ITSS

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 mixed) · 5 studies (3 causal, 2 quant-synthesis), q2–q3 · 4 of 5 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description

ITSS is a web-based intelligent tutoring system for grades K–8 that teaches students to recognize and use factual-text structures through animated modeling, self-paced practice, and immediate feedback.

Components

• Intelligent Tutoring for the Structure Strategy (ITSS): web-based text-structure tutoring program: ITSS is a web-based reading comprehension program that "teaches students to use the organization of nonfiction texts to identify and remember important information." Students learn text structures including "comparison, problem and solution, cause and effect, sequence, and description" and use signaling words to identify main ideas and monitor comprehension. Students "work individually with an animated tutor that models strategies, provides practice and feedback," progressing at their own pace through lessons used as a partial substitute for regular language arts instruction for 30 to 45 minutes per week. (Evidence for ESSA (2021))

Claims

• The effects of ITSS are not known for adolescent literacy outcomes other than comprehension [~W]
• In the grades 4-5 cluster RCT, ITSS produced statistically significant positive effects on all six comprehension outcomes (average effect size 0.24) [+S]
• In the grade 7 cluster RCT, ITSS produced statistically significant positive effects on all eight comprehension outcomes (average effect size 0.23) [+M]
• ITSS has positive effects on reading comprehension, based on two studies meeting WWC standards covering 6,724 students [+M]
• ITSS shows a positive but statistically non-significant effect on Grade 4 reading comprehension (effect size +0.10) [~W] — (also cited [+W])

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. (2020, April). Web-based Intelligent Tutoring for the Structure Strategy (ITSS). https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/InterventionReport/703
• Evidence for ESSA. (2021). Intelligent Tutoring for the Structure Strategy (ITSS): Elementary Reading and Secondary Reading evidence summary. https://evidenceforessa.org/program/intelligent-tutoring-for-the-structure-strategy-itss-elementary/

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	itss
title	ITSS
description	ITSS is a web-based intelligent tutoring system for grades K–8 that teaches students to recognize and use factual-text structures through animated modeling, self-paced practice, and immediate feedback.
status	review
moved_from	element/itss-web-based-structure-strategy-tutor, element/itss-web-based-text-structure-tutoring-program
product_kind	software
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	2 — what-works-clearinghouse-institute-of, evidence-for-essa-2021

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