At Read Right, we periodically study all of the data provided to us by U.S. K-12 schools that have certified, on-site Read Right tutoring projects. This data comes to us directly from the schools.
THIS IS HOW IT WORKS:
At program entry, participating schools give all students a pre-test using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, comprehension sub-set. Then, the same students are tested with a different version of the same test when they exit the program or at the end of the school year. Thus, valid pre- and post-program test data is available for all participating schools in a single school year. The only other requirement we have for study inclusion is that students must have had at least 20 hours of tutoring during the given school year.
Read Right focuses solely on reading comprehension test data because comprehension is the essential skill for reading success. A student’s phonics knowledge is assessed only when the student cannot read Kindergarten through Grade 1 text. Also, we do not test for speed of individual word recognition (e.g., DIBELS). Doing so promotes “rushing” which, we have found, hazardously undermines comprehension.
The last time we performed this extensive review with all participating Read Right school sites was the 2015-2016 school year. Another review is planned during 2021.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION for understanding the data:
- One of the best measures to understand effectiveness of a reading program is “NCE gain.” Education researchers Borman (G.D.), Hewes (G.M.), Overman (L.T.) and Brown (S.) provide an explanation of NCE gain in this article: Comprehensive School Reform and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis (2003) in Reviews of Educational Research, 73 (2), 125-230.They explain: “A mean NCE Gain Score of 0.0 means the students held their own in the norming population, neither falling further behind nor closing the achievement gap. Thus low scores are statistically meaningful. Researchers generally regard NCE gain scores between 1.9 and 3.2 to be indicative of an effective program.”
- See the charts on this page for Read Right Reading Intervention program NCE gains for elementary, middle, and high school.
- With the Read Right Reading Intervention Program, older students (middle and high school) make faster gains because they possess more background knowledge and vocabulary to comprehend text. Both are essential for successful comprehension. Also, older struggling readers typically are further behind than elementary students in reading ability when they start the Read Right tutoring.
The Data – All Elementary Schools
NCE Gain
Average hours of Read Right tutoring: 57.89.
Average hours of tutoring per grade level gain: 36.19.
SUMMARY: Elementary-age students at all Read Right school sites nationally needed less than 58 hours of tutoring to grow more than 1.5 years in reading comprehension (1.6 to be precise). If delivered five days a week, future-changing growth took less than three months on average at all participating U.S. Read Right elementary school sites.
All Middle Schools
NCE Gain
Average hours of Read Right tutoring: 61.81
Average hours of tutoring per grade level gain: 26.76.
SUMMARY: Middle school-age students at all Read Right school sites nationally needed less than 62 hours of tutoring to grow more than 2 years in reading comprehension (2.3 to be precise). If delivered five days a week, future-changing growth took a little more than three months on average at all participating U.S. Read Right middle school sites.
All High Schools
NCE Gain
Average hours of Read Right tutoring: 81.46
Average hours of tutoring per grade level gain: 33.25
SUMMARY: High school-age students at all reporting Read Right school sites nationally needed less than 82 hours of tutoring to grow nearly 2 and a half years in reading comprehension (2.4 to be precise). If delivered five days a week, future-changing growth took a little more than four months on average at all participating U.S. Read Right high school sites.
