Abstract:
The scholarly literature includes dozens of studies that show that the Direct Instruction
program, Reading Mastery (RM), is highly effective. Despite this large and consistent body of
work, a report published by the What Works Clearinghouse in November 2013 stated that it
could find “no studies of Reading Mastery that fall within the scope of the Beginning
Reading review protocol [and] meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards”
(WWC, 2013b, p. 1). This NIFDI technical report documents a surprising number of errors in
the WWC analysis.