Younger struggling readers benefited more: the interventions generally helped third-grade cohort students more than fifth-grade cohort students¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2007 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? The interventions generally helped students in the third-grade cohort more than students in the fifth-grade cohort, with several fifth-grade impacts statistically different from the third-grade impacts. → Torgesen 2007

Evidence¶

Torgesen 2007¶

Torgesen, J., Schirm, A., Castner, L., Vartivarian, S., Mansfield, W., Myers, D., Stancavage, F., Durno, D., Javorsky, R., and Haan, C. (2007). National Assessment of Title I, Final Report: Volume II: Closing the Reading Gap, Findings from a Randomized Trial of Four Reading Interventions for Striving Readers (NCEE 2008-4013). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/national-assessment-of-title-i-final-report-volume-ii-closing-the-reading-gap-findings-from-a-randomized-trial-of-four-reading-interventions-for-striving-readers

q3 · i? · causal · r3

Across Tables 2 and 3, several fifth-grade impacts carry the report's marker for being statistically different from the third-grade cohort impact at the 0.05 level (e.g., Word Attack and AIMSweb). The report concludes the interventions "generally helped students in the third-grade cohort more."

"The interventions generally helped students in the third-grade cohort more than students in the fifth-grade cohort"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Age and Developmental Stage — moderator: an instructional effect differs with it

Related Claims¶

• The interventions narrowed some reading gaps, reducing the Word Attack gap by about two-thirds for third graders and one-half for fifth graders — related
• Failure Free Reading, the only word-level-plus-comprehension program, showed impacts for third graders but no impacts for fifth graders — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The four reading interventions did not improve state assessment (PSSA) scores; for fifth graders they lowered reading and mathematics scores — related
• Four remedial reading interventions combined improved phonemic decoding, word reading accuracy and fluency, and reading comprehension for third-grade struggling readers one year after the interventions ended, though not on all measures — related
• For fifth-grade struggling readers, the four interventions combined improved phonemic decoding on one measure but produced a small reduction in oral reading fluency one year after the interventions — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• A struggling fifth-grade reader with ADHD gained one full grade level in reading over six weeks of iPad-mediated tutoring — related
• Younger children have difficulty extracting the abstract theme of a narrative text — related