Read 180: Charles Armstrong School Longitudinal Research Study 2019–2022

The Charles Armstrong School in Belmont, California, is a private school designed to educate students with language-based learning differences such as dyslexia. The Charles Armstrong School serves approximately 240 second- through eighth-grade students with a range of ethnic backgrounds[1]: African American (2%), Asian (2%), Caucasian (78%), Hispanic (4%), Native American (2%), and students with multiple ethnic backgrounds (12%). Approximately 25% of students receive financial aid.

^{[1] Charles Armstrong School Quick Facts accessed June 2019 www.CharlesArmstrong.org.}

Charles Armstrong School students in Grades 5–8 who were struggling with reading comprehension but had a firm grasp of foundational literacy skills, as indicated by the HMH Reading Inventory and other measures, were placed in a Read 180^® intervention. Students received regular ELA instruction daily as well as 45-minute Read 180 instruction daily. In this Single-Period Instruction Model, students alternated A and B patterns of instruction. A days consisted of 20 minutes of whole-group instruction followed by 20 minutes of a station rotation [rotated between the Read 180 online Student Application (Student App), small-group learning, and independent reading], and concluding with 5 minutes of whole-group wrap-up; B days consisted of 20 minutes each of two station rotations and concluding with 5 minutes of whole-group wrap-up. Using this pattern, students completed each station every other school day, or approximately 2.5 times a week. Read 180 students completed approximately 15 minutes in the personalized online Student App between one and three days a week. Teachers met with HMH consultants for an overview of the Read 180 program and ongoing instructional coaching sessions while implementing Read 180.

Charles Armstrong School students comprise a unique population of students who all demonstrate language-based learning differences, such as dyslexia, and struggle with reading. As expressed during qualitative data collection, these students often experience anxiety with reading, find it emotionally difficult to read orally, and feel extreme stress when asked to complete a reading task with a time limit. All students who completed at least 100 minutes of the Read 180 software and did not also use System 44^® software were included in the analysis each year (N = 92).

Participant demographics varied slightly by year (see Table 1); ethnic backgrounds included Asian (2%–5%), African American (0%–3%), Caucasian (63%–69%), Hispanic (8%–11%), Middle Eastern (0%–8%), Native American (0%–2%), other (0%–7%), and students with multiple ethnic backgrounds (2%–8%). Of these students, 56%–70% were male and 30%–44% were female, and 100% were classified as students with disabilities (SWD) with a dyslexia diagnosis each year.

Software Usage Data

Student software usage data was collected as students used the online Student App during Read 180 instruction. Software usage data included number of completed segments, number of completed sessions, average time spent in each session, and number of sessions averaged per week.

Reading Inventory

The HMH Reading Inventory measures reading comprehension proficiency for students in Grades K–12. The Reading Inventoryuses adaptive technology to determine a student’s reading comprehension level on the Lexile^® Framework^® for Reading; the higher the Lexile score, the more challenging reading material the student can comprehend. Test item difficulty ranges from items appropriate for developing readers to items requiring a reading proficiency indicating preparedness for college-level texts. This difficulty range allows for measurement of skill growth regardless of the students’ initial ability. Assessment results include a Lexile scale score that indicates reading ability at a level of text complexity and a performance level of below basic, basic, proficient, or advanced, indicating achieved reading comprehension compared to grade-level expectations. Charles Armstrong School students receiving Read 180 instruction completed the Reading Inventory at least twice each year (fall and winter, fall and spring, or winter and spring).

Read Naturally Reading Fluency Progress Monitoring

The Read Naturally Reading Fluency Progress Monitor is an efficient, valid, and reliable assessment to measure a student's progress in reading aloud, normed to a nationally representative U.S. sample. The teacher listens to a student read a leveled passage at his/her instructional level (Grades 1–8) for one minute and determines the student's words-correct-per-minute (wcpm) score. Scores are graphed throughout the year to track student progress and make educational decisions. Charles Armstrong School students were assessed for oral reading fluency using the Reading Fluency Progress Monitor at least twice each year (fall and winter, fall and spring, or winter and spring).

Track My Progress Reading Comprehension

Track My Progress is an online, computer-adaptive test designed to assess math and reading skills aligned to the Common Core State Standards in kindergarten through eighth grades. Track My Progress tests have been shown to be both reliable and valid measures of Common Core State Standard proficiency, normed to a nationally representative U.S. sample. Student progress in meeting skills is tracked as students take four 20-minute tests each year, and teachers have access to reports on specific subject and domain proficiency. Charles Armstrong School student data included a percentile score (range 0–99) for reading comprehension. A percentile score above 41 is considered to reflect grade-level ability.

Teacher and Student Focus Groups

A focus group using a structured interview with small groups of students was conducted in February 2020. Grades 7–8 Read 180students who previously worked in the System 44 software (N = 6), as well as Read 180 teachers, answered questions about experiences including what they liked, what they disliked, impressions of the program, progress after using the intervention, and suggestions for improvement.

