) Context for Program Implementation.

A multi-cohort cluster randomized trial was conducted to estimate effects of rich vocabulary classroom instruction on vocabulary and reading comprehension. A total of 1,232 fourth- and fifth-grade students from 61 classrooms in 24 schools completed the study. Students received instruction in 140 Tier Two vocabulary words featured in two grade-level novels. Teachers were randomly assigned to either rich vocabulary (treatment) or to business as usual (control). Teachers in the treatment condition allotted 30 minutes per day to the intervention for 14 weeks. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed positive, significant treatment effects on distal and proximal measures of vocabulary and comprehension. However, average distal treatment effects were small (approximate d =0.15) compared with proximal effects (approximate d = 1.24). Observations of teachers' language arts instruction indicated that treatment teachers spent significantly more time on vocabulary and less time on comprehension instruction than did teachers in the control condition. Results support the intensity and depth of the instruction for learning the taught corpus of words, and modest transfer to global vocabulary and comprehension.

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were rank-ordered within schools and then randomly assigned to a treatment condition (n = 39) or a comparison condition (n = 39). Students in the treatment condition received instruction on transition elements that supported their transfer of skills from Spanish to English. Students in the comparison condition received Business as Usual instruction from a variety of commercially available programs. Findings indicated that ELs in both conditions made significant gains from pretest to posttest on all reading outcomes even though instruction in the treatment condition focused significantly more on higher order skills (i.e., vocabulary, comprehension, and transition elements) whereas instruction in the comparison condition focused significantly more on lower order skills (i.e., phonics, word work, and sentence reading). Implications for practice and future research are discussed. [This paper was published in "Learning Disability Quarterly" (EJ1119703).]

Background: Intervention studies for children at risk of dyslexia have typically been delivered preschool, and show short-term effects on letter knowledge and phoneme awareness, with little transfer to literacy. Methods: This randomised controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a reading and language intervention for 6-year-old children identified by research criteria as being at risk of dyslexia (n = 56), and their school-identified peers (n = 89). An Experimental group received two 9-week blocks of daily intervention delivered by trained teaching assistants; the Control group received 9 weeks of typical classroom instruction, followed by 9 weeks of intervention. Results: Following mixed effects regression models and path analyses, small-to-moderate effects were shown on letter knowledge, phoneme awareness and taught vocabulary. However, these were fragile and short lived, and there was no reliable effect on the primary outcome of word-level reading. Conclusions: This new intervention was theoretically motivated and based on previous successful interventions, yet failed to show reliable effects on language and literacy measures following a rigorous evaluation. We suggest that the intervention may have been too short to yield improvements in oral language; and that literacy instruction in and beyond the classroom may have weakened training effects. We argue that reporting of null results makes an important contribution in terms of raising standards both of trial reporting and educational practice.

We conducted a randomized field trial to test an academic vocabulary intervention designed to bolster the language and literacy skills of linguistically diverse sixth-grade students (N = 2,082; n = 1,469 from a home where English is not the primary language), many demonstrating low achievement, enrolled in 14 urban middle schools. The 20-week classroom-based intervention improved students' vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness skills, and comprehension of expository texts that included academic words taught, as well as their performance on a standardized measure of written language skills. The effects were generally larger for students whose primary home language is not English and for those students who began the intervention with underdeveloped vocabulary knowledge.

A randomized trial involving 19 elementary schools (K-5) was conducted to replicate and extend two previous experimental studies of the effects of a voluntary summer reading program that provided (a) books matched to students' reading levels and interests and (b) teacher scaffolding in the form of end-of-year comprehension lessons. Matched schools were randomly assigned to implement one of two lesson types. Within schools, students were randomly assigned to a control condition or one of two treatment conditions: a basic treatment condition replicating procedures used in the previous studies or an enhanced treatment condition that added teacher calls in the summer. During summer vacation, students in the treatment conditions received two lesson books and eight books matched to their reading level and interests. Overall, there were no significant treatment effects, and treatment effects did not differ across lesson type. However, there was a significant interaction between the treatment conditions and poverty measured at the school level. The effects of the treatments were positive for high-poverty schools (Cohen's d = 0.08 and 0.11, respectively), defined as schools where 75-100% of the students were receiving free or reduced-price lunch (FRL). For moderate-poverty schools (45-74% FRL), the effects of the treatments were negative (Cohen's d = -0.11 and -0.12, respectively). The results underscore the importance of looking at patterns of treatment effects across different contexts, settings, and populations.

This study examined the impact of independent practice of multiple-criteria text that targeted high-frequency words, decodability, and meaningfulness. Second-grade students, including at-risk students, were randomly assigned within classroom to a treatment group that read multiple-criteria text ("n" = 34), or contrast group that read authentic literature (i.e., children's books without intentionally imbedded scaffolds; "n" = 28) during daily 30-min independent reading sessions for 10 weeks. Pre-post data analysis indicated no statistically significant group differences, though a moderate effect size of 0.67 was found for the word reading of developing decoders in the treatment group. HLM analyses also provided preliminary evidence that practice with multiple-criteria text may be more effective than practice with authentic literature for developing decoders but not advanced decoders.

Interim assessments are increasingly common in U.S. schools. We use high-quality data from a large-scale school-level cluster randomized experiment to examine the impact of two well-known commercial interim assessment programs on mathematics and reading achievement in Indiana. Results indicate that the treatment effects are positive but not consistently significant. The treatment effects are smaller in lower grades (i.e., kindergarten to second grade) and larger in upper grades (i.e., third to eighth grade). Significant treatment effects are detected in Grades 3 to 8, especially in third- and fourth-grade reading and in fifth- and sixth-grade mathematics.

This action research study examined the effect of Read 180, a research-based reading intervention program, on the reading achievement among struggling readers in Grades 9-11 as measured by reading clusters on the Language Arts Literacy portion of the High School Proficiency Assessment, final English grades, and Lexile scores. Struggling readers entering high school often fail to meet stringent literacy demands because they lack mastery of the five main components of effective reading. Although many reading intervention programs exist at the elementary level, few are available in high schools; however, increased pressure for improved student performance on state assessments has caused school districts to explore various programs at the high school level. This study contributes to the literature on such programs by investigating the effects of Read 180 on students' reading achievement. The final grades and assessment scores of three cohorts of ninth-grade students (2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010; N = 134) were examined in a matched-pair design, matching students in Read 180 (treatment group) with students in the traditional English 9 course (control group). The scores of the Language Arts Literacy portion of the eighth-grade state assessment determined students' placement. Analyses of variance indicated Read 180 participants significantly outperformed nonparticipants on final English 9 grades. Additionally, a t test indicated Read 180 participants from the 2009-2010 cohort significantly increased their reading achievement according to Lexile scores. Significant results occurred during the school year students participated in Read 180. No other statistically significant differences on the reading achievement between the two groups were evident after students exited Read 180. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

By the end of school year (SY) 2008-2009, Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) applied for and was awarded a four-year Striving Readers grant to implement the "Virginia Striving Readers Intervention Initiative" (VSRII). VSRII proposed to implement a supplemental reading intervention with students in seventh and eighth grades at nine public schools in three school divisions in Virginia. The school division representatives chose to implement "Passport Reading Journeys (PRJ)," an intervention that was already in use in many Virginian schools. "PRJ" had been studied previously in other school districts using quasi-experimental designs, but had not been tested with an experimental study. A total of 913 students were eligible to participate. This report presents provisional findings from the first implementation year of VSRII (SY 2010-2011) and its preliminary impact on participating students. [Written with Kristina Najera, Laura Taylor, and Trina Willard.]

In this study, 72 secondary English teachers from the Santa Ana Unified School District were randomly assigned to participate in the Pathway Project, a cognitive strategies approach to teaching interpretive reading and analytical writing, or to a control condition involving typical district training focusing on teaching content from the textbook. Pathway teachers learned how to use an on-demand writing assessment to help mainstreamed English learners understand, interpret, and write analytical essays. In Year 2, treatment effects were replicated on an on-demand writing assessment (d = 0.67) and showed evidence of transfer to improved performance on a standardized writing test (d = 0.10). The results underscore the efficacy of a cognitive strategies reading/writing intervention for mainstreamed English learners (ELs) in the secondary grades. (Contains 1 note, 4 tables, and 3 figures.)

This study investigated the relative effects of three treatments with varying instructional emphases in reading with a comparison condition. Eighty-seven students in fourth grade with reading impairments were assigned through stratified random assignment to one of four conditions: (a) comprehension emphasis, (b) word study emphasis, (c) emphasis of either comprehension or word study based on the student's pretest reading profile, or (d) school-provided intervention comparison condition. Students in the three researcher-provided treatments received intervention in small groups with a trained tutor for 30 min daily for approximately 28 weeks. Results revealed no statistically significant main effects between conditions on measures of word reading, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension. Students with limited English proficiency performed significantly better at posttest in all conditions than other students. Discussion addresses the challenges of successfully remediating reading problems with older students with significant reading problems. (Contains 3 tables.)

This study investigated the relative effects of three treatments with varying instructional emphases in reading with a comparison condition. Eighty-seven students in fourth grade with reading impairments were assigned through stratified random assignment to one of four conditions: (a) comprehension emphasis, (b) word study emphasis, (c) emphasis of either comprehension or word study based on the student's pretest reading profile, or (d) school-provided intervention comparison condition. Students in the three researcher-provided treatments received intervention in small groups with a trained tutor for 30 min daily for approximately 28 weeks. Results revealed no statistically significant main effects between conditions on measures of word reading, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension. Students with limited English proficiency performed significantly better at posttest in all conditions than other students. Discussion addresses the challenges of successfully remediating reading problems with older students with significant reading problems. (Contains 3 tables.)

This study investigated the relative effects of three treatments with varying instructional emphases in reading with a comparison condition. Eighty-seven students in fourth grade with reading impairments were assigned through stratified random assignment to one of four conditions: (a) comprehension emphasis, (b) word study emphasis, (c) emphasis of either comprehension or word study based on the student's pretest reading profile, or (d) school-provided intervention comparison condition. Students in the three researcher-provided treatments received intervention in small groups with a trained tutor for 30 min daily for approximately 28 weeks. Results revealed no statistically significant main effects between conditions on measures of word reading, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension. Students with limited English proficiency performed significantly better at posttest in all conditions than other students. Discussion addresses the challenges of successfully remediating reading problems with older students with significant reading problems. (Contains 3 tables.)

A cluster randomized trial estimated the effects of a supplemental vocabulary program, Elements of Reading[R]: vocabulary on student vocabulary and passage comprehension in moderate- to high-poverty elementary schools. Forty-four schools participated over a period spanning 2 consecutive school years. At baseline, 1,057 teachers and 16,471 students from kindergarten, first, third, and fourth grade participated. The schools were randomly assigned to either the primary or intermediate grade treatment group. In each group, the nontreatment classrooms provided the control condition. Treatment classrooms used the intervention to supplement their core reading program, whereas control classrooms taught vocabulary business-as-usual. The intervention includes structured, weekly lesson plans for 6 to 8 literary words and aural/oral and written language activities providing multiple exposures and opportunity for use. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate both proximal (Year 1) and distal (Year 2) effects on vocabulary and passage comprehension. The intervention had positive and statistically significant proximal effects but no statistically significant distal effects. The results indicate that the intervention can improve targeted vocabulary and local passage comprehension, but expecting global effects may be overly optimistic. (Contains 13 tables and 2 footnotes.)

