Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine growth in reading comprehension and fluency of
fourth grade general education students receiving instruction in Reading Mastery, Signature
Edition or Scott Foresman’s Celebrate Reading program. Students in a Midwestern elementary
school were randomly assigned to one of the programs and received instruction for ninety
minutes a day. Each group had two teachers (four teachers in all), who were randomly assigned
to teach the different groups. The analysis is based on data from 52 students (26 in each group).
The curriculum-based AIMSweb measurement system was used to gather fluency and
comprehension data. While there were no significant differences between the groups at baseline,
the RM group had significantly stronger growth in both fluency and comprehension skills over
the school year. Effect sizes associated with the differences at spring were .75 for fluency and
.41 for comprehension, both well beyond the level usually used to denote educational
significance.