Intervention > Evidence Snapshot

Read Well®
Beginning Reading

As of July 2007 no studies of Read Well® 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 Read Well® to improve outcomes in this area.

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.

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 Read Well®

Beginning Reading Evidence Review Protocol

See related studies

Read Well® (English Language Learners)

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

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