Intervention > Evidence Snapshot

Fundations
Beginning Reading

As of July 2007 no studies of Fundations were found that fell within the scope of the Beginning Reading review protocol and met WWC design standards. Therefore, the WWC is unable to draw any research based conclusions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Fundations to improve outcomes in this area.

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®.

A group of closely related outcomes.

A summary of the effectiveness of an intervention in an outcome domain, based on the quality of research, the statistical significance of findings, the magnitude of findings, and the consistency of findings across studies.

Effectiveness Rating Key

Positive: strong evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes.

Potentially Positive: evidence that intervention had a positive effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence.

Mixed: evidence that intervention’s effect on outcomes is inconsistent.

No Discernible: no evidence that intervention had an effect on outcomes.

Potentially Negative: evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes with no overriding contrary evidence.

Negative: strong evidence that intervention had a negative effect on outcomes.

For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for rating of effectiveness.

Evidence Tier

The Department of Education’s evidence tiers. For more information, please see the WWC Glossary entry for evidence tiers.

The percent of each characteristic is based on the sample size of all studies meeting standards that reported data on the characteristic.

Percentages below may not add to 100 percent.

Last Updated: July 2007

Related Resources

WWC Summary of Evidence for Fundations

Beginning Reading Evidence Review Protocol

Fundations (Students with a Specific Learning Disability)

This intervention report was prepared for the WWC by American Institutes for Research under contract ED-02-CO-0022.

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