Study: 82935

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: February 2023

No statistically significant positive
findings

Meets WWC standards with reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Early Reading Intervention (ERI))

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards with reservations because it is a randomized control trial with cluster level inferences and joiners, but it demonstrates baseline equivalence.

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

Encoding outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Test of Written Spelling-4	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 206 students	2.33	1.76	No	--

Letter identification outcomes—Substantively important positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test - Revised-Normative Update (WRMT-R/NU): Letter sound checklist	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 206 students	25.18	22.86	No	--
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test - Revised-Normative Update (WRMT-R/NU): Letter name checklist	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 206 students	26.23	25.00	No	--

Phonology outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Dynamic Indicators for Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS): Phoneme Segmentation Fluency	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	33.27	26.20	No	--
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP): Sound-Matching	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	9.79	9.05	No	--
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP): Blending Words	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	10.73	10.00	No	--

Word reading outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Normative Update, Word Attack subtest	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	109.70	105.16	No	--
DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	26.17	22.40	No	--
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Phonemic Decoding Efficiency	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	4.23	3.31	No	--
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Normative Update, Word Identification subtest	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	105.85	103.23	No	--
Test of Word Reading Efficiency-Sight Word Efficiency	Early Reading Intervention (ERI) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 206 students	8.34	8.10	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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Connecticut, Texas

Race
Black		20%
Other or unknown		40%
White		40%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		40%
Not Hispanic or Latino		60%

Study Details

Setting

The study took place in four schools in South-Central Texas and eight schools in Eastern Connecticut. Researchers selected these schools because they typically provided supplemental instruction to children with reading difficulties. The intervention took place outside of the normal classroom setting but during the regular school day in groups of three to five.

Study sample

All but one of the schools had Title I status. Kindergarten students participating in the study had below-average reading ability and were identified through an extensive screening process that involved being nominated by classroom teachers and receiving standardized test scores within a predetermined range. The students in the study were approximately 40% Hispanic or Latino, 40% white, and 20% black or African American. About 10% received special education services, 25% were classified as bilingual or English language learners, and the mean age was 5.5 years. Interventionists were sometimes the classroom teachers and sometimes other educators. Interventionists were primarily white and female and spoke English as a primary language. They had a mean of about 13 years of teaching experience.

Intervention Group

The Early Reading Intervention (ERI) program consisted of 126 daily 30-minute lessons administered five days per week. Each lesson consisted of many short activities and was split evenly between phonological awareness and writing/spelling skills. The program consisted of four parts: I. 42 lessons that teach names and sounds of 11 letters. II. 30 lessons that teach blending and segmenting phonemes, and also introduce five additional letters. III. 24 lessons that teach word decoding and six additional letters. IV. 30 lessons that teach reading sentences in the context of storybooks. - The intervention does not have a home component. - A teacher or other professional implements the intervention outside of the normal classroom setting. The interventionist is sometimes the students' normal classroom teacher. - No specific list of materials is described in the study. - The intervention is scripted and includes detailed information on how the teacher introduces the new information.

Comparison Group

The comparison condition consisted of reading instruction in a similar setting as the ERI intervention. Researchers asked the teachers to provide beginning reading instruction typical of that school. Teachers sometimes used commercial materials and sometimes developed their own. 46% of teachers reported using some commercial materials, including Saxon Phonics, SRA/Open Court, Harcourt, Lindamood Bell, Lindamood Bell and Fountas and Pinnell combinations, and Foundations. Students in the comparison condition, also in groups of three to five, met with teachers for an equal length of time for an equal number of days.

Support for implementation

Teachers implementing ERI were trained in two one-day sessions, one before the beginning of the intervention and one halfway through. Trainees viewed videos developed by the published and practiced instructional techniques with feedback from trainers. No information is provided on who performed the training. Comparison teachers do not receive any training as part of the study, but they may have participated in their school's normal professional development activities. The researchers evaluated the fidelity of implementation of ERI through classroom observations. There is no indication whether the interventionists received feedback after these classroom visits.

Effects of Supplemental Reading Interventions in Authentic Contexts: A Comparison of Kindergarteners' Response