S.P.I.R.E. ESSA Level III Study Grades 3-5, 2022-2023

EPS contracted with LXD Research, a third-party research company, to examine the relationship between progress in S.P.I.R.E. and student reading outcomes at Martin County School District in Florida. LXD Research analyzed 192 students from grades 3-5 in 13 elementary schools who use S.P.I.R.E./i.S.P.I.R.E. reading intervention that uses an Orton-Gillingham approach. The Martin County School District's largest racial/ethnic group is Hispanic (48%), and over one-third of students (38%) had a Limited English Proficiency class or were still being monitored. Researchers used S.P.I.R.E. progress level and the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) to understand the impact of the intervention program on student's learning outcomes. LXD Research found that students who completed more lessons in S.P.I.R.E. had higher literacy achievement at the end of the study, and these relationships were statistically significant. For all grades, students who completed more S.P.I.R.E. levels had higher spring FAST achievement (t(190) = 2.9, p < 0.01, Cohen's d effect size = 0.44). For all grades, S.P.I.R.E. ending level was significantly correlated with spring FAST achievement (r(190) = 0.43, p < 0.01) for students in Grades 3-5. After controlling for grade, race, LEP status, gender, and Fall FAST scores in an Analysis of Covariance, S.P.I.R.E. significantly predicted spring FAST achievement for students across Grades 3-5. This study provides results to satisfy ESSA evidence requirements for Level III (Promising Evidence) given the study design and positive, statistically significant findings.