The National Student Support Accelerator has released a report on the impact of the second year of a randomized controlled trial of Chapter One, an early reading tutoring program that places part-time tutors in the classroom to work individually with students in short bursts of instruction for the entire school year. The study was conducted during the 2021-2022 school year with kindergarten students and continued in 2022-2023 with first grade students from 13 schools in a large Southeastern school district. In study year one, 50% of the students within 49 kindergarten classrooms were randomly assigned to receive Chapter One and 50% to a business-as-usual control group (N = 420, 398 respectively). Results at the end of kindergarten were positive, with Chapter One students performing higher on measures of oral fluency and on the district reading assessment. The second year of the study continued with first grade students who remained in...

The implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions has shown significant benefits for students’ social-emotional and academic outcomes. However, studies indicate that low fidelity of implementation can undermine these results. In contrast, structured one-on-one coaching for teachers appears to enhance SEL interventions. Despite the benefits of the validated 4Rs (Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution) program, which integrates social-emotional development into language arts, challenges arose due to its original coaching model lacking structure, leading to implementation discrepancies. On the other hand, the MyTeachingPartner (MTP) model, an evidence-based approach, provides structured one-on-one video coaching and access to teaching practices exemplars, yielding positive effects on teacher-student interaction and student outcomes. Following a successful randomized control trial demonstrating the effectiveness of combining 4Rs and MTP in improving students’ outcomes, a recent study employed a quasi-experimental design (QED) to evaluate the impact of integrating the 4Rs curriculum with the MTP coaching model while isolating the effects...

Recognizing the importance of instilling vital reading skills from an early age, practitioners and researchers are seeking systematic approaches to support young learners over multiple years. The 95 Phonics Core Program (95 PCP) is a whole-class Tier 1 program for students in grades K-5, which was recently evaluated by Schechter and colleagues in Arizona. In their study of 405 kindergarten through first grade students (199 control and 206 treatment) across five schools in Flagstaff, Arizona, researchers followed students during the 2022-2023 school year. Students in the sample included 40% Hispanic students and 46% Low Income students. The program was used as the core reading curriculum in two volunteer schools, while the three comparison schools used National Geographic (NatGeo) as their core reading curriculum. Students in each group were matched through propensity score matching based on grade level/age, baseline achievement scores, gender, race and ethnicity, special education status, homeless status and...

Numerous empirical studies suggest that social-emotional learning (SEL) programs generally yield positive outcomes for students. These programs have been shown to enhance academic performance and reduce conduct problems. Shi and Cheung conducted a comprehensive and rigorous meta-analysis to identify the program components that have a significant impact on SEL effectiveness across four domains: social-emotional skills, affect and attitudes, prosocial and antisocial behaviors, and academic performance. The final sample comprised 12 high-quality SEL programs, 59 studies published between 1980 and 2020. The program components were classified into five categories: cognitive elements, pedagogical activities, teacher social-emotional skills, climate support, and family engagement. Each program could consist of more than one component, and each component was treated as an individual dichotomous moderator when it was indicated as included in the program. Overall, SEL programs demonstrated significant improvements in youth social-emotional skills (ES=+0.17), affect and attitudes (ES=+0.09), academic performance (ES=+0.13), behaviors (ES=+0.14), and overall...

Efforts to address student reading increasingly look to technological solutions as a means of reaching more students in effective ways. In particular, the need for remote and blended learning options increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Personalized and adaptive learning technology (PAL) has become a key focus on innovation and research to address ongoing reading needs of students across the world. To be adaptive and deliver personalized learning support, PAL analyzes student responses and skills to adapt the pace, content, and difficulty of material for each student, ideally moving students through the program at their ideal pace. To address ongoing uncertainty as to the effectiveness of PAL in K-12 settings, Alrawashdeh and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis including 27 studies from 12 countries, including both high- and low-income nations (U.S.A., U.K., China, France, Malawi, and France, among others). Their analysis found that PAL interventions were significantly positive overall (ES...

The effectiveness of early literacy tutoring interventions in the short term, specifically in grades K-2, has been supported by various studies. One such intervention is Literacy First, which offers tutoring to students from kindergarten through Grade 2 in underserved communities in the central Texas area, especially those reading below grade level at the beginning of the school year. Participating students receive daily one-on-one 30-minute lessons from a highly trained volunteer, customized based on data obtained through a response-to-intervention approach. The American Institute of Research (AIR) has been investigating whether Literacy First, when implemented in Grade 2, exhibits persistent effects up to three years after program completion. The evaluation, conducted through a multisite randomized control trial, involved 22 elementary schools within a Texan school district. Following a screening process that utilized standardized assessments, the randomization of the 1,046 Grade 2 students who had scored at Tier 2 and were eligible to...

MyTeachingPartner is a coaching program delivered online that aims to support teachers in improving classroom instruction, student engagement and performance. The program targets classroom practice dimensions of “Classroom Assessment Scoring System-CLASS,” an observation measure widely used to collect data on classroom interactions. A recent evaluation assessed the effectiveness of MyTeachingPartner-Secondary – targeting middle and high schools – with a sample of 87 public school teachers for two years. This version of the program included an initial 2-hour teacher training and six to ten coaching cycles per year. Teachers were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n=44) or the control group (n=43). Teacher outcomes and student achievement were the outcomes measured in the study. The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted implementation of the program, and only four of the six original districts participated in the study’s second year. This resulted in a final sample of 39 teachers. After two years, results showed a...

Ma and colleagues conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of an in-school computer-assisted learning (CAL) intervention on the math achievement of rural students in four poor counties/municipalities in Taiwan. These counties have lower socioeconomic conditions and students who lag their urban counterparts academically. The study included 4th and 5th grade students from 190 classes in 95 randomly selected schools. The schools were randomly assigned to the treatment group and control, with 878 students in the treatment group and 962 students in the control group. Students in the treatment group were requested to complete at least one 30-minute CAL session per week for ten weeks during the spring semester of 2019. The CAL software provided tailored remedial exercises based on the material taught in the classroom. It was a game-based learning platform that offered one-on-one tutoring and timely feedback. On the other hand, the control group students...

A recent study published in the Elementary School Journal examined the impact of a preschool program on the social-emotional, language, and literacy skills of Head Start-eligible Black children. The investigation spanned from preschool to first grade, including transition activities into elementary school. The program, called Creative Curriculum, is a whole-child learning curriculum covering language, literacy, and math through play-based, hands on investigations. This curriculum was implemented in a neighborhood school serving a student body composed entirely of children of color, with 80% of them facing economic disadvantages. The longitudinal sample consisted of two groups: the intervention group (n=77) comprised of students enrolled in the program during preschool (ages 3-4) and preK (age 5) and followed through first grade, and the matched comparison group (n=82) who did not experience the preschool program, and was followed from kindergarten to first grade. Data were collected across six time points of the study. Results...