Federal

Extra Literacy Class Helps Struggling Readers—Some

By Debra Viadero — February 14, 2008 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Includes updates and/or revisions.

A federal study suggests that giving struggling 9th grade readers an extra literacy class can boost their reading-comprehension skills, but not dramatically enough to get them up to grade level by the end of a single school year.

The findings came this month in the first of three reports to be issued under the Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study, a federal program that is testing promising strategies for low-performing adolescent readers in 34 high schools across the country.

“We know very little about what it takes to improve reading skills of struggling adolescent readers,” said James J. Kemple, the director of K-12 education policy for MDRC, the New York City-based research firm that is leading the study under a contract with the federal Institute of Education Sciences.

“The fact that these programs did produce an effect suggests some promise,” he added, “but the fact that three-quarters of students would still be eligible for the programs at the end of the year also suggests there’s a long way to go.”

Begun in 2004, the $6.5 million study focuses on two intervention programs—Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy, developed in 1996 by a pair of researchers from WestEd, a San Francisco-based research group, and Xtreme Reading, a 2005 creation of the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, in Lawrence. Those programs were chosen from a pool of 17 by a panel of reading experts.

Within each of the 10 districts involved in the study, high schools were randomly assigned to try out one of the programs, which students take for at least 225 minutes a week on top of their regular language arts classes. Each of the high schools then identified 85 9th graders who had tested two or more years below grade level in reading and randomly assigned them at the start of the 2005-06 school year to either the experimental literacy class or a regularly scheduled elective.

Although some of the classes got off to a late start, overall they helped move students’ reading performance over the course of the school year from the 16th to the 25th percentile. Researchers calculate that’s a 26 percent improvement over where the students would have scored had they remained in a regular class alone.

Even so, nearly 90 percent of the students still scored below grade level in reading comprehension in the spring, with 76 percent lagging by two or more years. When the programs were analyzed separately, the gains that each produced faded in statistical significance, the researchers found.

Wait and See

But developers of the two programs said they were not discouraged by the first-year results.

“We think the study is well designed, and we’re confident that broader measures and a longer look at what’s happening in these classrooms are going to show more progress,” said Cynthia Greenleaf, who devised the Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy program with WestEd colleague Ruth Schoenbach.

Researchers will continue to track the original group of students through 11th grade and follow a second cohort for two years. Besides measuring students’ reading comprehension, the final study will look at whether students are getting promoted to the next grade, what grades they get in their core academic classes, and whether they improve on state exams.

“Our research tells us this is a fairly steep learning curve for teachers,” said Michael F. Hock, who crafted the Xtreme Reading program at the University of Kansas with researchers Donald D. Deshler and Jean Schumaker. “It’s quite a change for high school teachers who might’ve taught social studies or language arts to become reading teachers.”

Some of the classes also didn’t get under way until 10 weeks into the school year. Not surprisingly, the study showed the gains in reading comprehension were larger in the 15 schools where special classes began within six weeks of the start of the school year.

The two supplemental programs take a similarly comprehensive approach to addressing students’ literacy problems. Both, for example, attempt to motivate students and teach them cognitive strategies for tackling difficult texts.

“What we’ve found in our work with these adolescents is that the absolute first step is to gain their trust and entice them into re-engaging into the academic enterprise,” Ms. Greenleaf said.

The biggest difference between the two approaches, the study says, is that the WestEd program gives teachers more instructional flexibility, while the Xtreme Reading lessons are a little more scripted. Mr. Kemple of the MDRC said the difference seemed to have no effect on the magnitude of the program gains or the rocky start some schools experienced in implementing the approaches.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the February 20, 2008 edition of Education Week as Extra Literacy Class Helps Struggling Readers—Some

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union
President Joe Biden highlighted a number of his education priorities in a high-stakes speech as he seeks a second term.
5 min read
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
Federal Low-Performing Schools Are Left to Languish by Districts and States, Watchdog Finds
Fewer than half of district plans for improving struggling schools meet bare minimum requirements.
11 min read
A group of silhouettes looks across a grid with a public school on the other side.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
Federal Biden Admin. Says New K-12 Agenda Tackles Absenteeism, Tutoring, Extended Learning
The White House unveiled a set of K-12 priorities at the start of an election year.
4 min read
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
Steven Senne/AP
Federal Lawmakers Want to Reauthorize a Major Education Research Law. What Stands in the Way?
Lawmakers have tried and failed to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act over the past nearly two decades.
7 min read
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz answers questions about the company's actions during an ongoing employee unionizing campaign, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023. The two lawmakers sponsored a bill to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP