Reading Recovery (RR) was introduced throughout New Zealand during the 1980s, for children struggling the most with learning to read after 1 year of formal schooling. In May 2024, the Minister of Education decided the programme would no longer be funded beyond 2024. This decision was based on evidence that the programme was not as effective as…

The purpose of this single-site case study was to examine the experiences of graduate teachers enrolled in a Reading Specialist Certification (K-12) program who engaged in literacy-related action research that was woven throughout their coursework. Qualitative data included 24 graduate teachers' video self-analyses, reflection blog entries, and a…

Using an RD design provides statistically robust estimates while allowing researchers a different causal estimation tool to be used in educational environments where an RCT may not be feasible. Results from External Evaluation of the i3 Scale-Up of Reading Recovery show that impact estimates were remarkably similar between a randomized control…

Background: Animal-assisted Education (AAE), including Reading to Dogs (RTD), is an area of growing interest internationally across all phases of education, and increasingly considered an innovative approach to improving pupil outcomes. As creating RTD interventions necessitates a combination of expertise from the fields of education and…

Educational stakeholders are keen to know the magnitude and importance of different interventions. However, the way evidence is communicated to support understanding of the effectiveness of an intervention is controversial. Typically studies in education have used the standardised mean difference as a measure of the impact of interventions. This…

The "Examining Implementation and Outcomes of the Project On-Track High-Dosage Literacy Tutoring Program" study describes the characteristics of students who participated in a full year of Project On-Track, a high-dosage, small-group literacy tutoring program for students in grade 1-3. Its online adaptive program, Amplify Reading, groups…

While policymakers have demonstrated considerable enthusiasm for "science of reading" initiatives, the evidence on the impact of related reforms when implemented at scale is limited. In this pre-registered, quasi-experimental study, we examine California's recent initiative to improve early literacy across the state's lowest-performing…

This paper contributes to a research program within extensive reading (ER) and "Reading in a Foreign Language" using corpora to simulate ER input to develop vocabulary through incidental learning to 9,000 words. This helps researchers/teachers evaluate ER. If corpora indicate no 'pathway' from smaller to larger vocabulary sizes through…

Conducting classroom-based educational research trials is important for establishing the efficacy and effectiveness of specific instructional interventions. Such endeavours, however, are challenging to implement. This was made evident during a recent independent evaluation of the efficacy of the MiniLit program, wherein various difficulties…

Success for All (SFA) is a comprehensive whole-school approach designed to help high-poverty elementary schools increase the reading success of their students. It is designed to ensure success in grades K-2 and then build on this success in later grades. SFA combines instruction emphasizing phonics and cooperative learning, one-to-small group…

Recently researchers have begun exploring the efficacy of interventions designed to improve text comprehension skills for students with developmental disabilities (DD). Text comprehension is essential for understanding academic content as students with disabilities make progress in the general education curriculum. This article focuses on single…

In-person tutoring has been shown to improve academic achievement. Though less well-researched, virtual tutoring has also shown a positive effect on achievement but has only been studied in grade five or above. We present findings from the first randomized controlled trial of virtual tutoring for young children (grades K-2). Students were assigned…

We present an aggregation scheme that increases power in randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments when the intervention possesses a robust and well-articulated theory of change. Intervention studies using longitudinal data often include multiple observations on individuals, some of which may be more likely to manifest a treatment effect…

The aim of this study was to reveal how reading comprehension skills of elementary fourth graders who have problems in reading comprehension can be improved by means of the SCRATCH program. The study was designed as a participant action research. It was carried out within a 15- week process at an elementary school with middle socio-economic level…

In many U.S. states, legislation seeks to define effective instruction for beginning readers, creating an urgent need to turn to scholars who are knowledgeable about ongoing reading research. This mixed-methods study considers the extent to which recognized literacy experts agreed with recommendations about instruction that were included on a…