This study compared the effects of Tier 2 reading interventions that operated in response-to-intervention contexts. Kindergarten children (N = 90) who were identified as at risk for reading difficulties were stratified by school and randomly assigned to receive (a) Early Reading Intervention (ERI; Pearson/Scott Foresman, 2004) modified in response to student performance or (b) their schools' typical supplemental reading intervention (regrouping and curriculum pacing adjustments). In both conditions, intervention was provided 30 minutes per day in small groups for approximately 100 sessions. Results indicated no statistically significant group differences on any outcome measures. Between-group effect sizes revealed substantively important differences (Valentine & Cooper, 2003) favoring the ERI responsive condition on multiple measures with effect sizes ranging from 0.35 to 0.59. Overall, findings indicated that the majority of students in both Tier 2 intervention conditions performed above the 30th percentile on posttest measures of word reading measures. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)

The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) Project had two purposes: (1) implement a supplemental reading intervention for students in ninth grade who were reading below grade level; and (2) study the impact of the intervention on students' performance on standardized assessments using a randomized control trial design. The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) project focused on ninth grade students who scored at the bottom two quartiles on the state assessment (grade 8 EXPLORE®). A total of 855 students participated in the project. Of these, 427 students were randomly assigned to the treatment group, with 428 students going to the control group. This report presents findings from the first year of implementation of the Illinois Striving Readers. The report is divided into three parts: (1) describes the intervention as proposed by the developers and the project's logic model; (2) discusses findings from the first implementation year; and (3) presents the analysis of the intervention's impact on student academic performance, as measured by standardized assessments.

The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) Project had two purposes: (1) implement a supplemental reading intervention for students in ninth grade who were reading below grade level; and (2) study the impact of the intervention on students' performance on standardized assessments using a randomized control trial design. The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) project focused on ninth grade students who scored at the bottom two quartiles on the state assessment (grade 8 EXPLORE®). A total of 855 students participated in the project. Of these, 427 students were randomly assigned to the treatment group, with 428 students going to the control group. This report presents findings from the first year of implementation of the Illinois Striving Readers. The report is divided into three parts: (1) describes the intervention as proposed by the developers and the project's logic model; (2) discusses findings from the first implementation year; and (3) presents the analysis of the intervention's impact on student academic performance, as measured by standardized assessments.

This study evaluates Reading Intervention--a 10-week supplementary reading programme emphasising the link between phonological awareness and reading--when delivered in a realistic educational setting. Twenty-nine 6-year-olds with reading difficulties participated in Reading Intervention and their progress and attainments were compared with those of a representative control group from the same classes, matched on age and gender. Language profiles were also explored. Children with reading difficulties showed weaknesses in phonological awareness and literacy as well as nonphonological oral language skills and nonverbal reasoning. During the intervention, the intervention group made significantly greater progress than the control group in early word reading, phoneme awareness and phonetic spelling. Over a 6-month follow-up period, the intervention group maintained its gains but during this time made significantly less progress on single word reading, phoneme awareness and phonetic spelling than the control group. These findings provide evidence that reading interventions can be delivered effectively in standard educational settings. We argue that a better understanding of how to manage withdrawal of intervention and how to address poor readers' additional oral language weaknesses is needed.

This study compared the effects of 2 supplemental interventions on the beginning reading performance of kindergarteners identified as at risk of reading difficulty. Students (N = 206) were assigned randomly at the classroom level either to an explicit/systematic commercial program or to a school-designed practice intervention taught 30 min per day in small groups for approximately 100 sessions. Multilevel hierarchical linear analyses revealed statistically significant effects favoring the explicit/systematic intervention on alphabetic, phonemic, and untimed decoding skills with substantive effect sizes on all measures except word identification and passage comprehension. Group performance did not differ statistically on more advanced reading and spelling skills. Findings support the efficacy of both supplemental interventions and suggest the benefit of the more explicit/systematic intervention for children who are most at risk of reading difficulty. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

This article reports the outcomes of a multiyear study comparing the English and Spanish language and reading performance of Spanish-dominant children randomly assigned, beginning in kindergarten, to transitional bilingual education (TBE) or structured English immersion (SEI) for periods of up to 5 years. On the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and its Spanish equivalent (Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody) and on the English and Spanish versions of three Woodcock Reading Scales, first graders in TBE performed significantly better in Spanish and worse in English than did their SEI counterparts. Differences diminished in second and third grades, and by fourth grade, when all students in TBE had transitioned to English-only instruction, there were no significant differences on English reading measures. These findings suggest that Spanish-dominant students learn to read in English equally well in TBE and SEI and that policy should therefore focus on the quality of instruction rather than on the language of instruction for English-language learners. (Contains 1 note and 8 tables.)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a classroom-teacher-delivered reading intervention for struggling readers called the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), designed particularly for kindergarten and first-grade teachers and their struggling students in rural, low-wealth communities. The TRI was delivered via an innovative Web-conferencing system using laptop computers and webcam technology. Seven schools from the southwestern United States were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions in a cluster randomized design. All children in the study (n = 364) were administered a battery of standardized reading skill tests in the fall and spring of the school year. Intent-to-treat analyses were conducted to estimate mixed models of children's 1-year growth in Word Attack, Letter/Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, and Spelling of Sounds. Results showed that struggling readers from experimental schools outperformed those from control schools on all spring reading outcomes, controlling for fall scores. (Contains 5 tables.)

This study examined the effects of an intensive shared book-reading intervention on the vocabulary development of preschool children who were at risk for vocabulary delay. The participants were 125 children, who the researchers stratified by classroom and randomly assigned to one of two shared book-reading conditions (i.e., the experimental, Words of Oral Reading and Language Development [WORLD] intervention; or typical practice). Results on researcher-developed measures showed statistically and practically significant effects for the WORLD intervention with no differential effects for children with higher versus lower entry level vocabulary knowledge. The researchers detected no statistically significant differences on standardized measures. Results suggest that a combination of instructional factors may be necessary to enhance the efficacy of shared book reading for children with early vocabulary difficulties. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

This article reports the results from a randomized control field trial that investigated the impact of an enhanced decoding and spelling curriculum on the development of adult basic education (ABE) learners' reading skills. Sixteen ABE programs that offered class-based instruction to Low-Intermediate-level learners were randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the control group. Reading instructors in the 8 treatment programs taught decoding and spelling using the study-developed curriculum, Making Sense of Decoding and Spelling, and instructors in the 8 control programs used their existing reading instruction. A comparison group of 7 ABE programs whose instructors used K-3 structured curricula adapted for use with ABE learners were included for supplemental analyses. Seventy-one reading classes, 34 instructors, and 349 adult learners with pre- and posttests participated in the study. The study found significantly greater gains for the treatment group relative to the control group on one measure of decoding skills, which was the proximal target of the curriculum. No treatment-control differences were found for gains on word recognition, spelling, fluency, or comprehension. Pretest-to-posttest gains for word recognition and spelling were small to moderate but not significantly better than the control classes. Adult learners who were born and educated outside of the United States made larger gains on 7 of the 11 reading measures than learners who were born and educated within the United States. However, participation in the treatment curriculum was more beneficial for learners who were born and educated in the United States in developing their word recognition skills. (Contains 5 tables.)

This article reports the results from a randomized control field trial that investigated the impact of an enhanced decoding and spelling curriculum on the development of adult basic education (ABE) learners' reading skills. Sixteen ABE programs that offered class-based instruction to Low-Intermediate-level learners were randomly assigned to either the treatment group or the control group. Reading instructors in the 8 treatment programs taught decoding and spelling using the study-developed curriculum, Making Sense of Decoding and Spelling, and instructors in the 8 control programs used their existing reading instruction. A comparison group of 7 ABE programs whose instructors used K-3 structured curricula adapted for use with ABE learners were included for supplemental analyses. Seventy-one reading classes, 34 instructors, and 349 adult learners with pre- and posttests participated in the study. The study found significantly greater gains for the treatment group relative to the control group on one measure of decoding skills, which was the proximal target of the curriculum. No treatment-control differences were found for gains on word recognition, spelling, fluency, or comprehension. Pretest-to-posttest gains for word recognition and spelling were small to moderate but not significantly better than the control classes. Adult learners who were born and educated outside of the United States made larger gains on 7 of the 11 reading measures than learners who were born and educated within the United States. However, participation in the treatment curriculum was more beneficial for learners who were born and educated in the United States in developing their word recognition skills. (Contains 5 tables.)

To compare the efficacy of instructional programs for adult learners with basic reading skills below the 7th-grade level, 300 adults were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 supplementary tutoring programs designed to strengthen decoding and fluency skills, and gains were examined for the 148 adult students who completed the program. The 3 intervention programs were based on or adapted from instructional programs that have been shown to benefit children with reading levels similar to those of the adult sample. Each program varied in its relative emphasis on basic decoding versus reading fluency instruction. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance confirmed small to moderate reading gains from pre- to posttesting across a battery of targeted reading measures but no significant relative differences across interventions. An additional 152 participants who failed to complete the intervention differed initially from those who persisted. Implications for future research and adult literacy instruction are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

To compare the efficacy of instructional programs for adult learners with basic reading skills below the 7th-grade level, 300 adults were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 supplementary tutoring programs designed to strengthen decoding and fluency skills, and gains were examined for the 148 adult students who completed the program. The 3 intervention programs were based on or adapted from instructional programs that have been shown to benefit children with reading levels similar to those of the adult sample. Each program varied in its relative emphasis on basic decoding versus reading fluency instruction. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance confirmed small to moderate reading gains from pre- to posttesting across a battery of targeted reading measures but no significant relative differences across interventions. An additional 152 participants who failed to complete the intervention differed initially from those who persisted. Implications for future research and adult literacy instruction are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

To compare the efficacy of instructional programs for adult learners with basic reading skills below the 7th-grade level, 300 adults were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 supplementary tutoring programs designed to strengthen decoding and fluency skills, and gains were examined for the 148 adult students who completed the program. The 3 intervention programs were based on or adapted from instructional programs that have been shown to benefit children with reading levels similar to those of the adult sample. Each program varied in its relative emphasis on basic decoding versus reading fluency instruction. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance confirmed small to moderate reading gains from pre- to posttesting across a battery of targeted reading measures but no significant relative differences across interventions. An additional 152 participants who failed to complete the intervention differed initially from those who persisted. Implications for future research and adult literacy instruction are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

Students with high-incidence disabilities struggle with reading comprehension due to difficulties in background knowledge and metacognitive skills, including use of self-monitoring and other strategies. In the United States, these students typically receive the majority of their instruction in general education settings. However, there is little research comparing reading comprehension interventions with the typical basal curricula used in these classrooms. We compared the effects of an explicit reading comprehension intervention to those of a typical language-arts curriculum on upper elementary and middle school students' (n = 38) retells of passages and understanding of main ideas. A 2 x 4 repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant differences between instructional groups. These results indicate systematic and explicit reading comprehension instruction can be delivered successfully to students with high-incidence disabilities in general education settings. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)

Analyzing mathematics and reading achievement outcomes from a district-level random assignment study fielded in over 500 schools within 59 school districts and seven states, the authors estimate the 1-year impacts of a data-driven reform initiative implemented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education (CDDRE). CDDRE consultants work with districts to implement quarterly student benchmark assessments and provide district and school leaders with extensive training on interpreting and using the data to guide reform. Relative to a control condition, in which districts operated as usual without CDDRE services, the data-driven reform initiative caused statistically significant districtwide improvements in student mathematics achievement. The CDDRE intervention also had a positive effect on reading achievement, but the estimates fell short of conventional levels of statistical significance. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables, and 16 notes.)

