Evidence Based Education
Really Great Reading
The program starts in the primary years, by teaching letters, then explicitly teaches decoding and encoding (how to spell phonetically) alongside with authentic reading practice, and sight word instruction. The program comes with scaffolded, scripted lessons and implementation guides. The program also offers an intervention kit for, teaching older at risk readers and dyslexic readers, foundational missing skills, including explicit and individualized instruction in: phonological awareness, alphabetics, phonics, and fluency.
Ideally to review the efficacy of a pedagogical program, we would want to rely on a peer-reviewed meta-analysis. However, no such meta-analysis exists for Really Great Reading. For the purposes of this article, I conducted my own non-peer-reviewed meta-analysis. I searched for studies on the topic, on Google, the company website, Education Source, and Scholar's Porta. To the best of my knowledge, that being said, there were only 3 studies on the topic, none of them were peer reviewed, they were all sponsored by Really Great Reading, and none of them have control groups. Normally, I would not include studies in my analysis, without control groups. However, as there were no studies with control groups for this program, I felt I had no other choice, but to include them. For these reasons, I do not think this program can be compared to any of my other analyses that included stricter inclusion criteria, as the results are undoubtedly very inflated.
Results:
Discussion:
While the research results found here are high, the research quality is far too low, for this program to be called evidence based. That being said, the program can be called research based, as its fundamental principles being the explicit and individualized instruction of: phonemic awareness, alphabetics, phonics, fluency, and sight words, are evidence based. That being said, as a primary reading program, I do think the program is less than comprehensive, as it does not appear to contain any addendums to the foundational knowledge instruction.
Final Grade: B+
The program principles are evidence-based, but there were no direct studies with control groups found
Qualitative Grade: 8/10
The program includes the following evidence-based strategies: explicit instruction, direct instruction, phonemic awareness instruction, phonics instruction, individualized instruction, scaffolding, fluency instruction, and sight word instruction.
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Disclaimer: Please note that this review is not peer reviewed content. These reviews are independently conducted. Pedagogy Non Grata, does not take profit from conducting any program review found on this website.
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Written by Nathaniel Hansford: teacher and lead writer for Pedagogy Non Grata
Last Edited 2023-04-30
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References:
Seg Measurement. (2018). Improving Literacy Skills in a Small, Rural Elementary School. Retrieved from <https://www.reallygreatreading.com/sites/default/files/rgr_pawhuska_case_study_8.15.18.pdf>.
Seg Measurement. (2018). Helping Struggling Readers in a Title One Elementary School Implementing Really Great Reading. Retrieved from <https://www.reallygreatreading.com/sites/default/files/rgr_cafferata_case_study_8.16.18.pdf>.
Seg Measurement. (2018). Improving Reading Skills in a Small, Rural Elementary School Successfully Implementing Really Great Reading. Retrieved from <https://www.reallygreatreading.com/sites/default/files/rgr_santaquin_case_study_8.14.18.pdf>.
Really Great Reading. (2022). Bringing Research to Practice with Foundational Reading Skills Instruction for Beginning Readers. Retrieved from <https://www.reallygreatreading.com/sites/default/files/really_great_reading_foundational_reading_skills_instruction_for_beginning_readers_white_paper.pdf>.
Really Great Reading. (2016). Tackling the Adolescent Literacy Problem: Decoding Strategies for Success. Retrieved from <https://www.reallygreatreading.com/sites/default/files/rgr_white_paper_decoding_strategies_for_success_2016.pdf>.