Prisons across the United States of America are faced with finding ways to reduce illiteracy rates across adult education. One strategy is to offer reading programs that are based on the science of reading. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine if adults in treatment groups across five midwestern correctional institutions who received a…

We examined the efficacy of 20 weeks of individual supplemental phonics-based instruction for language minority (LM) and non-LM first graders. Students were designated LM if the primary home language was not English (otherwise non-LM). Those performing in the bottom half of their classroom LM/non-LM group in letter knowledge and phonological…

The purposes of this study were to replicate previous research on phonics-based tutoring in kindergarten and to compare treatment effects for students who received individual instruction compared to instruction in dyads. Thirty classroom teachers from 13 urban elementary schools referred at-risk students for participation. Students who met…

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…

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…

A total of 46 children in Grades 2 and 3 with low word-level skills were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that received supplemental phonics-based reading instruction. One group received intervention October through March (21.5 hours), and one group served as a control from October through March and later received intervention March through May…

Explores the effectiveness of "word boxes" phonics instruction on beginning first-grade children's word identification and spelling performance. Finds that children in the word boxes condition significantly outperformed children in a more traditional phonics condition. Indicates that word boxes lessons can be a viable phonics approach to…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a phonologically based reading program delivered to first- through sixth-grade impaired readers (N=115) in small groups. Post-tests after program completion found the program resulted in significantly better phonological awareness, decoding, reading accuracy, comprehension, and spelling. Improved skills…

Investigated the effect of developmentally appropriate literacy interventions integrated into circle time in a Head Start setting on the detection of rhyme by 4-5 year olds. Found that the group receiving phonological-awareness treatment performed better on a rhyme detection test than the semantic intervention group. (JPB)