Conclusions:
Description of conclusions, recommendations, and limitations based on findings.
We summarize selected findings from year 1 of an ongoing IES-funded study on reading
intervention and dropout prevention, with a focus on main effects of an integrated, data-driven
model of reading instruction with older struggling readers, 9th graders in this case. Earlier
investigator-led research with struggling older readers has focused on discrete components of
effective instruction. Larger, randomized studies in similar populations of students have
generally taken a more programmatic approach (i.e., multi-component), though these programs
tend to constrain opportunities to respond to students’ instructional needs. Because larger-scale
implementations tend to result in lower levels of treatment fidelity (and higher levels of
“contamination” of the counterfactual), programs in such settings often become routinized as a
means of promoting fidelity (effectively so). However, the loss of responsiveness that
accompanies increased standardization may diminish treatment effects for at-risk students. We
test the effect of a responsive reading intervention in a relatively large-scale randomized trial