Study: 82900

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: February 2023

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010))

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.

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.

Findings

Oral reading fluency outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Gray Oral Reading Test-Fluency	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	11.55	9.30	No	--

Reading Comprehension outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Gray Oral Reading Test-Comprehension	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	12.41	9.70	No	--

Word reading outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Phonemic Decoding Efficiency	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	104.88	98.00	No	--
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Sight Word Efficiency	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	105.02	98.20	No	--
Woodcock Johnson - Word Attack	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	108.75	103.30	No	--
Woodcock Johnson - Letter-Word Identification	Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS)—Begeny et al. (2010) vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - HELPS vs. control; 46 students	105.99	102.30	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.

Male: 60%
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Race
Asian		2%
Black		24%
Other or unknown		9%
White		56%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		10%

Study Details

Setting

The study took place in one public elementary school in the southeast United States. Students who received Great Leaps or HELPS were removed from their class during morning language arts instruction. Great Leaps and HELPS were implemented one-on-one between the tutor and the student in a quiet hallway outside the students' classroom.

Study sample

Students were aged 7.2 to 9.9 years, with an average age of 7.9. 60.3% were male. 55.9% were White, 23.5% Black, 10.3% Hispanic, 1.5% Asian, and 8.8% were identified as "Other Ethnicity." 33% received free or reduced-price lunch.

Intervention Group

"HELPS was developed by the authors for the purposes of this study. This program includes 88 instructional passage that have a range in difficulty from early first grade to the end of fourth grade. Passages were ordered by level of difficulty after Spache readability was assessed for all 88 passages. Students in the HELPS group received the intervention on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from February through April. Students in the HELP group averaged 27.1 sessions over the course of the study. Each instructional session lasted about 8-10 minutes. Students who received HELPS were removed from their class during morning language arts instruction. HELPS was implemented one-on-one between the tutor and the student in a quiet hallway outside the students' classroom."

Comparison Group

Students in the control group received their typical classroom language arts instruction.

Support for implementation

Twenty-two tutors implemented the interventions. Seventeen were undergraduate psychology majors, 4 were school psychology graduate students, and one was the first author. All tutors were trained on relevant procedural roles prior to implementing the intervention. They were also required to reach master criterion on the outcome measures according to an implementation protocol. Tutors were given training materials to guide their implementation of HELPS. They received a step by step description of the program, scripted procedural protocols to read, a form to track progress and facilitate communication between tutors and tutees, and copies of the instructional passages so student performance could be scored. There is no mention of additional instructional materials for the tutors implementing Great Leaps.

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: February 2023

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Great Leaps)

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.

Findings

Word reading outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Sight Word Efficiency	Great Leaps vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - GL vs. control; 45 students	105.03	98.20	No	--
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Phonemic Decoding Efficiency	Great Leaps vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - GL vs. control; 45 students	100.98	98.00	No	--
Woodcock Johnson - Word Attack	Great Leaps vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - GL vs. control; 45 students	105.55	103.30	No	--
Woodcock Johnson - Letter-Word Identification	Great Leaps vs. Business as usual	3 Months	Full sample - GL vs. control; 45 students	102.82	102.30	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.

Male: 60%
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Race
Asian		2%
Black		24%
Other or unknown		9%
White		56%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		10%

Study Details

Setting

Study sample

Intervention Group

"Great Leaps is a branded intervention for emergent readers (not a remedial program). The program includes a series of reading probes in Letter Recognition and Phonics; High Frequency Words and Phrases; and Stories. The Phonics reading probes have a letter naming activity followed by activities that include letter sounds, letter combinations, words, prefixes, and suffixes. There are 44-60 items included in each activity. The purpose of the High Frequency Words and Phrases probes is to teach students decodable words, then irregular words, then 2-4 word phrases. In these probes there are typically 48-60 words per page. The Stories probes is a collection of 48 stories that increase in difficulty. The number of words increases from the easiest probes to the most difficult probes. Students in the Great Leaps group received the intervention on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from February through April. Students in the Great Leaps group averaged 26.6 sessions over the course of the study. Each instructional session lasted about 8-10 minutes. Students who received Great Leaps were removed from their class during morning language arts instruction. Great Leaps was implemented one-on-one between the tutor and the student in a quiet hallway outside the students' classroom."

Comparison Group

Students in the control group received their typical classroom language arts instruction.

Support for implementation

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade

Review Details

Review Details

Reviewed: June 2016

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards without reservations

Findings

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

Study sample characteristics were not reported.

Read Naturally Intervention Report - Adolescent Literacy

Review Details

Review Details

Reviewed: March 2013

For:

Read Naturally Intervention Report - Adolescent Literacy

Using:

Rating:

The study is ineligible for review because it does not use a sample within the age or grade range specified in the protocol.

Findings

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

Study sample characteristics were not reported.

A Control-Group Comparison of Two Reading Fluency Programs: The Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) Program and the Great Leaps K-2 Reading Program [HELPS vs. business as usual]

Practice Guide

Review Details

Findings

Sample Characteristics

Study Details

Setting

Study sample

Intervention Group

Comparison Group

Support for implementation

Practice Guide

Review Details

Findings

Sample Characteristics

Study Details

Setting

Study sample

Intervention Group

Comparison Group

Support for implementation

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade

Review Details

Findings

Sample Characteristics

Read Naturally Intervention Report - Adolescent Literacy

Review Details

Findings

Sample Characteristics