Results of the second year of a three-year Reading Initiative evaluation show that while students are making incremental gains in reading fluency, there is still considerable room for growth in comprehension. Results of two studies also indicate that implementation of the Reading Initiative have been uneven across the school system.

Efforts are now under way to use these studies to identify areas for improvement, particularly in implementation and management of the program. The Reading Initiative is considered a critical piece of the school system's overall efforts to improve early reading skill development.

The Reading Initiative provides resources to schools to improve student achievement in reading through improved quality of instruction, reduced class size and classroom-embedded student assessment. Teachers in Reading Initiative schools -- especially Phase 1 schools, which began the initiative in 1998-99 -- have received intensive staff development that trains them to deliver a balanced literacy program in first and second grade classrooms with a 15:1 student/teacher ratio, for 90 minutes of continuous daily instruction. The goal is to ensure that all students become independent, on-grade-level readers by the end of grade 2.

The study shows that the Early Child Assessment Program (ECAP), which taps oral fluency and written comprehension, is a valid and reliable measure of grade 2 reading performance when compared with other established measures of reading-the grade 2 Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills and grade 3 Criterion Referenced Tests. The comparisons also indicate that the Reading Initiative goal of reading fluently with partial or essential written comprehension by the end of second grade is a rigorous performance standard when compared with national norms-a finding consistent with the school system's efforts to "raise the bar."

Student progress was noted in reading fluency, a project goal that has been in place for two years. Progress in written comprehension, a higher level skill measured by a performance assessment requiring students to construct responses to written questions, lags behind progress in reading fluency.

Findings include:

* Students across the schools and demographic subgroups demonstrated growth on ECAP from mid-year to June 2000. Like the previous year, at-risk students in Phase 1 schools-those receiving ESOL, FARMS and special education services, and African American and Hispanic students-made the greatest gains, a finding that has direct implications for "closing the gap."

* While 77 percent of students tested were reading at the fluent stage by the end of second grade, about half did not meet the goal that includes written comprehension.

* Variation in student outcomes occurred among both Phase 1 and Phase 2 schools, suggesting that some schools may need additional support. Despite gains made by at-risk students, they continue to perform less well than their not-at-risk peers.

* Despite the early indicators of progress, there is limited evidence of substantive improvement in student reading on either grade 2 ECAP or grade 3 CRT-Reading. Performance on these two measures will continue to be monitored.

In particular, the second year study set out to examine how the Reading Initiative has been implemented in different schools and to ascertain supports needed for continued, effective program implementation.

Intensive case studies of eight schools where the Reading Initiative was in the second year of operation revealed a great deal of variability in program use and practice. Contributing to the situation were managerial factors that impact communication between central office and local schools, and instructional factors that impact classroom delivery of the program.

Managerial factors indicate a need for more explicit guidelines about program operation and organization at the school level, attention to varying requirements of each schools' instructional setting in allocating program resources, and mechanisms for central offices and local building administrators to cooperatively plan and monitor programs.

Instructional factors indicate the need for provision of systemwide, ongoing staff development and support of school-level monitoring and assessment systems.

The Office of School Performance and Office of Instruction and Program Development are collaborating to address the communication and implementation issues identified.

Note: The complete documents of both studies are available as PDF files on the Internet at the locations below. The superintendent's cover report to the Board of Education is located at http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/info/press/report_on_reading.pdf