Page 28 - S44 Compendium

Implementation
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BETHLEHEM AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT, PA
STUDY PROFILE
Evaluation Period: 2011–2012
Grades: 3–5
Assessment: Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), Scholastic Phonics Inventory (SPI)
Participants: N=68
Implementation: 60 to 90 minutes three to ve days per
week (Stand-Alone and Integrated With READ 180 )
OVERVIEW
Bethlehem Area School District enrolls approximately 15,000 students in Grades K–12 in 16 elementary schools, 4 middle schools, and 2 high schools. The majority of students in Bethlehem are Caucasian (55%), 9.5% are African American, 32.3% are Hispanic, 3.1% are Asian, and 0.2% are American Indian.
During the 2011–2012 school year, 68 elementary school students in Grades 3 through 5 in Bethlehem Area School District were selected to participate in a study of System 44’s effectiveness. System 44 was rst implemented in the district during the 2009–2010 school year, making it the third year
that the program had been implemented in the elementary schools. Six elementary schools participated in the study,
each of which was a Title 1 school. While the eligibility criteria varied from school to school, the schools were directed to
use the following data points: Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), Study Island, and Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) for third graders. Reading Specialists then targeted kids based on these data points, as well as on SPI and SRI scores. Generally, students who were at the low end of Basic and the high end of Below Basic on SRI for their grade levels were eligible for System 44. Teacher recommendations were also considered. Students who were placed into
System 44 classrooms at Bethlehem were expected to receive 60 to 90 minutes of instruction, three to ve times per week. The model varied across the district with some schools using a stand-alone System 44 model and some schools using an integrated System 44/READ 180 model.
Elementary students demonstrate signi cant gains on decoding and uency after using System 44.
RESULTS
SPI and SRI data were collected and analyzed for students who used the program during the 2011–2012 school year. SPI and SRI outcomes showed positive gains for the System 44 students on measures of decoding and uency. Analysis of SPI Decoding Status showed that the percentage of System 44 students identi ed as Developing Decoder or Advancing Decoder increased from the rst SPI assessment to the last, whereas the percentage of students identi ed as Pre-Decoder or Beginning Decoder decreased (Graph 1). System 44 students also made signi cant gains in SPI Total Fluency (6.6 points) from the rst SPI assessment to the last. On SRI, System 44 students demonstrated signi cant gains in their Lexile (L) scores from pretest to posttest (215L), with an average of nearly one-third of students exceeding their individual growth targets.
When both SPI and SRI outcomes were considered as a function of System 44 software progress, students who completed more topics demonstrated greater gains. For SPI Fluency, students completing more software topics demonstrated higher initial uency scores, as well as signi cantly greater gains in uency across the school year (Graph 2). For SRI, students completing 60+ software topics demonstrated signi cantly greater Lexile gains across the school year than students completing fewer than 60 software topics (Graph 3).