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Title:  WWC Review of the Report "Increasing Young Children’s Contact with Print During Shared Reading: Longitudinal Effects on Literacy Achievement"
Description: The 2012 study, Increasing Young Children's Contact with Print During Shared Reading: Longitudinal Effects on Literacy Achievement, examined the impact of Project STAR (Sit Together and Read) on the literacy skills of preschool students. Project STAR is a reading program in which teachers read books aloud to their students and encourage them to pay attention to print within storybooks. Researchers randomly assigned 85 preschool classrooms in Ohio to one of three study groups at the start of the 2004-05 or 2005-06 school years: a low-dose intervention group, a high-dose intervention group, and a comparison group. To assess the effects of the program, study authors estimated impacts on four measures of literacy skills—reading, spelling, comprehension, and vocabulary—for up to 366 students from the three study groups one and two years after the intervention, a total of 24 comparisons. Of the 24 comparisons, 20 did not meet WWC evidence standards. There was high attrition of students in the remaining four comparisons, however, the authors demonstrated that the groups were similar before Project STAR was implemented and therefore meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. For those four comparisons, the study found that students in the low-dose group were not significantly different from students in the comparison group on vocabulary, reading, and spelling outcomes at the one-year follow-up. Students in the high-dose group had significantly higher spelling skills than those in the comparison group at the two-year follow-up.
Online Availability:
Cover Date: October 2012
Web Release: October 16, 2012
Publication #: WWC SSRIYC12
Center/Program: WWC
Associated Centers: NCEE
Authors:
Type of Product: Single Study Review
Keywords:
Questions: For questions about the content of this Single Study Review, please contact:
Erin Pollard.