This study evaluated the relative effects of Tier II computer-assisted tutoring in small groups (Team Alphie) and one-to-one tutoring provided to struggling readers in 33 high-poverty Success for All (SFA) schools. In this year-long study, struggling readers in the Team Alphie schools were tutored in groups of 6. In the control schools, students were tutored using the standard one-to-one tutoring process used in SFA. Analyses of covariance of students' standardized reading scores indicated that the first-grade treatment group significantly outperformed the control group on all 3 reading measures, with no significant differences for second graders. Schools using Team Alphie were able to tutor many more students than the control schools. This study shows that a computer-assisted, small-group tutoring program may be at least as effective as one-to-one tutoring and serve more struggling readers. It may serve as a good example of Tier II instruction in a response to intervention (RTI) model. (Contains 1 table.)

"Thinking Reader" is a software program for students in Grades 5-8 that incorporates elements commonly identified in policy reports as being key components of effective adolescent literacy instruction. This evaluation of the impact of "Thinking Reader" use by Grade 6 students focused on two confirmatory research questions about the effect of the program on two measures of students' reading achievement: (1) What is the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading vocabulary?; and (2) What is the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading comprehension? A statistically significant impact on either outcome measure would signal the program's success. The study also examined whether "Thinking Reader" has an effect on two ancillary, but important, measures of students' approaches to reading: (1) What is the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' use of reading comprehension strategies?; and (2) What is the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' motivation to read? This study also addressed four exploratory research questions. These questions investigate whether the impact of the "Thinking Reader" intervention on students' reading achievement varied across subgroups of students formed on the basis of baseline reading vocabulary, baseline reading comprehension, and baseline motivation to read measures: (1) Does the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading vocabulary vary according to their baseline reading vocabulary scores?; (2) Does the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading comprehension vary according to their baseline reading comprehension scores?; (3) Does the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading vocabulary vary according to their baseline reading motivation scores?; (4) Does the effect of "Thinking Reader" on students' reading comprehension vary according to their baseline reading motivation scores? The impact results for the primary research questions indicate that "Thinking Reader" was no more effective than business as usual in improving students' reading vocabulary (effect size of -0.04) or reading comprehension (effect size of 0.03). Results for the ancillary research questions indicate that "Thinking Reader" was also no more effective than business as usual in improving student' use of reading comprehension strategies (effect size of 0.03) or their motivation to read (effect size of -0.03). None of these results are statistically significant. Sensitivity analyses found no changes in the direction or magnitude of the intervention effects. Appendices include: (1) Examples From the "Thinking Reader" Program; (2) Data Collection; (3) Missing Data, Baseline Equivalence of the Analytic Sample, and the Impact Model; (4) Sensitivity Analyses; and (5) Exploratory Analyses. (Contains 89 tables, 10 figures, 6 boxes, 7 exhibits and 51 footnotes.)

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a set of instructional strategies designed to improve the reading comprehension of students with diverse abilities (Klingner and Vaughn 1996). Teachers implement CSR at the classroom level using scaffolded instruction to guide students in the independent use of four comprehension strategies; students apply the strategies to informational text while working in small cooperative learning groups. The current study is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) examining the effect of CSR on student reading comprehension. Within each participating linguistically diverse school, grade 5 social studies classrooms were randomly assigned to either the CSR condition (using CSR when delivering social studies curricula) or to the control condition (a business-as-usual condition). The implementation period was one school year. This study focused on the following confirmatory research question: In linguistically diverse schools, do grade 5 students in CSR classrooms have higher average reading comprehension posttest scores on the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) than students in control classrooms? In addition, the study examined three exploratory research questions about CSR's effect on two subgroups of students: (1) Do grade 5 former and current English language learner (FC-ELL) students in CSR classrooms have higher average reading comprehension posttest scores on the GRADE than FC-ELL students in control classrooms?; (2) Do grade 5 non-ELL students in CSR classrooms have higher average reading comprehension posttest scores on the GRADE than non-ELL students in control classrooms?; and (3) Does CSR have a differential impact on GRADE reading comprehension posttest scores for grade 5 FC-ELL and non-ELL students? The intent of these exploratory analyses was to examine whether there is an effect for each subgroup separately, as well as whether there is a differential effect between the subgroups. The primary finding of this study is that CSR did not have a statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension. Nine sensitivity analyses--including alternative statistical approaches, an alternative approach for handling missing data, and different sample specifications--showed that the findings were robust to different analytic approaches. Three exploratory analyses were also conducted to examine the effects of CSR on FC-ELL and non-ELL students. Statistically significant effects on student reading comprehension were not identified for either subgroup, and no statistically significant differential impacts were identified. It is often the case that RCTs, because of their greater rigor, do not support the findings of prior quasi-experiments (Glazerman, Levy, and Myers 2002, 2003). With all other design features held constant, randomization yields stronger evidence about program impacts than do quasi-experiments (Boruch 1997; Shadish, Cook, and Campbell 2002). The current investigation evaluated the impact of CSR in an effectiveness trial designed to approximate a district's implementation of CSR. Data on the fidelity of implementation suggest that professional development was generally delivered according to plan. Data on teacher fidelity of CSR implementation showed that 78.8 percent of teachers reported using CSR two or more times a week, as instructed. However, the single observation conducted for each classroom found that 21.6 percent of CSR teachers were using all five core teacher strategies, which the study defined as full procedural fidelity; 56.8 percent of teachers were observed using three or fewer strategies. Appendices include: (1) Identification and exit criteria for English language learner students in Oklahoma and Texas; (2) Assumptions used to determine statistical power and observed power; (3) Random assignment; (4) Analysis of consent rate at baseline; (5) Estimation methods; (6) Frequently asked questions about contamination; (7) Attrition analyses; (8) Response rates for demographic data; (9) Fall and spring teacher surveys; (10) Fall coaching observation form; (11) Multiple imputation; (12) Assigning students to cooperative learning groups; (13) Critical procedural behaviors for Collaborative Strategic Reading strategies; (14) Observer training for the subscale Expository Reading Comprehension observation instrument and interrater reliability; (15) Descriptive statistics on Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation scores; (16) Baseline equivalence results for multiply imputed analytic dataset; and (17) Full analytic output tables. A glossary is included. (Contains 52 tables, 3 figures and 46 footnotes.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore if there could be a more beneficial method in organizing the individual instructional reading components (phonological decoding, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension) within a remedial reading program to increase sensitivity to instruction for middle school students with reading disabilities (RD). Three different modules (Alternating, Integrated, and Additive) of the Reading Achievement Multi-Modular Program were implemented with 90 middle school (sixth to eighth grades) students with reading disabilities. Instruction occurred 45 min a day, 5 days a week, for 26 weeks, for approximately 97 h of remedial reading instruction. To assess gains, reading subtests of the Woodcock Johnson-III, the Gray Silent Reading Test, and Oral Reading Fluency passages were administered. Results showed that students in the Additive module outperformed students in the Alternating and Integrated modules on phonological decoding and spelling and students in the Integrated module on comprehension skills. Findings for the two oral reading fluency measures demonstrated a differential pattern of results across modules. Results are discussed in regards to the effect of the organization of each module on the responsiveness of middle school students with RD to instruction.

The primary purpose of this study was to explore if there could be a more beneficial method in organizing the individual instructional reading components (phonological decoding, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension) within a remedial reading program to increase sensitivity to instruction for middle school students with reading disabilities (RD). Three different modules (Alternating, Integrated, and Additive) of the Reading Achievement Multi-Modular Program were implemented with 90 middle school (sixth to eighth grades) students with reading disabilities. Instruction occurred 45 min a day, 5 days a week, for 26 weeks, for approximately 97 h of remedial reading instruction. To assess gains, reading subtests of the Woodcock Johnson-III, the Gray Silent Reading Test, and Oral Reading Fluency passages were administered. Results showed that students in the Additive module outperformed students in the Alternating and Integrated modules on phonological decoding and spelling and students in the Integrated module on comprehension skills. Findings for the two oral reading fluency measures demonstrated a differential pattern of results across modules. Results are discussed in regards to the effect of the organization of each module on the responsiveness of middle school students with RD to instruction.

This study reports findings on the relative effects from a yearlong secondary intervention contrasting large-group, small-group, and school-provided interventions emphasizing word study, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension with seventh- and eighth-graders with reading difficulties. Findings indicate that few statistically significant results or clinically significant gains were associated with group size or intervention. Findings also indicate that a significant acceleration of reading outcomes for seventh- and eighth-graders from high-poverty schools is unlikely to result from a 50 min daily class. Instead, the findings indicate, achieving this outcome will require more comprehensive models including more extensive intervention (e.g., more time, even smaller groups), interventions that are longer in duration (multiple years), and interventions that vary in emphasis based on specific students' needs (e.g., increased focus on comprehension or word study).

This study reports findings on the relative effects from a yearlong secondary intervention contrasting large-group, small-group, and school-provided interventions emphasizing word study, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension with seventh- and eighth-graders with reading difficulties. Findings indicate that few statistically significant results or clinically significant gains were associated with group size or intervention. Findings also indicate that a significant acceleration of reading outcomes for seventh- and eighth-graders from high-poverty schools is unlikely to result from a 50 min daily class. Instead, the findings indicate, achieving this outcome will require more comprehensive models including more extensive intervention (e.g., more time, even smaller groups), interventions that are longer in duration (multiple years), and interventions that vary in emphasis based on specific students' needs (e.g., increased focus on comprehension or word study).

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of teachers' use of a print-referencing style during whole-class read-alouds with respect to accelerating 4- and 5-year-old children's print-knowledge development. It also examined 8 specific child- and setting-level moderators to determine whether these influenced the relation between teachers' use of a print-referencing style and children's print-knowledge development. Method: In this randomized controlled trial, 59 teachers were randomly assigned to 2 conditions. Teachers in the experimental group (n = 31) integrated explicit references to specified print targets within each of 120 read-aloud sessions conducted in their classrooms over a 30-week period; comparison teachers (n = 28) read the same set of book titles along the same schedule but read using their business-as-usual reading style. Children's gains over the 30-week period on a composite measure of print knowledge were compared for a subset of children who were randomly selected from the experimental (n = 201) and comparison (n = 178) classrooms. Results: When controlling for fall print knowledge, child age, and classroom quality, children who experienced a print-referencing style of reading had significantly higher print knowledge scores in the spring than did children in the comparison classroom. None of the child-level (age, initial literacy skills, language ability) or setting-level characteristics (program type, instructional quality, average level of classroom socioeconomic status, teachers' education level, teachers' experience) significantly moderated intervention effects. Clinical Implications: Considered in tandem with prior study findings concerning this approach to emergent literacy intervention, print-focused read-alouds appear to constitute an evidence-based practice with net positive impacts on children's literacy development.

