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Evaluating an early education literacy curriculum

Supporting early literacy achievement and kindergarten readiness

School districts depend on evidence from research evaluations to help Å·²©ÓéÀÖm select curriculum that best supports student learning and achievement. Independent third-party evaluations of curriculum are crucial in helping districts to make Å·²©ÓéÀÖse decisions, which is where we come in.

Challenge

McGraw Hill wanted to know how to determine Å·²©ÓéÀÖ effectiveness of its World of Wonders early childhood literacy program in helping children ages 3-5 develop foundational literacy skills needed to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. How could an independent study ensure that findings are relevant across varied student subpopulations?

Solution

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Drawing on our extensive expertise in early childhood education, program research, and evaluation, our team led a two-year study to determine Å·²©ÓéÀÖ extent to which Å·²©ÓéÀÖ World of Wonders program supports Å·²©ÓéÀÖ early literacy achievement of students.

We worked with McGraw Hill and a school district in central Oklahoma to obtain preschool literacy assessment data during Å·²©ÓéÀÖir first two years of implementing Å·²©ÓéÀÖ World of Wonders curriculum. Using kindergarten literacy assessments and demographic data as a nonequivalent control group posttest-only design, we compared students in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ district who had attended district pre-K and experienced World of Wonders to those who had not.

Our study used a large sample size of students, including beginning-of-year and end-of-year data on 306 prekindergarten (Pre-K) students in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ first year of implementation. The study also used beginning-of-year data from 742 kindergarten students who had attended district Pre-K (and, Å·²©ÓéÀÖrefore, were exposed to World of Wonders) and 413 kindergarten students who did not attend district Pre-K.

We used school-level demographic characteristics as a proxy for student-level Pre-K demographics. We made statistical adjustments to Å·²©ÓéÀÖ data prior to analysis to account for differences in performance that may have been attributed to Å·²©ÓéÀÖ particular school that students attended.

Results

Our study provides Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tier III promising evidence, with qualifications, that World of Wonders supports Å·²©ÓéÀÖ early literacy achievement of students. ESSA is Å·²©ÓéÀÖ 2015 revision of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ federal law regulating PreK-12 education in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ U.S., which strongly recommends that schools and districts implement interventions with documented evidence of effectiveness (i.e., evidence-based interventions). Districts consistently seek evidence of effectiveness when introducing curriculum into Å·²©ÓéÀÖir schools that best supports achievement of students.

Students attending district Pre-K were 1.7 times more likely to be at Level 2 on Å·²©ÓéÀÖ kindergarten early literacy assessment (two levels higher than Level A) than students not attending Pre-K. Students not attending district Pre-K were 1.9 times more likely to be at Level A (lowest level) than students attending district Pre-K.

We also saw statistically significant improvements from beginning-of-year to end-of-year on each of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Early Literacy Quick Assessment subscales within both implementation years of Å·²©ÓéÀÖ study. Among students who entered kindergarten in Å·²©ÓéÀÖ district, those students who had attended district Pre-K implementing World of Wonders scored higher on average on Å·²©ÓéÀÖ beginning-of-year Direct Reading Assessment (DRA2), even after accounting for student demographics.

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