Date of Award
2004
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Fischler Graduate School of Education and Human Services
Advisor
Michael Griffin
Committee Member
T. Olin Huffman
Committee Member
Maryellen Maher
Keywords
cedar grove middle school, corrective reading, corrective reading program, federal law, Georgia, Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test, Georgia Department of Education, middle schools, No Child Left Behind Act, reading abilities, reading achievement, reading instruction, reading programs, reading strategies, research evaluation, S. Engelmann, school improvement, Science Research Associates, sixth grade students, student achievement, test scores, yearly progress
Abstract
This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate a reading program that was already in existence and was being utilized as strategy to improve the reading ability of 6th-grade students attending Cedar Grove Middle School (CGMS). According to the No Child Left Behind Act, each school is required to make adequate yearly progress. In other words, every school has to improve by 5%, including CGMS, to show an increase in student achievement in order to satisfy federal law.
The researcher collected archival test data from the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test (Georgia Department of Education, 1999); specifically, 6th-grade reading test scores from years 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. The researcher disaggregated and analyzed the data by creating graphs for comparison purposes to determine to what extent improvement occurred during this period of time. The primary goal of the researcher was to determine if the use of the Science Research Associates Corrective Reading Program (S. Engelmann, Hanner, & Johnson, 1999) at CGMS in the 6th grade attributed to improved student achievement in reading as measured by the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test. The researcher concluded that the Science Research Associates Corrective Reading Program did have a direct impact on student reading achievement at CGMS because the research indicated that students made gains in reading, by at least 5% or more, since the introduction of this program.