Project Activities
Research question
- Can children who have reading difficulties in middle to late elementary school acquire adequate reading skills in a short period of time if they are taught with intensity and skill?
- Can intensive interventions affect all critical reading skills, such as accuracy, comprehension, and fluency?
- Do some children benefit more or less from these intensive and well-implemented reading interventions?
Structured Abstract
Design
Reading programs were competitively selected that included phonemic word-level interventions, supported text word-level interventions, and word-level plus comprehension interventions. The interventions evaluated were appropriate for funding under Title I for improving the skills of struggling readers. They were Corrective Reading, Failure Free Reading, Spell Read P.A.T., and Wilson Reading. Teachers were randomly assigned to the interventions and received professional development to implement the intervention to which their school was assigned. Struggling students were identified by their teachers, assessed to confirm their achievement levels, and randomly assigned within schools to participate in the interventions or a control group. Teachers delivered the interventions during the 2003–04 school year in small groups to 3rd and 5th grade students whose verbal knowledge scores were between the 5th and 30th percentiles. The goal was to provide 100 hours of instruction for each student in the treatment group.
Key findings
- Younger students benefited more from the interventions than older students.
- For 3rd grade students, the four interventions combined had impacts on phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and reading comprehension. The reading gap with the average population was narrowed for third graders participating in the interventions.
- For 5th grade students, the four interventions combined improved phonemic decoding on one measure but led to a reduction in oral reading fluency. The three word-level interventions had similar impacts to the four interventions combined but did not show an impact on reading comprehension.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
The final report, titled National Assessment of Title I: Final Report, was released in October 2007.
The interim report, titled National Assessment of Title I: Interim Report to Congress, was released in February 2006.
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
