Evidence-based core instruction partnered with evidence-based supplemental interventions are vital for students' literacy learning, particularly for students who need additional support (Petscher et al., 2020). Identifying instructional materials that reflect the translation of effective practices is challenging, (Solari et al., 2020) and made…

Reading Horizons partnered with LearnPlatform by Instructure to investigate the relationship between teacher implementation of Reading Horizons Discovery (RHD) and student literacy outcomes. The study involved 83 educators and 1,242 students across seven elementary schools in North Carolina during the 2022-23 school year. Researchers used mCLASS…

Leaders across North Carolina believe strongly in the potential for all students to read proficiently by 3rd grade. Yet despite significant effort and investment, only 36% of 4th graders are at or above proficient in reading. The Belk Foundation, in partnership with The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), The Foundation for…

The purpose of this program evaluation was to evaluate the Direct Instruction programs, Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading, from SRA McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, which were being used as a school-wide reading intervention. These programs were implemented at a small elementary school in the Piedmont area of North Carolina beginning in the…

In a common approach for scaling up effective educational practice, schools adopt evidence-based programs to be implemented with fidelity. An alternative approach assumes that programs should be adapted to local contexts. In this randomized trial of a reading intervention, we study a scaffolded sequence of implementation in which schools first…

Theory and empirical work suggest that teachers' social capital influences school improvement efforts. Social ties are prerequisite for social capital, yet little causal evidence exists on how malleable factors, such as instructional management approaches, affect teachers' ties. In this cluster-randomized trial, we apply a decision-making…

This article describes and evaluates one residential school for the deaf and hard of hearing, Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf (ENCSD), and their experience in implementing the Fairview Learning program. The program consists of five components (Schimmel & Edwards, 2003). Two of the components--phonemic awareness and literature-based…

Recognizing that standardized instructional treatments may not be equally effective across contexts, a growing number of scholars are arguing that the strategy of adopting packaged programs and striving to implement them faithfully is neither realistic nor desirable. An alternative view is that scaling up educational treatments requires balancing…

An increased accountability in literacy performance for third grade students drew statewide attention in North Carolina upon the implementation of the Read to Achieve Law. Elementary educators have worked to implement this mandate by monitoring the state's reading curriculum, instruction, assessments, and approaches to educating students. This…

In 2013-14, the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) launched Achieve3000 as a randomized controlled trial in 16 elementary schools. Achieve3000 is an early literacy program that differentiates non-fiction reading passages based on individual students' Lexile scores. Twoyear results show that Achieve3000 did not have a significant impact on…

This report examines traditional calendar school Read to Achieve reading camps implemented in the summer of 2014. Teacher and student survey respondents reported positive reading camp experiences and reading camp was well attended. Based on data for 502 students, a small percentage (16.1%) reached reading proficiency by the end of camp. Gains in…

The Big Read evaluation included a series of 35 case studies designed to gather more in-depth information on the program's implementation and impact. The case studies gave readers a valuable first-hand look at The Big Read in context. Both formal and informal interviews, focus groups, attendance at a wide range of events--all showed how…