This paper presents evidence confirming the validity of the RD design in the Reading Recovery study by examining the ability of the RD design to replicate the 1st grade results observed in the original i3 RCT focused on short-term impacts. Over 1,800 schools participated in the RD study over all four cohort years. The RD design used cutoff-based…

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…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the i3-funded SPARK program on the literacy development of students in kindergarten through third grade. The SPARK program represents a collaboration between Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Public Schools. In the study, two cohorts of students were randomly…

This paper discusses the need for new model and approach to solve the problem of illiteracy of the most backward section of the society-women among scheduled and other backward classes. The empirical support for the study is testing, interview and observation conducted on the present status of 100 from among 1,500 adult learners who attended a…

The effects of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation and the publication of the National Reading Panel (NRP) report profoundly affected how reading is taught in public schools as well as how program effectiveness is evaluated. The disequilibrium that resulted from state and federal mandates governing reading instruction set the stage for the…

Authors of skills management systems may have misinterpreted and misapplied Benjamin Bloom's theory of mastery learning in developing their systems for teaching reading. Skills management procedures are inconsistent with Bloom's theory in the areas of management, learning tasks, skills hierarchy, and instructional methods. In addition, the four…

This is a description of the evaluation of Reading Recovery (RR). RR is an early reading intervention serving about 125,000 children every year in about 8,000 U.S. schools. Its 15,000 teachers submit data on every child to the National Data Evaluation Center, which produces a report for each school, district and university involved with RR.…

This paper examines the effect of a formal evaluation process upon educational change--specifically, the adoption of innovative reading programs and practices--at different organizational levels of implementation. Because of the size of the project (62 school systems, 142 designated schools, three sets of categorical funded projects), the…

The paper describes the theoretical background, implementation and preliminary results of the Chicago Mastery Learning/Learning Strategies reading program for upper elementary school students. Reading research and learning strategies research are pulled together to support the argument that the teaching of diverse learning strategies can improve…

Dyer's (1970) model was utilized to examine instructional practices and easy-to-change surrounding conditions variables related to effective primary grade reading programs. Hard-to-change surrounding conditions variables were used in regression analyses as predictors of fourth grade reading achievement in 844 (75%) of the Iowa elementary schools;…

This paper summarizes the successes and failures of the Plato Elementary Reading Curriculum Project, a computer-assisted instructional system funded by the National Science Foundation from 1971 to 1976. The paper discusses what the project did, the types of hardware that were used, how lessons were designed, the two approaches that were taken…

The checklist presented in this paper is intended for the evaluation of secondary reading programs and contains five sections. "School Philosophy and Objectives" looks at programs as they relate to reading instruction. "Organization and Facilities" examines the sequential development of the reading program, program emphasis, types of programs,…

The purpose of this paper is to show that for an evaluation to be a successful change effort, the evaluator must not only "preach" (simply report facts) but also "meddle" (judge quality and recommend changes). It appears that if the evaluator does not take a leadership role in pushing for modification, these modifications will…

This paper argues that to be successful, a reading program must incorporate a synthesis from Robinson and Rauch (1965) which states that a reading program should be planned cooperatively by the total school community; integrate the language arts with all subject areas; plan for continuity of reading interests, achievement, and development; provide…

Summative evaluations have often been undertaken to determine the impact of educational programs on student academic achievement employing a quasi-experimental design. The summative finding is expected to be less misleading if a statistical model is performed on a dataset including a sound matched sample as a control group. This is because an…