12/3/2023

Reading Gains of Core5 Students from the Kansas Reading Initiative

PURPOSE: To support students in Kansas schools, state legislators passed the Kansas Reading Initiative (KRI). The initiative consisted of a two-year pilot program (2013-2014, 2014-2015) designed to improve reading outcomes for students in Kansas using educational technology—specifically, Lexia® Core5® Reading. Analyses were conducted to assess the effectiveness of Core5 in Kansas schools.

METHOD: Lexia® researchers used both between-school and within-school comparisons to examine the reading progress of students in KRI schools. All analyses examined progress over one school year on an established progress-monitoring tool (aimsweb or DIBELS Next). For between-school comparisons, Lexia researchers identified non-KRI schools with demographic and test score profiles similar to KRI schools. KRI and non-KRI schools were matched for analysis.

KEY FINDINGS

• Schools using Lexia Core5 Reading as part of KRI showed a significantly greater increase (13%) in students classified as Tier 1 on aimsweb than students in non-KRI schools (1%).
• KRI schools using Lexia Core5 Reading showed a significantly greater increase (15%) in students categorized as at/above benchmark on DIBELS Next than non-KRI schools (5%).
• In a consecutive cohort design, the percentage of at-risk students who advanced tiers on aimsweb was significantly higher for the Core5 cohort (50%) than the non-Core5 cohort (35%).