This meta-analysis systematically reviewed the most up-to-date literature to determine the effectiveness of reading interventions on measures of word and pseudoword reading, reading comprehension, and passage fluency, and to determine the role intervention and study variables play in moderating the impacts for students at risk for reading…

The purpose of this study was to compare the results of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) with those of an experimental design of a tiered vocabulary intervention for children at risk for reading disability to determine RDD's feasibility as a research methodology for this type of study. Researchers reanalyzed an archival dataset of a…

The regression discontinuity design (RDD) has the potential to yield findings with causal validity approaching that of the randomized controlled trial (RCT). However, Schochet (2008a) estimated that, on average, an RDD study of an education intervention would need to include three to four times as many schools or students as an RCT to produce…

This report describes a cluster randomized control trial (RCT) intervention study of the effectiveness of the ABRACADABRA (ABRA) Web-based literacy system using a classroom-level RCT intervention with 1,067 children in 74 kindergarten and Grade 1 or Grade 1/2 classrooms across Canada. The authors closely followed the CONSORT criteria for executing…

This issue brief focuses on one particular report, released in September 2009, that has been widely cited by charter school advocates because it appears to show remarkable results. In the report, "How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement," Stanford University professor Caroline Hoxby and her colleagues Sonali Murarka and…

This paper provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing and analyzing studies that randomize schools--which comprise three levels of clustering (students in classrooms in schools)--to measure intervention effects on student academic outcomes when information on the middle level (classrooms) is missing. This situation arises…

This report summarizes the findings from a study on the impacts of Head Start on children and families during the children's preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years. Its study goals were to: (1) Determine the impact of Head Start on children's school readiness, and on parental practices that support children's development; and to (2)…