Search

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons Project on the literacy and life skills of students in grades 3, 4, and 5. A4L Lessons is a supplementary literacy curriculum designed to blend the creativity and discipline of the arts with learning science to raise student achievement in reading and writing, as well as to develop literacy and life skills. A cluster-randomized trial was employed, randomly assigning 32 elementary schools in the Beaverton School District in Oregon to receive the A4L intervention or the status-quo control condition. Participants included approximately 5,700 students in the 16 intervention schools and approximately 6,100 students in the 16 control schools. Nearly 40% of the participants qualified for free/reduced-price lunch, approximately 17% were English language learners, and nearly 50% were racial/ethnic minorities. Achievement on the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) Reading/Literature test (i.e., the state reading test) were compared for the two groups. Achievement on the Comprehensive Cross Unit (CCU) Assessments (i.e., tests designed specifically to measure the impact of the A4L Lessons Project on literacy and life skills) were compared for a subset of six intervention and six control schools. Results from confirmatory analyses revealed no statistically significant impacts of the A4L Lessons Project on students' achievement on the OAKS Reading/Literature test. The effect sizes based on differences between the treatment and control students on the OAKS Reading/Literature test after one, two, and three years of program participation were very small, ranging from -0.03 to 0.05. Results from exploratory analyses revealed that treatment students in grade 4 scored significantly higher than control students on the CCU Assessment, indicating a positive impact of the A4L Lessons Project on student literacy and life skills. The effect sizes indexing the differences ranged from 0.30 to 0.36 across study years. Results from exploratory analyses using the CCU Assessments with students in grades 3 and 5 did not reach statistical significance, indicating that the A4L Lessons Project did not produce a positive impact on student literacy and life skills in these grades. Further research relying on more dependently sensitive assessments may be needed to better determine the impact of the A4L Lessons on students' literacy achievement. Tables are appended.