Skip Navigation

The Effects of the Content Literacy Continuum on Adolescent Students' Reading Comprehension and Academic AchievementThe Effects of the Content Literacy Continuum on Adolescent Students' Reading Comprehension and Academic Achievement

Study design

The study recruited high schools from eight Midwest Region school districts with characteristics associated with greater need for support: high schools with at least 100 grade 9 students, with 33 percent or more students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and with fewer than 75 percent of grade 10 or 11 students performing at proficient levels on standardized tests in reading or English language arts. The CLC cross-curriculum and tiered approach also had to differ substantially from other literacy and reform efforts in eligible schools. Finally, school and district leaders had to demonstrate a strong commitment to implement the intervention and facilitate the research team's data collection.

This two-year (2008–10) cluster randomized trial randomly assigned high schools in participating districts to either the intervention group (schools implementing CLC) or the control group (schools continuing with business as usual). The intervention is being phased into schools beginning with grade 9 teachers and students during year 1 (2008/09) and adding grade 10 teachers and the subsequent cohort of grade 9 students in year 2 (2009/10). With 33 high schools agreeing to participate, the study has sufficient power to detect effects equivalent to three to nine months of reading growth.3 The eight districts represent urban, suburban, and rural locales in Indiana (6 schools), Michigan (14 schools), Ohio (9 schools), and Wisconsin (4 schools). Schools are also diverse in background characteristics (table 1).

Table 1. Average characteristics of sample schools, 2005/06

School characteristic Intervention schools Control schools
Student demographics    
Total student population 1,387 1,307
Number of grade 9 students 481 479
Share of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (percent) 51 50
Share of students from a racial/ethnic minority (percent) 64 63
Student achievement    
Share of grade 11 English language arts students who are proficient (percent) 55 52
Share of grade 11 math students who are proficient (percent) 48 43
Number of schools making adequate yearly progress 8 5
Promotion powera (percent) 73 63
Sample size (number of schools) 17 16

Note: proficiency measures are administered on a state-by-state basis and are not necessarily comparable.

a Ratio of grade 12 students in 2005/06 to grade 9 students in 2002/03. Data to calculate promotion power were unavailable for two districts.

Source: Researchers' analysis based on school demographic data from the Common Core of Data (U.S. Department of Education 2009b), student achievement data from school report cards available on state education web sites, and promotion power calculated from Common Core of Data (U.S. Department of Education 2009a,b).

3 Depending on the explanatory power of the covariates in the analysis model, the study is powered to detect effects of between 0.07 and 0.25 standard deviation units on a standardized reading assessment. Hill et al. (2008) estimate that an effect size of 0.19 (+/- 0.04) standard deviation units is approximately the expected gain students would make from grade 9 to 10, and an effect size of 0.19 (+/- 0.16) standard deviation units from grade 10 to 11.

Return to Index