Education Department Study Finds Reading First Schools Spend More Time on the Subject

Schools participating in the federal Reading First program dedicate more time to reading instruction and professional development and are more likely to use assessment data to inform teaching than Title I schools that are not in the grant program, concludes a study released yesterday on the $1 billion-a-year initiative.

"In K-3 classrooms, the reading programs implemented by teachers in Reading First and non-RF Title I schools appear to be different in a variety of ways, including instructional time, resources, instructional planning and collaboration, use of assessments, and focus on the [essential] dimensions of reading instruction," the interim report of the Reading First Implementation Evaluation states. "These findings provide some initial evidence to suggest that Reading First schools are carrying out the objectives of the Reading First legislation."

The study was based on surveys of some 9,000 teachers, principals, and reading coaches in national representative samples of 1,100 Reading First schools and 541 Title I schools that are not in the program. All the schools in the study enroll large percentages of poor children. Researchers for the Cambridge, Mass.-based Abt Associates, which conducted the study under contract to the U.S. Department of Education, also relied on interviews and state descriptions of schools' Reading First plans to review how the...