Background: Over the last twenty years, retention has increased in popularity with policymakers who are concerned with student achievement and aim to end social promotion (i.e., the practice of advancing a student to the next grade level although they have not yet met the academic expectations of their current grade level). Despite calls to expand…

Background/Context: In 2010, Reading Recovery was awarded a $55 million Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This five-year grant supported the expansion of Reading Recovery in more than 1,400 schools in over 30 states, and provided intervention to over 80,000 students. Although a multi-site randomized…

Background/Context: Despite increasing school enrollment, significant literacy gaps persist in developing countries, with many children unable to read by age 10. This paper evaluates "M'ap Li Net Ale," a comprehensive intervention aimed at improving early-grade reading skills in Haiti, a context characterized by limited government…

Background/Context: Improving reading comprehension has been a persistent and perplexing dilemma around the world since written communication was invented. Reading comprehension, which is the goal of reading, is a multi-faceted construct intertwining code-focused early reading skills and meaning-focused comprehension skills and strategies (Connor…

Background: Efficacy trials in education often possess a motivating theory of change: how and why should the desired improvement in outcomes occur as a consequence of the intervention? In scenarios with repeated measurements, certain subgroups may be more or less likely to manifest a treatment effect; the theory of change (TOC) provides guidance…

Background: Over the past two decades, national attention has emphasized the critical role of early literacy and language instruction in preventing reading difficulties and improved our understanding of how young children learn to read. The research has established that students who are not strong readers by Grade 3 are less likely to build…

Background/Context: Literacy skills are critical to understanding information presented in written or oral formats and communicating effectively with others. These skills are important to students' success in school and later in life, including improved individual health and economic outcomes, increased civic engagement, and enhanced community…

Background/Context: Mozambique has made progress over the past decade in improving both the nutrition and literacy of its population. Nevertheless, rates of illiteracy and malnutrition remain high, particularly in rural areas and among women. In most provinces in Mozambique, schools are overcrowded, student/teacher ratios are high, and reading and…

The finding that academic summer programs are effective for low income students has been replicated across meta-analytic reviews. However, these reviews have yielded contradictory evidence about whether summer programs are more effective for lower- or higher-income students. This discrepancy may be due to income-based differences in the summer…

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress in increasing primary school enrollment and completion among the very poor. However, challenges in improving reading persist. This study contributes to the evidence base on what works to improve early-grade reading skills by evaluating an early reading program implemented in two…

School districts across the United States have increasingly adopted information and communications technology (ICT) in an attempt to improve student achievement across a wide range of educational settings. This paper examines the impacts of Achieve3000, an early literacy program that differentiates non-fiction reading passages based on individual…

The problem of summer reading loss among low-income children has been amply documented by researchers. Over time, income-based disparities in reading achievement appear to grow more rapidly during the summer months than the academic school year. This paper describes two experiments in which teachers scaffold summer book reading with two different…

Reading skills are the key building blocks of a child's formal education. Yet, the national statistics on literacy attainment are profoundly distressing: two out of three American fourth graders are reading below grade level and almost one third of children nationwide lack even basic reading skills. This study reports on an evaluation of the…

Duncan et al. (2007) presented a new methodology for identifying kindergarten readiness factors and quantifying their importance by determining which of children's developing skills measured around kindergarten entrance would predict later reading and math achievement. The main objectives of this paper are threefold: (a) provide new empirical…

The authors' purpose was to study the efficacy of patterning instruction in improving the reading and mathematics proficiency of first grade children. Patterning instruction was compared to equal time and effort spent on instruction on reading or mathematics or social studies, which are control conditions in this experiment. The question for…