Lexia Core5 Reading
Study: Macaruso & Rodman (2011)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

The study was conducted in three elementary schools in an urban community north of Boston, MA. Six kindergarten classes from two schools served as the treatment classes and two classes from a third school served as the control classes.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional or behavioral difficulties (BI):

The Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation, Level K (GRADE) was administered to treatment and control students as a pretest in October/November of 2006 and as a post-test in May/June of 2007. Any student who had a pretest Total Test standard score on the GRADE of 85 or below (i.e., at least one standard deviation below the normed mean of 100) was identified as a low performer.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

100.0%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

%

Specify which condition is the submitted intervention:

All treatment and control classes were engaged in daily reading exercises using explicit phonics instruction based on Scott Foresman Reading Street (McFall, 2007) and/or Bradley Reading and Language Arts. The treatment group used Lexia Learning’s programs -- Early Reading and Primary Reading. Students in both treatment and control classes received 120 minutes of language arts instruction per day.

Specify which condition is the control condition:

All treatment and control classes were engaged in daily reading exercises using explicit phonics instruction based on Scott Foresman Reading Street (McFall, 2007) and/or Bradley Reading and Language Arts. Students in both treatment and control classes received 120 minutes of language arts instruction per day. The control group did not receive computer time with Lexia Learning programs. During the time when treatment students were engaged in CAI use, students in control classes were participating in regular classroom instruction.

If you have a third, competing condition, in addition to your control and intervention condition, identify what the competing condition is (data from this competing condition will not be used):

Using the tables that follow, provide data demonstrating comparability of the program group and control group in terms of demographics.

Grade Level

Race–Ethnicity

Socioeconomic Status

Disability Status

ELL Status

Gender

What method was used to determine students' placement in treatment/control groups?

Systematic

Please describe the assignment method or the process for defining treatment/comparison groups.

Six kindergarten classes from two schools were selected as treatment classes and two kindergarten classes from a third school served as control classes. All three schools were from the same school district employing the same language arts curriculum.

What was the unit of assignment?

Classes

If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit of assignment:

What unit(s) were used for primary data analysis?

Schools
Teachers
Students
Classes
Other
If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit(s) used for primary data analysis:

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

What were the background, experience, training, and ongoing support of the instructors or interventionists?

The kindergarten teachers assigned to the treatment classes had previous experience with implementation of the software

Describe when and how fidelity of treatment information was obtained.

Teachers were instructed to have students use the program 2-3 times per week, each session lasting 15- 20 minutes. The software also tracks sessions completed for each student (number of session and the length of sessions).

What were the results on the fidelity-of-treatment implementation measure?

Students in the treatment group were only included in the analyses if they demonstrated adequate use of the CAI program, with a minimum use criterion of 600 minutes (i.e., at least 40 15-minute sessions).

Was the fidelity measure also used in control classrooms?

For any substantively (e.g., effect size ≥ 0.25 for pretest or demographic differences) or statistically significant (e.g., p < 0.05) pretest differences, please describe the extent to which these differences are related to the impact of the treatment. For example, if analyses were conducted to determine that outcomes from this study are due to the intervention and not pretest characteristics, please describe the results of those analyses here.

Please explain any missing data or instances of measures with incomplete pre- or post-test data.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion:

Describe the analyses used to determine whether the intervention produced changes in student outcomes:

One-sample t-tests indicated significant gains for each group. An independent sample t-test comparing mean gain scores for the two groups was significant. An analysis of covariance comparing Total Test scores at post-test using Total Test pretest scores as covariates confirmed the significant group effect.