Study: 89379

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: November 2021

At least one finding shows promising evidence of effectiveness

At least one statistically significant positive finding

Meets WWC standards with reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Syllable Skills Instruction Curriculum (SSIC))

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards with reservations because it is a compromised cluster randomized controlled trial, but it satisfies the baseline equivalence requirement for the individuals in the analytic intervention and comparison groups.

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

Word and pseudoword reading outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Word Attack Subtest: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III	Syllable Skills Instruction Curriculum (SSIC) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 74 students	93.60	83.94	Yes	45
Letter-Word Identification Subtest: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III	Syllable Skills Instruction Curriculum (SSIC) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 74 students	89.58	86.94	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.

3% English language learners
Female: 35%
Male: 65%
Suburban
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North Carolina

Race
Black		27%
Other or unknown		12%
White		61%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		12%
Not Hispanic or Latino		88%

Study Details

Setting

The study sample included students in grades six through eight from three middle schools in one school district in south-central North Carolina. All students were enrolled in remediation classes and were identified as having, or being at risk for, reading disabilities/difficulties.

Study sample

The authors provided sample characteristic information on the 83 students that were present at the time of random assignment. Sixty-five percent were male and 35 percent were female. Twenty-seven percent were African American, 12 percent were Hispanic, and 61 percent were White. Three percent were classified as having English as a second language. Thirty-seven percent of students were identified with a high incidence disability: 22 with a learning disability, 7 with other health impairment for ADHD, 12 with a mild mental disability, and 1 with a behavioral emotional disability. Thirty-seven students were classified as at risk for reading failure based on receiving a non-passing score on the North Carolina End-of-Grade reading exam for the previous school year. All students were enrolled in district-wide remediation classes for reading.

Intervention Group

The study examined the effectiveness of a reading intervention for students struggling with reading. The scripted intervention, Syllable Skills Instruction Curriculum (SSIC), included 60 lessons involving four components: group review, new information, word reading, and written spelling. Each lesson took approximately 15 minutes. SSIC was supplemental to the core curriculum (Corrective Reading Program [CRP] or Success Maker) that all students received in their remediation classes. The study spanned 6 months. The only difference between the treatment and comparison conditions was the SSIC intervention.

Comparison Group

During the 6 months of the study, students in the comparison condition received business-as-usual core curriculum instruction in their remediation classes (either CRP or Success Maker).

Support for implementation

Participating teachers attended training for the CRP core curriculum prior to the start of the study. All teachers received professional development training on the SSIC intervention, which involved stating the purpose of the intervention as a supplement to CRP, understanding the lesson components and how to use the teacher manual and student workbooks, and modeling a lesson. Biweekly procedural reliability data was collected to assess consistency across teachers and lessons regarding SSIC and CRP.

Effects of Teaching Syllable Skills Instruction on Reading Achievement in Struggling Middle School Readers [Syllable Skills Instruction Curriculum (SSIC) vs. business as usual]