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Research increasingly links low literacy levels in the early grades with a range of poor outcomes; for instance, students who read below grade level at the end of third grade are about four times less likely than their higher-achieving peers to graduate from high school (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2010, 2011; Balfanz, Bridgeland, Bruce & Fox, 2012). In a four-year study, researchers from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Research on Education and Social Policy (CRESP) at the University of Delaware examined the effectiveness of Reading Recovery at helping struggling early readers catch up. The study's findings offer promise for intensive early literacy intervention.

This report presents the final results of a four-year independent external evaluation of the impacts and implementation of the scale-up of Reading Recovery, a literacy intervention targeting struggling 1st-grade students. The evaluation of Reading Recovery includes parallel rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs for estimating program impacts, coupled with a large-scale, mixed-methods study of program implementation under the Investing in Innovation (i3) scale-up. The primary goals of the evaluation are to: (1) Provide experimental evidence of the short- and long-term impacts of Reading Recovery on student learning in schools that are part of the i3 scale-up; and (2) Assess the implementation of Reading Recovery under the i3 grant, including fidelity to the program model and progress toward the scale-up goals. The impact evaluation includes a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT) for estimating immediate impacts, a regression discontinuity study (RD) for estimating longterm impacts, and an implementation study for assessing fidelity of implementation and exploring program implementation in depth. The RCT includes nearly 7,000 randomized students in more than 1,200 schools over four years. The RD study measures Reading Recovery's impacts at the end of first grade and in third grade, and replicates the RCT's immediate post-treatment findings in a separate sample of students. The implementation study involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative research executed on a large scale over the same four-year timeframe. The evaluation's key findings pertain to the following topics: (1) Scale-Up Processes, Challenges, and Outcomes; (2) Immediate Impacts of Reading Recovery; (3) Sustained Impacts of Reading Recovery; and (4) Implementation Fidelity. The authors' analysis revealed strong fidelity to the program model in all of these areas and all years of the scale-up. This suggests that the intervention was delivered as designed to the students in the scale-up, and that teachers delivering Reading Recovery lessons were properly trained. In total, the results of the fidelity analysis support the validity of their impact findings. Three appendices are included. [To view the brief for this report, "Evidence for Early Literacy Intervention: The Impacts of Reading Recovery," see ED586802.]

Reading Recovery is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a period of 12 to 20 weeks. The purpose of these lessons is to support rapid acceleration of each child's literacy learning. In 2010, The Ohio State University received a Scaling Up What Works grant from the U.S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund to expand the use of Reading Recovery across the country. The award was intended to fund the training of 3,675 new Reading Recovery teachers in U.S. schools, thereby expanding service to an additional 88,200 students. The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) was contracted to conduct an independent evaluation of the i3 scale-up of Reading Recovery over the course of five years. The evaluation includes parallel rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs for estimating program impacts, coupled with a large-scale mixed-methods study of program implementation. This report presents the findings of the second year of the evaluation. The primary goals of this evaluation are: (1) to provide experimental evidence of the impacts of Reading Recovery on student learning under this scale-up effort; (2) to assess the success of the scale-up in meeting the i3 grant's expansion goals; and (3) to document the implementation of the scale-up and fidelity to program standards. This document is the second in a series of three reports based on the external evaluation of the Reading Recovery i3 Scale-Up. The report represents results from the impact and implementation studies conducted over the 2012-2013 school year--the third year of the scale-up effort and the second full year of the evaluation. [This document is a reissue of the December 2014 CPRE Research Report RR-79 under the same title. For the Year One Report, see ED547669.]

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a period of 12 to 20 weeks. The purpose of these lessons is to support rapid acceleration of each child's literacy learning. In 2010, The Ohio State University received a Scaling Up What Works grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund to expand the use of Reading Recovery across the country. The award was intended to fund the scale-up of Reading Recovery by training 3,675 new RR Teachers in U.S. schools, thereby expanding capacity to allow service to an additional 88,200 students. The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) was contracted to conduct an independent evaluation of the i3 scale up of Reading Recovery over the course of five years. The evaluation includes parallel rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental designs for estimating program impacts, coupled with a large-scale mixed-methods study of program implementation under the i3 scale-up. This report presents findings through the second year of the evaluation. The primary goals of this evaluation were: (1) to assess the success of the scale-up in meeting the i3 grant's expansion goals; (2) to document the implementation of scale-up and fidelity to program standards; and (3) to provide experimental evidence of the impacts of Reading Recovery on student learning under this scale-up effort. This document is the first in a series of three annual reports produced based on our external evaluation of the Reading Recovery i3 Scale-Up. This report presents early results from the experimental impact and implementation studies conducted over the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. An appendix includes: Statistical Model for Impacts of Reading Scores. [For "WWC Review of the Report 'Evaluation of the i3 Scale-up of Reading Recovery Year One Report, 2011-12.' What Works Clearinghouse Single Study Review," see ED547670.]