Project CRISS®

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 3 claims (2 for, 1 against) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description

Project CRISS® is a professional-development programme run by Project CRISS that trains grades 3–12 teachers to embed reading, writing, and learning comprehension strategies in regular instruction.

Components

• Project CRISS® professional development program for teachers of grades 3–12: Project CRISS® is "a professional development program for teachers that aims to improve reading, writing, and learning for 3rd- through 12th-grade students." It requires no curriculum change but a change in teaching style, embedding comprehension strategies such as using background knowledge, questioning, organizing graphically, and summarizing into regular instruction. Training runs from Level I (12–24 hours, $50–$200 per participant) to Level II certification for trainers, and participants receive a teacher resource guide. Related programs include CRISS for Administrators, Students, Parents, and Homeschool Parents. (Project CRISS® (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies) (2010))
• CRISS Strategic Learning framework: three concepts from cognitive psychology and brain research: Project CRISS® is grounded in three primary concepts derived from cognitive psychology and brain research: students "monitoring their learning to assess when they have understood content," "integrating new information with prior knowledge," and "being actively involved in the learning process through discussing, writing, organizing information, and analyzing the structure of text to help improve comprehension." Teachers incorporate these concepts through comprehension strategies, and students learn when and how to apply the strategies that work best for them. The CRISS Strategic Learning Plan guides selection of content, setting of learning goals and objectives, assessment of student learnin (Project CRISS® (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies) (2010))

Claims

• A large randomized trial found no statistically significant effects of Project CRISS® on standardized grade 5 comprehension measures (James-Burdumy et al., 2009) [-W]
• The WWC rates Project CRISS® as having potentially positive effects on comprehension for adolescent learners, with an average improvement index of +20 percentile points [+W]
• Project CRISS® produced statistically significant greater free-recall gains than regular instruction in grades 4 and 6 (Horsfall & Santa, 1994) [+W]

Related Products and Programmes

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Key Sources

• Project CRISS® (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies). (2010). WWC Intervention Report: Project CRISS®, Adolescent Literacy. U.S. Department of Education, What Works Clearinghouse. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/InterventionReport/388

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	project-criss
title	Project CRISS®
description	Project CRISS® is a professional-development programme run by Project CRISS that trains grades 3–12 teachers to embed reading, writing, and learning comprehension strategies in regular instruction.
status	review
moved_from	element/project-criss-teacher-professional-development-program, theory/criss-three-concepts-strategic-learning-framework
product_kind	programme
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — project-criss-creating-independence-through-student-owned-strategies-2010

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