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READ 180: Hernando County School District

At a glance

  • Promising Evidence
  • Program: Read 180®
  • Subjects: Literacy Curriculum, Intervention Curriculum
  • Report Type: Efficacy Study
  • Grade Level: High
  • Region: Southeast
  • Population: Students with Disabilities, Students with Specific Learning Disabilities
  • District Urbanicity: Suburban, Rural
  • District Size: Large
  • Implementation Model: 40-59 Minutes, 60-79 Minutes, 80+ Minutes, A/B Model
  • District: Hernando County School District, FL
  • Participants: N=436
  • Outcome Measure: Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Reading Test
  • Evaluation Period: 2009–2010
  • Study Conducted by: Scholastic Research

Overview

Ninth-grade READ 180 students with specific learning disabilities exceeded expected yearly growth benchmarks on the FCAT Reading.

Hernando County School District (HCSD) is located on the central-west coast of Florida, north of Tampa Bay. Of the 22,820 students the district enrolls, approximately 74% are White, 13% are Hispanic, 7% are African American, 5% are Native American/multiracial, and 1% are Asian. Approximately 16% of students are classified as having disabilities. During the 2009 to 2010 school year, ninth-grade students who scored in Level 1 or Level 2 on the spring 2009 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Reading Test were placed into READ 180 .

Results

Spring 2009 and spring 2010 FCAT® Reading Developmental Scale Score (DSS) data were analyzed for 436 ninth-grade READ 180 students. As Graph 1 shows, these students achieved an average FCAT Reading DSS score of 1679 at pretest and 1768 at posttest, resulting in a statistically significant gain of 89 points.

4 2 Hernando Graph 1

GRAPH 1. Hernando County School District READ 180 Students, Grade 9 (N=436)

Performance on FCAT Reading Test, 2009 to 2010

Note. The change in DSS score from 2009 to 2010 is statistically significant (t=9.81, p=.00).

These improvements in performance were maintained when the data were disaggregated, revealing that students with disabilities also demonstrated statistically significant gains (Graph 2). Approximately two-thirds of students with disabilities include those diagnosed with a specific learning disability, including dyslexia. As Graph 3 illustrates, students with a specific learning disability showed the greatest average DSS gain and exceeded expected yearly growth benchmarks on the FCAT Reading Test in 2010.

1 6 Hernando Graph 1

GRAPH 2. Hernando County School District READ 180 Students, Grade 9 (N=436)

Performance on FCAT Reading Test with Disabilities and without Disabilities, 2009 to 2010

Note. The gain is statistically significant for students with disabilities (t=9.83, p=.00) and for students without disabilities (t=3.35, p=.00).

1 6 Hernando Graph 2

GRAPH 3. Hernando County School District READ 180 Students with Disabilities, Grade 9 (N=99)

Change in DSS Scale Score on FCAT Reading Test by Disability, 2009 to 2010

Note. The gain is statistically significant for all students with disabilities (t=3.35, p=.00).