Across all tier groups, students who completed the recommended amount of Reading Plus instruction during the school year achieved significantly larger proficiency gains than students who did not engage in Reading Plus instruction.

These results show that students in all tier groups who engaged in the recommended amount of Reading Plus instruction over the course of the 2019-2020 school year significantly increased their capacity to comprehend increasingly complex texts, developed their capacity to understand higher levels of general academic vocabulary, and improved their reading efficiency. Students who completed more Reading Plus lessons achieved significantly larger gains than their peers who engaged in little or no Reading Plus practice. The results also showed that students who engaged in more Reading Plus instruction developed more reading confidence and increased their interest in reading. This in turn increases the likelihood that they will continue to use reading as a means to expand their knowledge, to be entertained, and to seek inspiration.

Study Design:

This report describes the progress achieved by Reading Plus students who were enrolled in grades 2 through 5 during the 2019-2020 school year. The focus is on students who completed the InSight silent reading assessment on at least two occasions, once near the start of the school year and again during the spring, so that growth over the school year was measured. Students were divided into three tier groups based on their performance on the initial assessment.

Students Excluded

Students for whom valid reading rates could not be calculated.

Analyses assume 2.5 SeeReader lessons per hour

Key Results:

Across all tier groups, Reading Plus practice had a significantly positive effect on students’ self-reported reading interest. Differences in reading self-confidence (self-efficacy) were not significant, most likely because most elementary school students were near the top of the confidence scale to being with. Previous research has shown that reading motivation and reading success are closely linked.

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Reading Plus Students Achieved Significantly Larger Gains Across all tier groups, students who completed the recommended amount of Reading Plus instruction during the school year achieved significantly larger proficiency gains than students who did not engage in Reading Plus instruction.

These results show that students in all tier groups who engaged in the recommended amount of Reading Plus instruction over the course of the 2018-2019 school year significantly increased their capacity to comprehend increasingly complex texts, developed their capacity to understand higher levels of general academic vocabulary, and improved their reading efficiency. Students who completed more Reading Plus lessons achieved significantly larger gains than their peers who engaged in little or no Reading Plus practice. The results also showed that students who engaged in more Reading Plus instruction developed more reading confidence and increased their interest in reading. This in turn increases the likelihood that they will continue to use reading as a means to expand their knowledge, to be entertained, and to seek inspiration.

Study Design:

This report describes the progress achieved by Reading Plus students who were enrolled in grades 2 through 5 during the 2018-2019 school year. The focus is on students who completed the Reading Plus InSight silent reading assessment on at least two occasions, once near the start of the school year and again during the spring, so that growth over the school year was measured. Students were divided into three tier groups based on their performance on the initial assessment.

Students Excluded

Students for whom valid reading rates could not be calculated.

Key Results:

Across all tier groups, Reading Plus practice had a significantly positive effect on students’ self-reported reading interest. Differences in reading self-confidence (self-efficacy) were not significant, most likely because most elementary school students were near the top of the confidence scale to begin with. Changes in reading motivation are shown in Figure 5. Previous research has shown that reading motivation and reading success are closely linked.

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Less efficient readers achieved larger reading efficiency growth. More efficient readers achieved larger reading achievement gains.

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This research evaluated the relationship between eye movement measures of reading efficiency and students’ orthographic knowledge. A strong relationship was found between these measures.

All eye movement measures differed significantly across the stages of spelling/literacy development, with the later stages being associated with faster reading rates, fewer fixations and regressions per word, and shorter fixation durations (p < .001).

These results demonstrate a strong relationship between orthographic knowledge and reading efficiency as measured by comprehension-based silent reading rate and eye movement behavior during reading. While the reciprocal relationship between orthographic knowledge and reading development is well established, this is the first known demonstration of the relationship between orthographic knowledge, comprehension-based reading rate, and oculomotor efficiency across multiple stages of spelling/literacy development.

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This research evaluated the impact of scaffolded silent reading practice (SSRP) in comparison to “business as usual” instruction.

The results suggest that SSRP may be more effective than typical practices in helping students become more proficient and efficient readers. Students who engaged in SSRP achieved larger reading efficiency gains as measured by greater increases in reading rate and larger decreases in fixations and regressions over the course of a school year. In addition, larger reading proficiency gains were achieved on the Group Reading Assessment Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) by students who engaged in SSRP. The results are encouraging in that they suggest that SSRP can, at the very least, be an efficacious addition to educators’ instructional toolboxes.

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The goal of this experiment was to determine whether the use of a particular text presentation format during reading instruction might be more effective in advancing reading development.

Study Design:

Fifth-grade students attending one of two midwestern schools were evaluated in both the fall and spring of the school year using three measures: (a) reading comprehension as measured using the Group Reading Assessment Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE); (b) comprehension-based silent reading efficiency (reading rate, fixations, and regressions) as measured by an eye-movement recording system (Visagraph); and (c) oral reading rate as measured using the Dynamic Indicator of Beginning Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS).

Students matched on their GRADE scores were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups that used different text presentation formats: (a) a Static Display (pages of text with eight lines on each page), (b) a Passage Build-Up format (lines of text added to the page, one at a time), (c) a Line-by-Line Display (single lines of text displayed one at a time), or (d) a Guided Window format (text revealed and concealed by a window moving from left to right). For the three dynamic formats, the text presentation rate was calibrated to the student’s reading rate.

All students then completed about 40 fifteen-minute reading practice lessons (~10 hours) in the Reading Plus program using appropriately leveled text passages and their assigned text presentation format.

Key Results:

Significant improvements in reading comprehension and efficiency were measured in all treatment groups as a result of reading practice, but there were significant differences between groups using different text presentation formats. Consistently, students using the Guided Window text presentation format achieved the largest improvements on all learning outcome measures. The Line-by-Line Display group achieved the smallest comprehension gains, and the Static Display group achieved the smallest reading efficiency gains.

These results suggest that using the Guided Window format during reading practice can enhance the development of reading proficiency to a greater extent than practice using several other text presentation formats, including the traditional static text format. Critically, the resulting enhancements were measurable using three different nationally normed measures of reading proficiency. It seems reasonable to speculate that this outcome is a consequence of the structure and guidance provided by the Guided Window, which provides a focus for visual attention that can help students to maintain their place as they navigate their eyes across lines of text, and encourages students to stay on task, take in words sequentially, and retain word impressions in short-term memory, all characteristics of efficient readers.

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The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a supplementary, guided, silent reading intervention with 80 struggling third-grade readers who were retained at grade level as a result of poor performance on the reading portion of a criterion referenced state assessment. The students were distributed in 11 elementary schools in a large, urban school district in the state of Florida. A matched, quasi-experimental design was constructed using propensity scores for this study.

Students in the guided, silent reading intervention, Reading Plus, evidenced higher, statistically significant mean scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) criterion assessment measure of reading at posttest. The effect size, favoring the guided, silent reading intervention group was large, one full standard deviation, when comparing the two comparison groups’ mean posttest scores. As such, this study indicates a large advantage for providing struggling third-grade readers guided silent reading fluency practice in a computer-based practice environment.

“Students in the guided, silent reading intervention, Reading Plus, evidenced higher, statistically significant mean scores on the criterion assessment measure of reading at posttest.”

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