This paper reports the fifth-year results of a study comparing the English and Spanish language and reading performance of Spanish-dominant children randomly assigned beginning in kindergarten to Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) or Structured English Immersion (SEI). This is the first randomized study to compare TBE and SEI reading approaches over a period as long as five years. As expected, on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and its Spanish equivalent (TVIP) and on English and Spanish versions of three Woodcock Reading Scales, kindergartners and first graders in TBE performed significantly better in Spanish and worse in English than their SEI counterparts, controlling for PPVT and TVIP. After transitioning to English, TBE children in grades 2-4 scored significantly lower than those in SEI on the measure of receptive vocabulary, the PPVT, but there were no significant differences on most English reading measures. On the Spanish language (TVIP) and reading measures, TBE students scored significantly higher than SEI in grades K-3, but not grade 4. Both groups gained substantially in English receptive language skills over the years. These findings suggest that Spanish-dominant students learn to read in English (as well as Spanish) equally well in TBE and SEI. (Contains 4 tables.)

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below "proficient"--defined as demonstrating competency over challenging subject matter. Of these students, nearly half do not exhibit even partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental to proficient work at grade level. These limitations in literacy skills are a major source of course failure, high school dropout, and poor performance in postsecondary education. While research is beginning to emerge about the special needs of striving adolescent readers, very little is known about effective interventions aimed at addressing these needs. To help fill this gap and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth-grade students whose reading skills are at least two years below grade level. As part of this demonstration, 34 high schools from 10 school districts implemented one of two reading interventions: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. These programs were implemented in the study schools for two school years. The U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) funded the implementation of these programs, and its Institute of Education Sciences (IES) was responsible for oversight of the evaluation. MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization--conducted the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Survey Research Management (SRM). The goal of the reading interventions--which consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class--is to help striving adolescent readers develop the strategies and routines used by proficient readers, thereby improving their reading skills and ultimately, their academic performance in high school. The first two reports for the study evaluated the programs' impact on the two most proximal outcomes targeted by the interventions--students' reading skills and their reading behaviors at the end of ninth grade. This report--which is the final of three reports for this evaluation--examines the impact of the ERO programs on the more general outcomes that the programs hope to affect--students' academic performance in high school (grade point average [GPA], credit accumulation, and state test scores) as well as students' behavioral outcomes (attendance and disciplinary infractions). These academic and behavioral outcomes are examined during the year in which they were enrolled in the ERO programs (ninth grade), as well as the following school year (tenth grade for most students). Appendices include: (1) The ERO Programs and the ERO Teachers; (2) ERO Student Survey Measures; (3) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (4) State Tests Included in the ERO Study; (5) Response Analysis and Baseline Comparison Tables; (6) Technical Notes for Impact Findings; (7) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (8) Supplementary Impact Findings; (9) Baseline and Impact Findings, by Cohort; (10) The Association Between Reading Outcomes and Academic Performance in High School; (11) Variation in Impacts Across Sites and Cohorts; (12) Program Costs; and (13) Poststudy Adolescent Literacy Programming in the ERO Schools: Methodology and Additional Findings. (Contains 97 tables, 23 figures, 2 boxes, and 185 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Edmond Wong. For the first-year report, see ED499778. For the second report, see ED503380.]

This experimental study was conducted to examine the efficacy of repeated reading and wide reading practice interventions for high school students with severe reading disabilities. Effects on comprehension, fluency, and word reading were evaluated. Participants were 96 students with reading disabilities in grades 9-12. Students were paired within classes and pairs were randomly assigned to one of three groups: repeated reading (N = 33), wide reading (N = 34), or typical instruction (N = 29). Intervention was provided daily for approximately 15-20 minutes for 10 weeks. Results indicated no overall statistically significant differences for any condition, with effect sizes ranging from -0.31 to 0.27. Findings do not support either approach for severely impaired readers at the high school level. We hypothesize that these students require more intensive interventions that include direct and explicit instruction in word- and text-level skills as well as engaged reading practice with effective feedback.

To help improve research-based knowledge of effective instruction for low-literate ESL (English as a second language) learners, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance of ED's (U.S. Department of Education's) Institute of Education Sciences contracted with the American Institutes of Research (AIR) to conduct a Study of the Impact of a Reading Intervention for Low-Literate Adult ESL Learners. The intervention studied was the basal reader "Sam and Pat, Volume I," published by Thomson-Heinle (2006). "Sam and Pat" was selected as the focus of the study because it offers an approach to literacy development that is systematic, direct, sequential, and multi-sensory. The study produced the following key results: (1) More reading instruction was observed in "Sam and Pat" classes, while more English language instruction was observed in control classes; (2) Although students made gains in reading and English language skills, no differences in reading and English language outcomes were found between students in the "Sam and Pat" group and students in the control group; and (3) There were no impacts of "Sam and Pat" on reading and English language outcomes for five of six subgroups examined. Appendices include: (1) Assessment Selection, Administration, and Scoring; (2) Supplemental Tables and Figures for Chapter 2; (3) Classroom Observation Methods and Instrument; (4) Power Calculations and Impact Estimation Methods; (5) Supplemental Tables for Chapter 3; and (6) Supplemental Tables for Chapter 4. (Contains 44 tables, 12 figures, and 33 footnotes.) [For the executive summary, see ED514093.]

Reading fluency is a critical component of effective reading instruction for students of early elementary age. However, national data suggest that 40% of U.S. fourth-grade students are nonfluent readers. Implementing evidence-based, time-efficient, and procedurally standardized instructional strategies may help address this problem. This study evaluates the efficacy of two such programs designed to supplement a core reading curriculum for all emerging readers: the Great Leaps K-2 Reading Program, which is currently used in schools throughout the United States, and the Helping Early Literacy With Practice Strategies (HELPS) Program, which was developed for the purposes of this study. Each program was implemented with second grade participants, and each program was evaluated against a wait-list control group. Results indicated that students receiving the HELPS Program scored significantly better than students in the control group across several measures of early reading, with effect sizes ranging from medium to large. No other statistically significant differences were found. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of increasing the use of evidence-based reading practices in schools. (Contains 3 tables and 2 footnotes.)

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

Unfortunately, little is known about school-based interventions that address the needs of struggling adolescent readers. To help fill these gaps in knowledge and to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners, the U.S. Department of Education initiated the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) Study--a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of supplemental literacy programs targeted to ninth grade students with limited literacy skills. The demonstration involves 34 high schools from 10 school districts that are implementing one of two supplemental literacy programs: Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy (RAAL), designed by WestEd, or Xtreme Reading, designed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. The programs are supplemental as they consist of a year-long course that replaces a ninth-grade elective class and not a core academic class. They aim to help striving adolescent readers develop and apply the strategies and routines used by proficient readers and to motivate them to read more. The literacy programs were implemented in school years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, resulting in two cohorts of ninth-grade participants. The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) provided direct support for implementation to the participating schools and districts, while the Institute of Education Sciences has been funding and overseeing the design and execution of the evaluation effort. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization, is conducting the evaluation in partnership with the American Institutes for Research and Survey Research Management. The study's first report described the first year of implementation of the ERO programs and presented impact findings for the first cohort of ninth-grade students (2005-06). The key impact finding was that overall, the ERO programs improved students' reading comprehension test by 0.09 standard deviation (p-value = 0.019). Although not statistically significant, the estimated impact of each literacy intervention (Xtreme Reading, RAAL) was also 0.09 standard deviation. This conference paper will present findings from the second report for the ERO study, which examined implementation and impacts for the second year of program operation. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 10 footnotes.)

This dissertation study employed quantitative methods to investigate the impact of adult questioning styles on children's novel vocabulary acquisition during shared storybook reading. In an effort to examine adult qualitative variations in shared storybook readings, two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of noneliciting questions during shared storybook reading on children's receptive and expressive novel vocabulary learning. The sociocultural perspective was the theoretical framework of this dissertation study and maintains that learning is due to socially meaningful activity of the child within the environment (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Vygotsky, 1978). In the first experiment, 45 children enrolled in monolingual Head Start classrooms were ranked by general vocabulary scores and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: vocabulary noneliciting questions, vocabulary eliciting questions, and no questions (control). In the second experiment, the novel vocabulary learning of 54 children enrolled in a bilingual English-Spanish Head Start program was investigated. In the second experiment, participants were ranked by Spanish general vocabulary scores and randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) Spanish vocabulary noneliciting questioning, (2) English vocabulary noneliciting questioning, (3) Spanish labels, and (4) English labels. Experiment 1 utilized the methodological framework employed in previous experimental work on storybook reading: pretest, intervention, and posttest with the addition of a delayed posttest in Experiment 1. Vocabulary noneliciting questions, eliciting questions, and no questions appear to be equally effective. There was no decay of the words learned as determined by delayed post-test. Experiment 2's methodological framework resembles that utilized by Justice (2002) conducted with a monolingual sample. Experiment 2 also utilized other methodological considerations from the existing literature to examine the effects of noneliciting questions on the novel vocabulary learning of bilingual preschoolers. Experiment 2 revealed that English labels are more effective than English noneliciting questions for receptive knowledge. Spanish noneliciting questions lead to greater expressive word learning than Spanish labels. This study has a number of major impacts, including comparison of Experiment 1's results to the extant literature which is instructive; and, while there is a preponderance of literature with monolingual populations, research with bilingual populations is limited, thus Experiment 2 helps to close that gap. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one school year, differences in student test scores were not statistically significant between classrooms that were randomly assigned to use software products and those that were randomly assigned not to use products. School and teacher characteristics generally were not related to whether products were effective. The second year of the study examined whether an additional year of teaching experience using the software products increased the estimated effects of software products on student test scores. The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. For reading, there were no statistically significant differences between the effects that products had on standardized student test scores in the first year and the second year. For sixth grade math, product effects on student test scores were statistically significantly lower (more negative) in the second year than in the first year, and for algebra I, effects on student test scores were statistically significantly higher in the second year than in the first year. The study also tested whether using any of the 10 software products increased student test scores. One product had a positive and statistically significant effect. Nine did not have statistically significant effects on test scores. Five of the insignificant effects were negative and four were positive. Study findings should be interpreted in the context of design and objectives. The study examined a range of reading and math software products in a range of diverse school districts and schools. But it did not study many forms of educational technology and it did not include many types of software products. How much information the findings provide about the effectiveness of products that are not in the study is an open question. Products in the study also were implemented in a specific set of districts and schools, and other districts and schools may have different experiences with the products. The findings should be viewed as one element within a larger set of research studies that have explored the effectiveness of software products. Three appendixes are included: (1) Second-Year Data Collection and Response Rates; (2) Description of Sample for the 10 Products; and (3) Details of Estimation Methods. (Contains 29 footnotes, 4 figures and 24 tables.

The authors investigated whether practice in reading fluency had a causal influence on the relationship between working memory (WM) and text comprehension for 155 students in Grades 2 and 4 who were poor or average readers. Dysfluent readers were randomly assigned to repeated reading or continuous reading practice conditions and compared with untreated dysfluent and fluent readers on posttest measures of fluency, word identification, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Three main findings emerged: (a) The influence of WM on text comprehension was not related to fluency training, (b) dysfluent readers in the continuous-reading condition had higher posttest scores than dysfluent readers in the other conditions on measures of text comprehension but not on vocabulary, and (c) individual differences in WM better predicted posttest comprehension performance than word-attack skills. In general, the results suggested that although continuous reading increased comprehension, fluency practice did not compensate for WM demands. The results were interpreted within a model that viewed reading comprehension processes as competing for a limited supply of WM resources that operate independent of fluency. (Contains 9 tables and 2 notes.)

This study evaluated the effectiveness of comprehension training embedded in a program that taught science content to 2nd graders. The program included instruction about the structure of compare-contrast expository text, emphasizing clue words, generic questions, graphic organizers, and the close analysis of well-structured text exemplars. This program was compared with a program that focused on the science content but included no compare-contrast training as well as with a no-instruction control. Regular classroom teachers (14 from 4 schools), randomly assigned to treatment, provided the instruction; 215 students (7-8 years old) participated. The study replicated acquisition and transfer effects found in an earlier study, that is, transfer to compare-contrast text with content related and unrelated to the instructional content (with no loss in the amount of science content acquired). The program also led to better performance on written and oral response measures and on 1 of the 2 measures involving authentic (less well-structured) compare-contrast text. These findings support and extend previous findings that explicit instruction in comprehension is effective as early as the primary-grade level. (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure, and 1 footnote.)

Difficulty learning how to read is a risk factor for school failure, low grades, behavior problems, juvenile delinquency, truancy, unemployment, jail time, and substance abuse. Reading difficulties are common in the educational setting, afflicting anywhere from 20-40 percent of students. Read Naturally is a computer-based reading program which targets the third "big idea" (i.e., accuracy and fluency with reading). The current study assessed the efficacy of the Read Naturally program in second through fourth grade elementary students in a public elementary school. Additionally, this study assessed whether improving reading abilities resulted in changes in classroom behavior problems or self-esteem. Eighty-two students from a small, public elementary school who were in need of additional reading support, according to the DIBELS Benchmark Assessments, participated in the current study. Students were matched on DIBELS scores, grade, race, and gender and then randomly assigned to either the Read Naturally condition or the Education as Usual condition. Students used the Read Naturally program for 30-45 minutes each day, five days a week, for eight weeks. Results suggested that, throughout the 16 weeks of intervention, significant improvements were generally seen on all of the reading measures over time, regardless of the condition to which students were assigned, although small effect sizes generally favored the Read Naturally intervention. Additionally, students in higher grades generally demonstrated more improvement on the WJ-III Summary Scores, WJ-III Passage Comprehension subscale, and the WJ-III Word Attack subscale, regardless of the condition to which they were assigned. Student measures suggest that Read Naturally does not result in increased self-esteem, even with improvements in academic performance. Behavior measures were inconclusive. Generally, the effects of the Read Naturally intervention appear discernible, but not incremental, suggesting that Read Naturally may not be more efficacious than typical education, but may have benefits in terms of targeting larger groups of students, being individualized to each student, and may allow another way for teachers to target the third "big idea." Future research is warranted. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This document reports on the impacts on student achievement for four supplemental reading curricula that use similar overlapping instructional strategies designed to improve reading comprehension in social studies and science text. Fifth-grade reading comprehension for each of three commercially-available curricula (Project CRISS, ReadAbout, and Read for Real) was not significantly different from the control group. The fourth curriculum, Reading for Knowledge, was adapted from Success for All for this study, and had a statistically-significant negative impact on fifth-grade reading comprehension. The study is based on a rigorous experimental design and a large sample that includes 10 districts, 89 schools, 268 teachers, and 6,350 students. During the first year of the study, it was found that over 90 percent (91 to 100 percent) of treatment teachers were trained to use the assigned curriculum, and more than half (56 to 80 percent) reported that they were very well prepared by the training to implement it. Over 80 percent (81 to 91 percent) of teachers reported using their assigned curriculum. Classroom observation data showed that teachers implemented 55 to 78 percent of the behaviors deemed important by the developers for implementing each curriculum. Scores on the three reading comprehension assessments were not statistically significantly higher in schools using the selected reading comprehension curricula. Impacts were correlated with some subgroups defined by student, teacher, and school characteristics. Appendixes include: (1) Random Assignment; (2) Flow of Schools and Students through the Study; (3) Obtaining Parent Consent; (4) Implementation Timeline; (5) Sample Sizes and Response Rates; (6) Creation and Reliability of Classroom Observation and Teacher Survey Measures; (7) Estimating Impacts; (8) Assessing Robustness of the Impacts; (9) Key Descriptive Statistics for Classroom Observation and Fidelity Data; (10) Study Instruments; and (11) Unadjusted Means. (Contains 91 tables, 8 figures, and 78 footnotes.)

This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Most were Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) with identified disabilities. Nearly all demonstrated severely limited oral vocabularies in English and, for ELLs, in both English and Spanish. Students were randomly assigned to receive the research intervention (n = 20) or typical instruction provided in their school's remedial reading or special education classes (n = 18). Students in the treatment group received daily explicit and systematic small-group intervention for 40 minutes over 13 weeks, consisting of a modified version of a phonics-based remedial program augmented with English as a Second Language practices and instruction in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Results indicated that treatment students did not demonstrate significantly higher outcomes in word recognition, comprehension, or fluency than students who received the school's typical instruction and that neither group demonstrated significant growth over the course of the study. Significant correlations were found between scores on teachers' ratings of students' social skills and problem behaviors and posttest decoding and spelling scores, and between English oral vocabulary scores and scores in word identification and comprehension. The researchers hypothesize that middle school students with the most severe reading difficulties, particularly those who are ELLs and those with limited oral vocabularies, may require intervention of considerably greater intensity than that provided in this study. Further research directly addressing features of effective remediation for these students is needed.

This study examined effects of a repeated reading intervention, Quick Reads, with incidental word-level scaffolding instruction. Second- and third-grade students with passage-reading fluency performance between the 10th and 60th percentiles were randomly assigned to dyads, which were in turn randomly assigned to treatment (paired tutoring, n = 82) or control (no tutoring, n = 80) conditions. Paraeducators tutored dyads for 30 min per day, 4 days per week, for 15 weeks (November-March). At midintervention, most teachers with students in the study were formally observed during their literacy blocks. Multilevel modeling was used to test for direct treatment effects on pretest-posttest gains as well as to test for unique treatment effects after classroom oral text reading time, 2 pretests, and corresponding interactions were accounted for. Model results revealed both direct and unique treatment effects on gains in word reading and fluency. Moreover, complex interactions between group, oral text reading time, and pretests were also detected, suggesting that pretest skills should be taken into account when considering repeated reading instruction for 2nd and 3rd graders with low to average passage-reading fluency. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

To help states and districts make informed decisions about the professional development (PD) they implement to improve reading instruction, the U.S. Department of Education commissioned the Early Reading PD Interventions Study to examine the impact of two research-based PD interventions for reading instruction: (1) a content-focused teacher institute series that began in the summer and continued through much of the school year (treatment A) and (2) the same institute series plus in-school coaching (treatment B). The Early Reading PD Interventions Study used an experimental design to test the effectiveness of the two PD interventions in improving the knowledge and practice of teachers and the reading achievement of their students in high-poverty schools. It focused specifically on second grade reading because (1) this is the earliest grade in which enough districts collect the standardized reading assessment data needed for the study; and (2) later grades involve supplementary instruction, which was outside the scope of the study. The study was implemented in 90 schools in six districts (a total of 270 teachers), with equal numbers of schools randomly assigned in each district to treatment A, treatment B, or the control group, which participated only in the usual PD offered by the district. This design allowed the study team to determine the impact of each of the two PD interventions by comparing each treatment group's outcomes with those of the control group, and also to determine the impact of the coaching above and beyond the institute series by comparing treatment group B with treatment group A This report describes the implementation of the PD interventions tested, examines their impacts at the end of the year the PD was delivered, and investigates the possible lagged effect of the interventions, based on outcomes data collected the year after the PD interventions concluded. The study produced the following results: (1) Although there were positive impacts on teacher's knowledge of scientifically based reading instruction and on one of the three instructional practices promoted by the study PD, neither PD intervention resulted in significantly higher student test scores at the end of the one-year treatment; (2) Added effect of the coaching intervention on teacher practices in the implementation year was not statistically significant; and (3) There were no statistically significant impacts on measured teacher or student outcomes in the year following the treatment. Twelve appendixes are included: (1) Theory of Action and Development for the PD Interventions for the Early Reading PD Interventions Study; (2) Details on the Study Design and Implementation; (3) Details on Teacher Data and Teacher Sample Characteristics; (4) Reading Content and Practices Survey Design and Scales; (5) Classroom Observer Training and Inter-Rater Reliability; (6) Classroom Observation Scales and Descriptive Statistics; (7) Details on Student Data, Sample Characteristics and Achievement Measures; (8) Validation of the Survey Data on Professional Development Participation; (9) Estimation Methods and Hypothesis Testing; (10) Fall 2005 Short-Term Teacher Practice Outcomes; (11) Supporting Tables and Figures for Impact Analyses; and (12) Supplementary Analyses. (Contains 165 footnotes, 35 figures, and 85 tables.)

The purpose of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate the efficacy of scaffolded silent reading (ScSR) compared with the evidence-based practice of guided repeated oral reading (GROR) with feedback on 3rd-grade students' fluency and comprehension growth. Using a mixed-model dominant-less dominant design, the authors collected both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative results indicated no significant differences between these 2 forms of reading fluency practice on 3rd-grade students' fluency and comprehension development with the exception of 1 significant difference favoring ScSR on expression of a single passage. Qualitative results indicated that either ScSR or GROR approaches used exclusively tended toward tedium and reduced overall student enjoyment and motivation. The authors discuss how the ScSR approach represents a viable alternative or companion to GROR for promoting 3rd-grade students' reading fluency and comprehension growth. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

These two recipients of this year's Alan C. Purves Award reflect on their work (reported in "RTE" Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 269-303) on "A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners in Secondary School" and the lessons they learned from their original research study as they tried to replicate the project in two additional districts outside their service area, to determine if the implications of their study would hold beyond the local context. The Alan C. Purves Award is given to the "RTE" article in the previous volume year judged most likely to impact educational practice. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

This report presents early findings from the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. focuses on the first of two cohorts of ninth-grade students who will participate in the study and discusses the impact that the two interventions had on these students' reading comprehension skills through the end of their ninth-grade year. The report also describes the implementation of the programs during the first year of the study and provides an assessment of the overall fidelity with which the participating schools adhered to the program design specified by the developers. The key findings discussed in the report include the following: (1) On average, across the 34 participating high schools, the supplemental literacy programs improved student reading comprehension test scores; (2) Although they are not statistically significant, the magnitudes of the impact estimates for each literacy intervention are the same as those for the full study sample; and (3) Impacts on reading comprehension are larger for the 15 schools where the ERO programs began within six weeks of the start of the school year and implementation was classified as moderately or well aligned with the program model, compared with impacts for the 19 schools where at least one of these conditions was not met. The following are appended: (1) ERO Student Follow-Up Survey Measures; (2) Follow-Up Test and Survey Response Analysis; (3) Statistical Power and Minimum Detectable Effect Size; (4) ERO Implementation Fidelity; (5) Technical Notes for Early Impact Findings; (6) Early Impact Estimates Weighted for Nonresponse; (7) Early Impacts on Supplementary Measures of Reading Achievement and Behaviors; (8) Early Impacts for Student Subgroups; and (9) The Relationship between Early Impacts and First-Year Implementation Issues. (Contains 52 tables, 4 figures, and 121 footnotes.) [This report was prepared for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences.]

