A Comparison of "Reading Mastery Fast Cycle" and "Horizons Fast Track A-B" on the Reading Achievement of Students with Mild Disabilities
Cooke, Nancy L.; Gibbs, Susan L.; Campbell, Monica L.; Shalvis, Shawnna L. (2004). Journal of Direct Instruction, v4 n2 p139-151. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ755177
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examining30Students, grades2-4
Reading Mastery Intervention Report - Students with a Specific Learning Disability
Review Details
Reviewed: July 2012
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Reading Mastery.
Findings
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Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Woodcock-Johnson Revised (WJ-R): Word Attack subtest |
Reading Mastery vs. Horizons Fast Track |
Posttest |
Grades 2-4;
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85.17 |
82.64 |
No |
-- | |
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Woodcock-Johnson Revised (WJ-R): Letter-Word Identification subtest |
Reading Mastery vs. Horizons Fast Track |
Posttest |
Grades 2-4;
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82.30 |
80.00 |
No |
-- | |
|
North Carolina Literacy Assessment |
Reading Mastery vs. Horizons Fast Track |
Posttest |
Grades 2-4;
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40.00 |
41.43 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson Revised (WJ-R): Passage Comprehension subtest |
Reading Mastery vs. Horizons Fast Track |
Posttest |
Grades 2-4;
|
85.29 |
85.57 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 23%
Male: 77% -
Suburban
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South
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Race Black 23% White 70% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 3% Not Hispanic or Latino 97%
Study Details
Setting
The study was conducted in three schools in a suburban district in the southeastern United States.
Study sample
The sample for this study included a total of 30 students from grades 2–4 taught by three teachers in three elementary schools. All students in the study had been identified by school district staff as needing special education services. The study occurred over 2 years—one school participated in both years, the second school participated in the first year, and the third school participated in the second year. Prior to the start of the study, two groups of three to five students had been formed in each school. Within schools, the student groups were randomly assigned to receive either Reading Mastery Fast Cycle or Horizons Fast Track, resulting in 15 students receiving each intervention. In total, there were 15 students identified as learning disabled—ten in the study group and five in the comparison group. The remaining 15 students had other disabilities, such as behavioral/emotional disabilities or other health impairments. At each school, one teacher delivered both the Reading Mastery Fast Cycle and Horizons Fast Track interventions. The authors reported no group or student attrition.
Intervention Group
Reading Mastery Fast Cycle is a version of Reading Mastery that teaches at a faster rate with less repetition than conventional Reading Mastery. In the present study, Reading Mastery Fast Cycle was implemented in 30- to 40-minute sessions, 5 days a week, over 1 school year.
Comparison Group
Horizons Fast Track shares the same developer and many program characteristics with Reading Mastery Fast Cycle and was developed in response to feedback on Reading Mastery. The two programs differ in sequence, procedures, prompts, orthographic conventions, and teacher presentation materials. For example, Reading Mastery Fast Cycle teaches letter sounds before letter names, whereas Horizons Fast Track requires students to use letter names as assistance in learning letter sounds. Reading Mastery Fast Cycle does not use capital letters early in the program; Horizons Fast Track includes the use of capital letters in the first lessons that present sentences. Finally, Reading Mastery Fast Cycle uses special forms of letters to elicit the correct sounds for confusing letters, letter combinations, or silent letters; Horizons Fast Track uses underlining and color changes. Teachers implemented Horizons Fast Track in 30- to 40-minute sessions, 5 days a week over the year, following the scripted procedure and repeating lessons when necessary.
Outcome descriptions
The study authors administered several reading measures at pretest and posttest. Alphabetics was measured by the Letter-Word Identification and Word Attack subtests of the WoodcockJohnson Psycho-Educational Battery–Revised (WJ-R) and the North Carolina Literacy Assessment. Reading comprehension was measured by the Passage Comprehension subtest of the WJ-R. The authors combined Letter-Word Identification and Passage Comprehension to form a Broad Reading Score and combined Letter-Word Identification and Word Attack to form a Basic Reading Score. These combined measures were not examined in the WWC analysis. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.
Support for implementation
Prior to starting the study, teachers had been trained in Reading Mastery Fast Cycle by SRA/ McGraw-Hill (and had 4 years experience with the program). Teachers were trained to implement Horizons Fast Track by SRA/McGraw-Hill prior to the start of the school year.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).