EDC and Reading Futures to Lead New Work to Improve Adolescent Literacy
Work addresses urgent need to increase U.S. students’ reading proficiency.
EDC and Reading Futures (RF) have received an award from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to improve word decoding skills, reading comprehension, and informational text skills for middle-grade students, particularly those in rural and tribal areas. The award was conferred by ED’s Education Innovation and Research program, which provides funding to create entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement.
Over the next five years, our team—led by EDC’s Dr. Megan Silander and Dr. Joy Kennedy and RF CEO Dave Stevenson and CPO Liz Kline—will innovate upon, evaluate, and scale RF’s high-impact virtual tutoring intervention focused on reading. Working closely with our partners the Bureau of Indian Education, Maine Department of Education, and New York State Education Department, we will research the effect of the intervention on literacy outcomes for middle-grade students.
The new work addresses an urgent and unmet need to strengthen young people’s reading proficiency. In the United States, 33% of U.S. eighth-graders lack basic reading proficiency, which acts as a barrier to both their workforce success and our country’s ability to maintain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. Findings from the work will help guide education leaders and policymakers in designing and scaling effective tutoring and in-school interventions for adolescent readers.
“Strong reading skills form the foundation of educational and economic opportunity,” said Silander. “But we don’t know enough about how best to help adolescent students get to grade-level learning. We deeply appreciate the investment in this vital R&D to refine, test, and scale an innovative intervention to meet this challenge.”
“We are excited to launch this work,” Stevenson added. “Our tutoring work with struggling adolescent readers has been changing lives. We’re eager to bring this work to rural schools, bridging from word reading into informational text, while studying the implications for scale.”
The RF model features high-dosage virtual tutoring, with a focus on building and maintaining strong and productive tutor-student relationships. Instruction integrates decades of intervention research on word reading and semantics. Tutoring is provided by a cadre of expert virtual tutors, all certified teachers, who are mostly military spouses.
The work will include:
- Formative research to support the integration of word reading intervention with subject-area informational text, followed by a pilot test of the resulting program with 10 schools.
- A randomized controlled trial with 66 schools in 22 districts across Maine, New York State, and Bureau of Indian Education-administered schools.
- Widespread dissemination of findings and additional activities to scale RF.
About edc.org:
EDC works with partners worldwide to advance every person’s journey to learn, work, and be well. Since 1958, we have been a catalyst for community-led initiatives that promote sustainable change and advance solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
About Reading Futures:
Reading Futures, Inc. is a public benefit corporation dedicated to improving academic and life outcomes for children with dyslexia and other reading difficulties through evidence-based intervention.
About the Bureau of Indian Education:
The Bureau of Indian Education supports educational opportunities for over 400,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students across the United States through a comprehensive system of direct services and funding programs spanning early childhood to postsecondary education.
About the Maine Department of Education:
The Maine Department of Education, in collaboration with educators, schools, districts and communities Statewide, strives to provide all Maine students access to educational experiences, PreK through adult, that lead to their success in life and career.
About the New York State Education Department:
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is part of the University of the State of New York, one of the most complete, interconnected systems of educational services in the United States. NYSED’s mission is to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity of all the people in New York.