We examined the benefits of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) as a supplement to a phonics-based reading curriculum for kindergartners in an urban public school system. The CAI program provides systematic exercises in phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondences. Comparisons were made between children in classes receiving a sufficient amount of CAI support and children in matched classes taught by the same teacher but without CAI. The treatment and control groups did not differ on pretest measures of preliteracy skills. There were, however, significant differences between groups on posttest measures of phonological awareness skills particularly for students with the lowest pretest scores. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Two studies examined response to varying amounts of time in reading intervention for two cohorts of first-grade students demonstrating low levels of reading after previous intervention. Students were assigned to one of three groups that received (a) a single dose of intervention, (b) a double dose of intervention, or (c) no intervention. Examination of individual student response to intervention indicated that more students in the treatment groups demonstrated accelerated learning over time than students in the comparison condition. Students' responses to the single-dose and double-dose interventions were similar over time. Students in all conditions demonstrated particular difficulties with gains in reading fluency. Implications for future research and practice within response to intervention models are provided. (Contains 10 tables and 8 figures.)

This article describes a randomized evaluation of The Reading Edge, a reading program for middle school students. The Reading Edge was designed to integrate findings of research on cooperative learning and metacognitive reading strategies into a replicable reading instructional package that could be implemented effectively in Title I middle schools. In this study, 405 sixth graders in two high-poverty, rural middle schools previously unfamiliar with the program were randomly assigned to participate in The Reading Edge or to continue with their existing reading programs. After one year of instruction, observations of classroom use of metacognitive strategies, cooperative learning, goal setting/feedback, and classroom management, showed moderate levels of implementation in Reading Edge classes but little use of metacognitive strategies, cooperative learning, or goal setting/feedback in control classes. Statistically significant differences in student scores on the Vocabulary subscale of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, and marginally significant scores on the Total Achievement score, provide support for the basic reading model, but larger and longer studies are needed to establish the full effects of this approach. (Contains 1 table.)

This study evaluated the effects of a fluency-based reading program with 15 second and third grade students and 15 matched controls. Gains in oral reading fluency on untrained CBM probes were evaluated using a matched-pairs group-comparison design, whereas immediate and two-day retention gains in oral reading fluency on trained passages were evaluated using an adapted changing criterion design. Increases in WRCM due to training and number of trainings to criterion were also evaluated as a function of pre-training fluency levels. Results showed statistically significant gains on dependent measures for the treatment group, mean increases of two to three grade levels in passages mastered, and an optimal pre-training fluency range of 41-60 WRCM. Implications for fluency-based reading programs are discussed.

An experimental research design was used to examine the effectiveness of a targeted, long-term intervention to promote school completion and reduce dropout among urban high school students with emotional or behavioral disabilities. African American (67%) males (82%) composed a large portion of the sample. This intervention study was a replication of an empirically supported model referred to as check & connect. Study participants included 144 ninth graders, randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. The majority of youth were followed for 4 years, with a subsample followed for 5 years. Program outcomes included lower rates of dropout and mobility, higher rates of persistent attendance and enrollment status in school, and more comprehensive transition plans.

A randomized experimental design with three levels of intervention was used to compare the effects of beginning reading interventions on early phonemic, decoding, and spelling outcomes of 96 kindergartners identified as at risk for reading difficulty. The three instructional interventions varied systematically along two dimensions--time and design of instruction specificity--and consisted of (a) 30 min with high design specificity (30/H), (b) 15 min with high design specificity plus 15 min of non-code-based instruction (15/H+15), and (c) a commercial comparison condition that reflected 30 min of moderate design specificity instruction (30/M). With the exception of the second 15 min of the 15/H+15 condition, all instruction focused on phonemic, alphabetic, and orthographic skills and strategies. Students were randomly assigned to one of the three interventions and received 108 thirty-minute sessions of small-group instruction as a supplement to their typical half-day kindergarten experience. Planned comparisons indicated findings of statistical and practical significance that varied according to measure and students' entry-level performance. The results are discussed in terms of the pedagogical precision needed to design and provide effective and efficient instruction for students who are most at risk.

This study examined the efficacy of a paraprofessional-led supplemental early intervention for first-grade students with poor early literacy skills and behavioral concerns. The goal was to determine if (a) the relatively brief intervention was effective in improving phonological skills, and (b) improvements in academic skills would be accompanied by behavioral and social improvements. The results indicated that the students in the treatment condition experienced significant, lasting increases in phonological awareness and moderate improvement in word attack skills. However, significant collateral effects on social and behavioral performance were not observed. Limitations and directions for future investigation are offered.

The Reading Rescue tutoring intervention model was investigated with 64 low-socioeconomic status, language-minority first graders with reading difficulties. School staff provided tutoring in phonological awareness, systematic phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension. Tutored students made significantly greater gains reading words and comprehending text than controls, who received a small-group intervention (d = 0.70) or neither intervention (d = 0.74). The majority of tutored students reached average reading levels whereas the majority of controls did not. Paraprofessionals tutored students as effectively as reading specialists except in skills benefiting nonword decoding. Paraprofessionals required more sessions to achieve equivalent gains. Contrary to conventional wisdom, results suggest that students make greater gains when they read text at an independent level than at an instructional level. (Contains 6 tables.)

One theoretical approach for increasing intrinsic motivation for reading consists of teachers using situational interest to encourage the development of long-term individual interest in reading. The authors investigated that possibility by using stimulating tasks, such as hands-on science observations and experiments, to increase situational interest. Concurrently, the authors provided books on the topics of the stimulating tasks and teacher guidance for reading to satisfy curiosities aroused from the tasks. Students with a high number of stimulating tasks increased their reading comprehension after controlling for initial comprehension more than did students in comparable intervention classrooms with fewer stimulating tasks. Students' motivation predicted their level of reading comprehension after controlling for initial comprehension. The number of stimulating tasks did not increase reading comprehension on a standardized test when motivation was controlled, suggesting that motivation mediated the effect of stimulating tasks on reading comprehension. Apparently, stimulating tasks in reading increased situational interest, which increased longer term intrinsic motivation and reading comprehension. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

A first-grade reading and language development intervention for English language learners (Spanish/English) at risk for reading difficulties was examined. The intervention was conducted in the same language as students' core reading instruction (English). Two hundred sixteen first-grade students from 14 classrooms in 4 schools from 2 districts were screened in both English and Spanish. Forty-eight students (22%) did not pass the screening in both languages and were randomly assigned within schools to an intervention or contrast group; after 7 months, 41 students remained in the study. Intervention groups of 3 to 5 students met daily (50 minutes) and were provided systematic and explicit instruction in oral language and reading by trained bilingual reading intervention teachers. Students assigned to the contrast condition received their school's existing intervention for struggling readers. Intervention students significantly outperformed contrast students on multiple measures of English letter naming, phonological awareness and other language skills, and reading and academic achievement. Differences were less significant for Spanish measures of these domains, though the strongest effects favoring the intervention students were in the areas of phonological awareness and related reading skills.

Two studies of Grade 1 reading interventions for English-language (EL) learners at risk for reading problems were conducted. Two samples of EL students were randomly assigned to a treatment or untreated comparison group on the basis of their language of instruction for core reading (i.e., Spanish or English). In all, 91 students completed the English study (43 treatment and 48 comparison), and 80 students completed the Spanish study (35 treatment and 45 comparison). Treatment students received approximately 115 sessions of supplemental reading daily for 50 minutes in groups of 3 to 5. Findings from the English study revealed statistically significant differences in favor of treatment students on English measures of phonological awareness, word attack, word reading, and spelling (effect sizes of 0.35-0.42). Findings from the Spanish study revealed significant differences in favor of treatment students on Spanish measures of phonological awareness, letter-sound and letter-word identification, verbal analogies, word reading fluency, and spelling (effect sizes of 0.33-0.81).

In this study we examined the benefits of computer programs designed to supplement regular reading instruction in an urban public school system. The programs provide systematic exercises for mastering word-attack strategies. Our findings indicate that first graders who participated in the programs made significant reading gains over the school year. Their post-test scores were slightly (but not significantly) greater than the post-test scores of control children who received regular reading instruction without the programs. When analyses were restricted to low-performing children eligible for Title I services, significantly higher post-test scores were obtained by the treatment group compared to the control group. At post-test Title I children in the treatment group performed at levels similar to non-Title I students.

Background: The Waterford Early Reading Program (WERP), a technology-based program for early elementary grades, was provided through Arizona all day kindergarten funds to kindergarten students in 15 Title I elementary schools in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) in the 2005-06 school year. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the reading achievement of kindergartners in the WERP schools and in a Comparison group of 15 schools in the same district. The schools where the WERP was implemented are identified in this report as Schools A-L. The comparison schools are identified as Schools M-AA. Research Design: This evaluation design was a comparison-group study (quasi-experimental design) involving a treatment (WERP) implemented in 15 Title I schools ranked with the highest percentages of students on free/reduced lunch. A Comparison group of 15 schools was selected from those with the next highest percentages of students on free/reduced lunch. The comparison schools did not receive the WERP. Both matching techniques and statistical controls were used to make the groups similar in the analysis. The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Initial Sound Fluency, Letter Naming Fluency, Word Use Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency, and Nonsense Word Fluency and the district's Core Curriculum Standard Assessment (CCSA) Reading Test were given as pretests and posttests during the school year. In addition, the amount of time that each kindergartner used the WERP computer software was extracted from the software and used in the analysis. Statistical Analysis: Dependent samples t-tests were used to determine gains for the WERP and Comparison groups, and gain score analysis was used to compare these gains for the WERP and Comparison schools. Analysis of covariance was used to adjust the posttest means for differences on the pretest means of the students. Data were disaggregated by school, gender, ethnicity, pretest achievement quartiles, primary home language, and English language learner (ELL) status in order to determine patterns of achievement among these groups. (Contains 22 tables and 16 figures.)

