The goal of this project is to systematically replicate the Read Well program to determine its impact on first-grade children with reading difficulties. Although a previous study indicated positive outcomes for letter names and sounds and word reading development in kindergarten, additional research will help determine whether Read Well also works in first grade, for whom it works, and under what conditions. The research team will examine these issues through a series of systematic replications that include students who are culturally and linguistically diverse and who attend urban, suburban, and rural elementary schools in Virginia, California, and Texas.
More information is available on the Institute of Education Sciences website.
Colleen Moore, The University of Texas at Austin
The research team will test the hypothesis that students who receive the Read Well intervention will have significantly higher reading outcomes than students who do not receive the intervention.
In this novel, phased replication approach, the research team will test the supplemental reading intervention (Systematic Replication 1) implemented under “ideal” conditions, with researchers as the implementers. Dependent on the results from the first phase of replication studies with input from an external advisory board to inform decision-making, the second series of studies will evaluate the impact of Read Well 1 (RW1) when either (a) the curriculum is delivered by school personnel (Systematic Replication 2; 2A below) or (b) enhanced versions of the curriculum are delivered by research or school personnel (Alternative Systematic Replication 2; 2B below).
First-grade students identified as at risk for reading difficulty or disability or who have a mild to moderate reading difficulty or disability, both English learners and English-fluent speakers, will be included in the study.
Because the purpose of this conceptual replication is to evaluate the replicability of effects across sites, the study will be conducted at three sites with significant similarities but also some differences in the distribution of participant and setting characteristics.
Participating schools in California and Texas have high concentrations of English learners, which will allow evaluation of whether RW1 results replicate to students who speak a language other than English in their homes.
Read Well was developed with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences. Gunn et al. (2010) found that students in the Read Well Kindergarten intervention performed better than students in the control group on the two curriculum-based measures of decodable words and sight words.
Doris Luft Baker
Co-Principal Investigator
doris.baker@austin.utexas.edu