During the fall of the 2016-17 school year, first, second, and third grade students in six elementary schools -- two in St. Paul and Eagan, Minnesota, and four in Bedford County in the Piedmont region of Virginia -- were assigned to take part in randomized efficacy trials carried out for the purpose of rigorously evaluating the impact of…

UPSTART is a federally funded i3 validation project that uses a computer-based program to develop the school readiness skills of preschool children in rural Utah. Researchers used a randomized control trial design to evaluate the impact of the program in advancing children's early literacy skills. Preschoolers in the experimental group were…

We examined the efficacy of an afterschool multicomponent reading intervention for third- through fifth-grade students with reading difficulties. A total of 419 students were identified for participation based on a 90 standard score or below on a screening measure of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension. Participating students…

This article reports on 2 experiments in inner-city Baltimore evaluating a computer-assisted tutoring approach, Tutoring With Alphie (TWA), in which 1 paraprofessional can work with up to 6 children at a time. In Study 1, we randomly assigned 14 schools to receive TWA or to continue with whatever approaches they were currently using. Each…

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the causal effects of READ 180, a mixed-methods literacy intervention, on measures of word reading efficiency, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and oral reading fluency and (2) to examine whether print exposure among children in the experimental condition explained variance in posttest reading…

The purpose of this evaluation of Scholastic's "System 44" conducted by RMC Research was to expand the existing research on students with learning disabilities by conducting a randomized study of struggling readers with approximately half of the sample comprised of students with learning disabilities. Specifically, this evaluation…

This study reports a randomized controlled trial evaluation of a computer-based balanced literacy intervention, ABRACADABRA (http://grover.concordia.ca/abra/version1/abracadabra.html). Children (N = 144) in Grade 1 were exposed either to computer activities for word analysis, text comprehension, and fluency, alongside shared stories (experimental…

We examined the benefits of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) as a supplement to a phonics-based reading curriculum for kindergartners in an urban public school system. The CAI program provides systematic exercises in phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondences. Comparisons were made between children in classes receiving a sufficient…

Scholastic's "System 44" is a foundational reading program intended for older struggling readers who have not mastered basic phonics and decoding skills. Combining researched-based phonics instruction with adaptive technology, "System 44" is designed to improve students' word reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The…

DaisyQuest is a computer program that teaches and provides practice in synthetic and analytic phonological skills. Researchers found young children trained on DaisyQuest had significantly greater phonological awareness gains than children without training. Children trained on a more developed version significantly outperformed a matched group on…

Scores for five subjects (Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies in grades 2 through 8) from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program were analyzed for several hundred Tennessee grade schools. Schools which owned the Accelerated Reader learning information system (a computer program which allows teachers to monitor…

In this study we examined the benefits of computer programs designed to supplement regular reading instruction in an urban public school system. The programs provide systematic exercises for mastering word-attack strategies. Our findings indicate that first graders who participated in the programs made significant reading gains over the school…