The National Randomized Field Trial of Success for All: Second-Year Outcomes

This article reports literacy outcomes for a 2-year longitudinal student sample and a combined longitudinal and “in-mover” (i.e., those students who moved into the study schools between the initial pretest and the second-year posttest) sample, both of which were nested within 38 schools. Through the use of a cluster randomization design, schools were randomly assigned to implement Success for All or control methods. Hierarchical linear model analyses involving the longitudinal sample revealed statistically significant school-level effects of assignment to Success for All on three of the four literacy outcomes measured. Effects were as large as one quarter of a standard deviation—a learning advantage relative to controls exceeding half of a school year. Impacts for the combined longitudinal and in-mover sample were smaller in magnitude and more variable. The results correspond with the Success for All program theory, which targets school-level reform through multiyear sequencing of intensive literacy instruction

[1]  S. Glazerman.  Nonexperimental Replications of Social Experiments A Systematic Review Interim ReportDiscussion Paper , 2002 .

[2]  Geoffrey D. Borman,et al.  Comprehensive School Reform and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis , 2003 .

[3]  L. Ehri,et al.  Movement into Reading: Is the First Stage of Printed Word Learning Visual or Phonetic?. , 1985 .

[4]  Anne Ricciuti,et al.  Third National Even Start Evaluation: Program Impacts and Implications for Improvement , 2005 .

[5]  Geoffrey D. Borman,et al.  The Long-Term Effects and Cost-Effectiveness of Success for All , 2002 .

[6]  Jeremy D. Finn,et al.  Tennessee's Class Size Study: Findings, Implications, Misconceptions , 1999 .

[7]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[8]  J M Bos,et al.  Using Cluster Random Assignment to Measure Program Impacts , 1999, Evaluation review.

[9]  David K. Dickinson,et al.  Handbook of early literacy research , 2001 .

[10]  Allan Donner,et al.  Design and Analysis of Cluster Randomization Trials in Health Research , 2001 .

[11]  Geoffrey D. Borman,et al.  Success for All: First-Year Results From the National Randomized Field Trial , 2005 .

[12]  R. Calfee,et al.  Acoustic-phonetic skills and reading--kindergarten through twelfth grade. , 1973, Journal of educational psychology.

[13]  M. Lipsey,et al.  The efficacy of psychological, educational, and behavioral treatment. Confirmation from meta-analysis. , 1993, American Psychologist.

[14]  Charles A. Perfetti,et al.  Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: A longitudinal study of first grade children. , 1987 .

[15]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  The influence of orthography on readers' conceptualization of the phonemic structure of words , 1980, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[16]  David M. Murray,et al.  Design and Analysis of Group- Randomized Trials , 1998 .

[17]  D. Rubin,et al.  Statistical Analysis with Missing Data , 1988 .

[18]  S. Crain,et al.  Cognitive Profiles of Reading-Disabled Children: Comparison of Language Skills in Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax , 1995 .

[19]  L. Siegel,et al.  The development of reading. , 1993, Advances in child development and behavior.

[20]  Barbara A. Wasik,et al.  Success for All: Longitudinal Effects of a Restructuring Program for Inner-City Elementary Schools , 1993 .

[21]  D. Rubin.  INFERENCE AND MISSING DATA , 1975 .

[22]  B. Worthen.  Toward Reform of Program Evaluation: Aims, Methods, and Institutional Arrangements , 1982 .

[23]  H. Bloom.  Learning more from social experiments: evolving analytic approaches , 2006 .

[24]  F. Wood,et al.  Separate linguistic and attentional factors in the development of reading , 1994 .

[25]  Mark W. Lipsey,et al.  Those Confounded Moderators in Meta-Analysis: Good, Bad, and Ugly , 2003 .

[26]  Philip B. Gough,et al.  The simple view of reading , 1990 .

[27]  Mark Dynarski,et al.  When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st-Century Community Learning Centers Program, First Year Findings , 2005 .

[28]  S. Raudenbush.  Statistical analysis and optimal design for cluster randomized trials , 1997 .

[29]  C. Ramey,et al.  Early intervention and early experience. , 1998, The American psychologist.

[30]  W. Shadish,et al.  Assignment methods in experimentation: When do nonrandomized experiments approximate answers from randomized experiments? , 1996 .

[31]  Marilyn Jager Adams,et al.  Beginning To Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. , 1991 .

[32]  Robert E. Slavin,et al.  One Million Children: Success for All , 2000 .

[33]  R. Slavin.  Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research and Practice , 1990 .