This independent evaluation of 2 commonly used approaches for accelerating reading achievement and reducing inappropriate special education referrals, Success for All (SFA) and Open Court, was conducted in 12 Title I schools in a large urban district in northern California. To compare the effects of these approaches, we collected data on 936 grade 2 and 3 students over 2 years and 5,694 K through 6 students over 3 years to determine academic and special education enrollment outcomes, respectively. Results supported the prediction that students who used Open Court would outperform those who used SFA on mean SAT9 scores in reading and language but not the prediction that SFA would help students in the bottom quartile of SAT9 score higher or reduce demand for special education services more than Open Court. Neither Open Court nor SFA was associated with reductions in special education enrollment rates, except in Title I schools with the least poverty. A follow-up survey of 17 teachers and an analysis of lesson pacing plans suggested why the teachers saw Open Court as superior on academic outcomes and SFA on social outcomes.

Two studies--one quasi-experimental and one randomized experiment--were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of supplemental instruction in structural analysis and oral reading practice for second- and third-grade students with below-average word reading skills. Individual instruction was provided by trained paraeducators in single- and multiletter phoneme-grapheme correspondences; structural analysis of inflected, affixed, and multi-syllable words; exception word reading; and scaffolded oral reading practice. Both studies revealed short-term word level and fluency effects.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, nearly 4 in 10 fourth graders read below the basic level. These literacy problems get worse as students advance through school and are exposed to progressively more complex concepts and courses. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of four remedial reading programs in improving the reading skills of 3rd and 5th graders, whether the impacts of the programs vary across students with difference baseline characteristics, and to what extent can this instruction close the reading gap and bring struggling readers within the normal range--relative to the instruction normally provided by their schools. The study took place in elementary schools in 27 districts of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit outside Pittsburgh, PA during the 2003-04 school year. Within each of 50 schools, 3rd and 5th grade students were identified as struggling readers by their teachers. These students were tested and were eligible for the study if they scored at or below the 30th percentile on a word-level reading test and at or above the 5th percentile on a vocabulary test. The final sample contains a total of 742 students. There are 335 3rd graders ? 208 treatment and 127 control students. There are 407 5th graders ? 228 treatment and 179 control students. Four existing programs were used: Spell Read P.A.T., Corrective Reading, Wilson Reading, and Failure Free Reading. Corrective Reading and Wilson Reading were modified to focus only on word-level skills. Spell Read P.A.T. and Failure Free Reading were intended to focus equally on word-level skills and reading comprehension/vocabulary. Teachers received 70 hours of professional development and support during the year. Instruction was delivered in small groups of 3 students, 5 days a week, for a total of 90 hours. Seven measures of reading skill were administered at the beginning and end of the school year to assess student progress: Word Attack, Word Identification Comprehension (Woodcock Reading Mastery Test); Phonemic Decoding Efficiency and Sight Word Efficiency (Test of Word Reading Efficiency); Oral Reading Fluency (Edformation); and Passage Comprehension (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation). After one year of instruction, there were significant impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and comprehension for 3rd graders, but not for 5th graders. For third graders in the reading programs, the gap in word attach skills between struggling readers and average readers was reduced by about two-thirds. It was found that reading skills of 3rd graders can be significantly improved through instruction in word-level skills, but not the reading skills of 5th graders. The following are appended: (1) Details of Study Design and Implementation; (2) Data Collection; (3) Weighting Adjustment and Missing Data; (4) Details of Statistical Methods; (5) Intervention Impacts on Spelling and Calculation; (6) Instructional Group Clustering; (7) Parent Survey; (8) Teacher Survey and Behavioral Rating Forms; (9) Instructional Group Clustering; (10) Videotape Coding Guidelines for Each Reading Program; (11) Supporting Tables; (12) Sample Test Items; (13) Impact Estimate Standard Errors and P-Values; (14) Association between Instructional Group Heterogeneity and The Outcome; (15) Teacher Rating Form; (16) School Survey; and (17) Scientific Advisory Board. [This report was produced by the Corporation for the Advancement of Policy Evaluation. Additional support provided by the Barksdale Reading Institute, and the Haan Foundation for Children.]

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researcher-developed computer program, Computer-Assisted Collaborative Strategic Reading (CACSR), with students who had disabilities. Two reading/language arts teachers and their 34 students with disabilities participated. Students in the intervention group received the CACSR intervention, which consisted of 50-min instructional sessions twice per week over 10 to 12 weeks. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between intervention and comparison groups' reading comprehension ability as measured by a researcher-developed, proximal measure (i.e., finding main ideas and question generation) and a distal, standardized measure (i.e., "Woodcock Reading Mastery Test," Passage Comprehension). Effect sizes for all dependent measures favored the CACSR group. Furthermore, a majority of students expressed positive overall perspectives of the CACSR intervention and believed that their reading had improved.

This article reports the effects of a 2-year supplemental reading program for students in kindergarten through third grade that focused on the development of decoding skills and reading fluency. Two hundred ninety-nine students were identified for participation and were randomly assigned to the supplemental instruction or to a no-treatment control group. Participants' reading ability was assessed in the fall, before the first year of the intervention, and again in the spring of Years 1, 2, 3, and 4. At the end of the 2-year intervention, students who received the supplemental instruction performed significantly better than their matched controls on measures of entry-level reading skills (i.e., letter?word identification and word attack), oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The benefits of the instruction were still clear 2 years after instruction had ended, with students in the supplemental instruction condition still showing significantly greater growth on the measure of oral reading fluency. Hispanic students benefited from the supplemental reading instruction in English as much as or more than non-Hispanic students. Results support the value of supplemental instruction focused on the development of word recognition skills for helping students at risk for reading failure.

This study investigated the effectiveness of combining enhanced classroom instruction and intense supplemental intervention for struggling readers in first grade. Further, it compared two supplemental interventions derived from distinct theoretical orientations, examining them in terms of effects on academic outcomes and whether children's characteristics were differentially related to an instructional intervention. One intervention (Proactive Reading) was aligned with behavioral theory and was derived from the model of Direct Instruction. The other intervention (Responsive Reading) was aligned with a cognitive theory and was derived from a cognitive-apprenticeship model. These interventions were provided to small groups of first-grade students at risk for reading difficulties. Students were assessed on various reading and reading-related measures associated with success in beginning reading. Results indicated that (a) first-grade students who were at risk for reading failure and who received supplemental instruction in the Responsive or Proactive interventions scored higher on measures of reading and reading-related skills than students who received only enhanced classroom instruction, (b) enhanced classroom instruction appeared to promote high levels of reading growth for many children at risk for reading failure, (c) the two interventions were essentially equally effective even though they reflected different theoretical perspectives, and (d) children's characteristics did not differentially predict the effectiveness of an intervention.

This study compared the use of two supplemental balanced and strategic reading interventions that targeted the decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension of upper-elementary and middle school students with reading disabilities (RD). All students had significant delays in decoding, fluency, comprehension, and language processing. Two comparable, intensive tutorial treatments differed only in the degree of explicitness of the comprehension strategy instruction. Overall, there was meaningful progress in students' reading decoding, fluency, and comprehension. Gains in formal measures of word attack and reading fluency after five weeks of intervention translated into grade-equivalent gains of approximately half a school year. Analysis of the trends in the daily informal fluency probes translated into a weekly gain of 1.28 correct words per minute. The more explicit comprehension strategy instruction was more effective than the less explicit treatment. Findings are discussed in light of the question of how to maximize the effects of reading interventions for older children with RD.

Purpose: The extant literature suggests that exposure to novel vocabulary words through repeated readings of storybooks influences children's word learning, and that adult elaboration of words in context can accelerate vocabulary growth. This study examined the influence of small-group storybook reading sessions on the acquisition of vocabulary words for at-risk kindergartners, and the impact of word elaboration on learning. An additional goal was to study differential responses to treatment for children with high versus low vocabulary skill. Method: Using a pretest-posttest comparison group research design, 57 kindergartners were randomly assigned to a treatment (n=29) or comparison (n=28) group. Children were also differentiated into high (n=31) versus low (n=26) vocabulary skill groups using scores on a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Children in the treatment group completed 20 small-group storybook reading sessions during which they were exposed to 60 novel words randomly assigned to non-elaborated and elaborated conditions. Pre- and posttest examined the quality of children's definitions for the 60 novel words. Results: Overall, word-learning gains were modest. Children in the treatment group made significantly greater gains in elaborated words relative to children in the comparison group; no influence of storybook reading exposure was seen for non-elaborated words. Children with low vocabulary scores made the greatest gains on elaborated words. Clinical Implications: Suggestions are offered for using storybooks as a clinical tool for fostering vocabulary development. As an efficacy study, results should inform future applied research on word learning for at-risk children.

This study examined the first-grade reading progress of children who participated in an intensive beginning reading intervention in kindergarten. Specifically, the study investigated whether kindergarten intervention could prevent first-grade reading difficulties, or produce an "inoculation" effect, for some children under certain instructional conditions. Participants included children at risk for developing reading difficulties who received a 7-month beginning reading intervention in kindergarten. In October of first grade, 59 children who had achieved criterion levels on measures of phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge were randomly assigned to one of two types of first-grade reading instruction: (a) code-based classroom instruction and a supplemental maintenance intervention, or (b) only code-based classroom instruction. February posttest measures assessed oral reading fluency, word reading, nonword reading, and comprehension. Between-group analyses indicated that instructional groups did not differ on any posttest measure. The students' absolute levels of achievement were compared to national and local normative samples. These results indicated that between 75% and 100% of students in both conditions attained posttest levels and demonstrated growth comparable to their average-achieving peers. These results support the hypothesis that strong responders to kindergarten intervention can experience an inoculation effect through the middle of first-grade with research-validated classroom reading instruction.

Although schools across the country are investing heavily in computers in the classroom, there is surprisingly little evidence that they actually improve student achievement. In this paper, we present results from a randomized study of a well-defined use of computers in schools: a popular instructional computer program, known as Fast ForWord, which is designed to improve language and reading skills. We assess the impact of the program on students having difficulty learning to read using four different measures of language and reading ability. Our estimates suggest that while use of the computer program may improve some aspects of students' language skills, it does not appear that these gains translate into a broader measure of language acquisition or into actual readings skills.

Spanish-dominant bilingual students in grades 2-5 were tutored 3 times per week for 40 minutes over 10 weeks, using 2 English reading interventions. Tutoring took place from February through April of 1 school year. One, Read Well, combined systematic phonics instruction with practice in decodable text, and the other, a revised version of Read Naturally, consisted of repeated reading, with contextualized vocabulary and comprehension instruction. The progress of tutored students (n = 51) was compared to that of nontutored classmates (n = 42) using subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised. Students who received systematic phonics instruction made significant progress in word identification but not in word attack or passage comprehension. There were no significant effects for students in the repeated reading condition.

This study examined the reading gains of students with mild disabilities who were taught with one of two programs: "Horizons Fast Track A-B" (Engelmann, Engelmann, & Seitz-Davis, 1997) or "Reading Mastery Fast Cycle" (Engelmann & Bruner, 1995). A quasi-experimental design with preexisting groups was used to examine changes from pretest to posttest. Results revealed a pattern of small differences favoring "Reading Mastery Fast Cycle" on measures of decoding; however, these differences were not statistically significant. Both programs were effective in producing statistically significant improvements in word attack, comprehension, letter and word identification, phonemic awareness, and print awareness skills. Participating teachers agreed that both programs were effective; however, anecdotal information from teacher interviews suggested that all participating teachers preferred "Horizons Fast Track." (Contains 4 tables.)

Gaps in reading performance between Anglo and Latino children are associated with gaps in vocabulary knowledge. An intervention was designed to enhance fifth graders' academic vocabulary. The meanings of academically useful words were taught together with strategies for using information from context, from morphology, from knowledge about multiple meanings, and from cognates to infer word meaning. Among the principles underlying the intervention were that new words should be encountered in meaningful text, that native Spanish speakers should have access to the text's meaning through Spanish, that words should be encountered in varying contexts, and that word knowledge involves spelling, pronunciation, morphology, and syntax as well as depth of meaning. Fifth graders in the intervention group showed greater growth than the comparison group on knowledge of the words taught, on depth of vocabulary knowledge, on understanding multiple meanings, and on reading comprehension. The intervention effects were as large for the English-language learners (ELLs) as for the English-only speakers (EOs), though the ELLs scored lower on all pre- and posttest measures. The results show the feasibility of improving comprehension outcomes for students in mixed ELLEO classes, by teaching word analysis and vocabulary learning strategies.

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction--CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies.

Developed and evaluated a middle school literacy program designed to meet the needs of urban early adolescents. Findings from evaluation in two schools implementing the Student Team Reading and Writing program and three comparison schools indicated higher achievement for program participants. (SLD)

A study involving 195 Hispanic and non-Hispanic students (grades K-2) with reading difficulties found that children who received supplemental reading instruction that taught basic decoding and comprehension skills for two years performed better on measures of word attack, word identification, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension than comparison students. (Contains references.) (CR)

Examines the contribution of supplemental spelling instruction to spelling, writing, and reading among second-grade children experiencing difficulties learning. Students in the spelling condition made greater improvements on norm-referenced spelling measures, a writing-fluency test, and a reading word-attack measure following instruction. (Contains 74 references and 4 tables.) (GCP)

Examined effectiveness and feasibility of phonological awareness training, with and without a beginning decoding component. Teachers were assigned randomly to three groups: control, phonological awareness training, and phonological awareness training with beginning decoding instruction and practice. Group differences were identified at the end of kindergarten and remained, although diminished, in the fall of the next year. (BF)

Examines the utility of teaching reading using rime-based reading strategies with prereaders. Measures rhyming, phoneme identity, letter-sound knowledge, phonological working memory, First Nations language speaking ability, and reading. Concludes that progress in phonological awareness and word reading can be enhanced in prereaders by adding experience with rime-based strategies to the reading program. (SG)

A study evaluated the effects of supplemental reading instruction for 256 students in kindergarten through Grade 3 (158 Hispanic). Children who received the supplemental reading instruction performed significantly better on measures of word attack, word identification, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension after 15 to 16 months of instruction. (Contains extensive references.) (Author/CR)

Starting with the 1997-1998 school year, the Direct Instruction Reading/Language Arts Program was implemented in three elementary schools in a northwest urban public school system as a 3-year pilot study to improve the academic performance of at-risk students. Direct Instruction (DI) is aimed at providing effective learning for low-achieving elementary school students from disadvantaged backgrounds. DI was first implemented in 1968 at the University of Oregon in Eugene as part of Project Follow Through. Although the national evaluation of Project Follow Through favors the DI model in terms of both short- and long-term program effects, the findings from DI programs implemented across the United States are not always consistent. This study examines DI program effects on the reading ability of urban elementary school students at three grade levels who had been in the program for 2 consecutive years. Subjects were 93 fourth graders, 71 fifth graders, and 81 sixth graders. The evaluation reveals mixed findings. Performance of sixth grade DI schools was lower than that of sixth graders in control schools. (Contains 4 tables, 3 figures, and 22 references.) (SLD)

Assesses effectiveness of a representational visual imagery training program on the reading and listening comprehension of a group of poor listening comprehenders (mean age: 7 years 8 months). Finds significant improvement on a curriculum-based test of listening comprehension, a standardised test of reading comprehension, and a measure of story event structure. Discusses implications for early institution of visual imagery training. (RS)

A study involving 32 children with language delays investigated the effectiveness of Dialogic Reading, an interactive language-facilitation technique. After adult instruction in Dialogic Reading, children spoke more, made longer utterances, produced more words, and participated more in shared book reading. No differences were found in vocabulary development. (Author/CR)

Evaluated the effects of a six-week interactive shared-reading intervention with 3- to 4-year olds from low-income families who attended subsidized child care. The intervention involved teacher-reading at school, parents-reading at home, both-reading, or a no-treatment control. Found that significant gains on measures of oral language and language samples were largest for children in conditions involving home reading. (Author/KB)

First and second graders (n=285) received one of three types of classroom reading programs: (1) direct instruction in letter-sound correspondence; (2) less direct instruction in sound-spelling patterns; and (3) implicit instructions in the alphabetic code while reading connected text. Results show advantages of reading programs that emphasize explicit instruction in the alphabetic principle. (SLD)

An 8-month study tracked 166 second graders of various ethnic backgrounds in an urban setting while they were being motivated to read through a literature-based reading and writing program. The classrooms in which the research was conducted used basal readers and did not have well-designed literacy centers. Collaboration was not an integral part of reading instruction. During the research project, some of these classrooms were converted into "experimental classrooms,"--basal-based reading instruction was supplemented with literature-based instruction, literacy centers were created, and students were given opportunities for collaborative literacy activities. Students were randomly selected for the experimental classrooms; the remaining classrooms were used as controls. On several quantitative measures of comprehension, students in the experimental classrooms performed significantly better than the others. Qualitative data were also collected (interviews, observations) to measure attitudes toward traditional and experimental reading instruction, to determine the types of literacy activities students in experimental rooms participated in, and to identify the interactive behaviors that motivate reading and writing. Findings suggest that a good case can be made for the inclusion of literature and collaborative activities in reading instruction and that a balanced approach to reading instruction is superior to one based solely on the use of basal readers. (Contains 6 tables of data, one figure, and 143 references; appendixes list storybooks used for testing and children's literature references.) (NKA)

A study determined the impact of integrating literacy and science programs on literacy achievement, use of literature, and attitude toward reading and science. Six third-grade classes (128 students) of ethnically diverse children were assigned to one control and two experimental groups (literature/science program and literature only program). Standardized and informal written and oral tests were used to determine growth in literacy and science. Use of generic literature and literature related to science was measured by a child survey concerning after-school activities and records of books read in school and at home. Interviews with teachers and children determined attitudes toward the literature and science programs. Children in the literature/science group did significantly better on all literacy measures than children in the literature only group. Children in the literature only group did significantly better on all literacy measures, except for the standardized reading tests, than children in the control group. There were no differences among the groups on number of science facts used in science stories written. In the test of science concepts the literature/science group did significantly better than the literature only group and the control group. Observational data are reported on the nature of literacy and science activity during periods of independent reading and writing. (Contains 42 references, 4 tables, and 4 figures of data. A list of storybooks used for testing is attached.) (Author/RS)

A study investigated the effectiveness of the Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL) program, an educator-developed approach to transactional strategies instruction (TSI). Five groups of six previously low-achieving second-grade students received a year of transactional strategies instruction and five groups of six students received a year of more conventional reading instruction provided by teachers who were highly regarded by school district personnel. Each of the 10 groups was housed in a different classroom, with each SAIL group matched to a comparison group that was close in reading achievement level and matched demographically to the school providing the SAIL group. By the end of the academic year, there was clear evidence of greater knowledge and use of strategies by the TSI students, greater acquisition of information from material read in reading group, and superior performance on standardized reading tests. Findings suggest a clear validation to date of educator-developed transactional strategies instruction. (Contains 53 references and five tables of data. A sample SAIL lesson is attached.) (Author/RS)

A two-year study determined the effects of a comprehensive cooperative-learning approach to reading and language arts instruction on students' achievement, attitudes, and metacognitive awareness. Students in second through sixth grades, some mainstreamed academically handicapped, worked in heterogeneous learning teams on reading and writing activities. Results favored the cooperative program over regular instruction and pull-out remedial programs. (TJQ)

Presents an experimental evaluation of a trial implementation of reciprocal teaching procedures by high school teachers to address reading comprehension deficits. Forty-six students were exposed to 1 of 3 conditions: 12-16 reciprocal teaching sessions, 6-8 sessions, or no treatment. Significant gains were observed with students in the extended program. (JBJ)

Implemented structured cooperative-learning strategy for reading, Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC), in nine third-grade classes (n=198) and compared with nine control group classes (n=194). CIRC group outgained controls on Reading Comprehension as measured by California Achievement Test. When groups were divided into reading levels, significant differences were found for lower group that favored CIRC. (Author/NB)

Among 68 rural learning-disabled students in grades 5-7 having moderate decoding fluency and high decoding accuracy, a paraphrasing cognitive strategy increased reading comprehension of main ideas more effectively than repeated readings or control training. Paraphrasing plus repeated readings was no more effective than paraphrasing alone. Contains 26 references. (SV)

Students in fourth and seventh grade who were poor comprehenders were taught prediction, clarification, question generation, and summarization using scaffolding instruction. Performance on a standardized comprehension test improved for the students who received the instruction. (PCB)

A study examined the effects of adult-interactive behaviors during repeated storybook readings upon the language development and selected prereading skills of prekindergarten at-risk students. A total of 53 inner city, low socioeconomic status subjects participated in the 20-week study. Subjects were dichotomized at the median on a measure of development level into average- and delayed-development level groups and were then randomly assigned from each of the two development strata to two experimental groups and to one control group. The subjects in experimental group 1 were exposed to adult-interactive behaviors during repeated readings of "big book" storybooks. Subjects in experimental group 2 were exposed to repeated "big book" storybook readings without adult interaction. Control group subjects participated in the regular prekindergarten activities. Results indicated that the subjects in both experimental groups scored significantly higher on the language development tests than the control group subjects, but there was no difference between the two experimental groups. Results further indicated that average-development level subjects also obtained significantly higher scores on both the language development and prereading skills instruments than delayed-development level subjects. (Seventeen references, the story reading model, and the protocols for the second and third storybook reading, and for the repeated storybook reading without adult interaction are attached.) (Author/RS)

This study investigated whether instruction aimed to heighten awareness of narrative structure would enhance fifth-grade children's use of story elements during comprehension and composition. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Informed Strategies for Learning (ISL) was designed to increase children's awareness and use of effective reading strategies. This study demonstrated that metacognition can be promoted through direct instruction (ISL) in the classroom. Increased awareness can lead to better use of reading strategies. (DWH)

A prereading strategy designed to predict events and provide practice in answering questions requiring inferences between text and prior knowledge were used with elementary school students. The performance of experimental groups surpassed that of the control groups on some measures while results were mixed on other measures. (MKM)