An independent evaluator from Forge Research Group analyzed student academic achievement using data provided by the Charles Armstrong School and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Read 180 students’ ELA performance was examined pre- and post-Read 180 implementation using multiple independent outcome measures.

Charles Armstrong School teachers began implementation of Read 180 during the 2019–2020 school year. However, the 2019–2020 school year data collection efforts largely ended after the winter quarter, January 2020, due to school closures during the coronavirus pandemic (five Read 180students continued to use the software). Charles Armstrong School students resumed use of Read 180 for a portion of the 2020–2021 school year, which was affected by the pandemic, and then continued use for the entire 2021–2022 school year. As such, length of student participation in the program varied across the years.

Students who participated in Read 180 during the 2019–2020 school year (see Table 2) completed an overall average of 2.2 Read 180 segments over an average of 32.0 total sessions, averaging 2.1 sessions per week and totaling an average of 422.6 minutes in the Read 180 online Student App. In the 2020–2021 school year, students completed an overall average of 3.1 Read 180 segments over an average of 43.2 total sessions, averaging 2.0 sessions per week and totaling an average of 437.2 minutes in the Read 180 online Student App. In the 2021–2022 school year, students completed an overall average of 3.8 Read 180 segments over an average of 50.2 total sessions, averaging 1.9 sessions per week and totaling an average of 564.3 minutes in the Read 180 online Student App.

Reading Inventory

Read 180 students at the Charles Armstrong School completed the Reading Inventory in the fall and winter of the 2019–2020 school year and in the fall, winter, and spring of the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 school years. Overall, students [2] who completed the Reading Inventory at two timeframes within the school year (fall and winter, fall and spring, or winter and spring) demonstrated a statistically significant overall gain in Lexile (L) scores, averaging a 76L (2019–2020), 107L (2020–2021), and 137L (2021–2022) increase from first to last testing in the school year (see Graph 1). Disaggregation of the data indicated that students in Grades 5, 6, 7, and 8, both males and females, achieved statistically significant Reading Inventory Lexile gains from pre-to post-Read 180 instruction. When results were disaggregated by ethnicity, Caucasian students achieved statistically significant Reading Inventory gains each year; the samples were too small (n < 5) to capture the true statistical significance of gains of students in other ethnic groups.

^{[2] As a previous READ 180 gains analysis has shown that students who decrease more than 100L on theReading Inventory from fall to spring demonstrate poor test motivation and produce unreliable longitudinal achievement scores, those scores that decreased more than 100L were excluded from this implementation analysis. The Reading Inventory scores of some Charles Armstrong School students decreased more than 100L in 2020–2021 (5%/n=2) and 2021–2022 (4%/n=1).}

In addition to demonstrating statistically significant Lexile score gains, Read 180 students demonstrated accelerated Lexile score gains compared to the average annual growth demonstrated by an initially same-scoring national sample [3] (see Graph 2). Notably, students gained over two times as many Lexile scores as would be expected in the 2019–2020 school year (75.9L compared to 37.4L), 1.7 times as many Lexile scores as would be expected in the 2020–2021 school year (107L compared to 61.4L), and 2.8 times as many Lexile scores as would be expected in the 2021–2022 school year (136.9L compared to 48.8L). The majority of Read 180 students met growth expectations each year (65% in Year 1, 70% in Year 2, and 85% in Year 3). Additionally, approximately half of Read 180students more than doubled growth expectations each year (45% in Year 1, 46% in Year 2, and 54% in Year 3), achieving accelerated growth toward grade-level performance.

^{[3] HMH Reading Inventory: Estimated Average Annual Growth; analysis of 373,880 students’ fall to spring Lexile score gains.}

Reading Inventory Lexile score growth was related [4] to Read 180 online software use. On average, Read 180 students who completed more segments in the online software also achieved higher gains in the Reading Inventory Lexile score; students completing Low, Moderate, and High levels of implementation all achieved statistically significant Lexile score gains from pretest to posttest (see Graph 3). Though the group sizes are small, after a full year of Read 180 implementation in the 2021–2022 school year, the difference between scores gained by students who completed less than two segments (low implementation) and students who completed three or more segments (moderate or high implementation) was statistically significant.

^{[4] Implementation group sizes were insufficient (<30 each) to test statistical significance of difference in gains between groups.}

Of note, in the 2019–2020 school year, 35% of students increased one grade level, 12% of students increased two grade levels, and 10% of students increased three or more grade levels in reading proficiency (see Table 3). In the 2020–2021 school year, 33% of students increased one grade level, 18% of students increased two grade levels, and 18% of students increased three or more grade levels in reading proficiency. In the 2021–2022 school year, 27% of students increased one grade level, 15% of students increased two grade levels, and 35% of students increased three or more grade levels in reading proficiency.

Read 180 student Reading Inventoryperformance levels also reflected these increases in reading proficiency (see Graph 4). The percent of students achieving at least a proficient Reading Inventory performance level increased from first to last testing each year: from 16% to 33% in the 2019–2020 school year, from 46% to 54% in the 2020–2021 school year, and from 12% to 50% in the 2021–2022 school year. Further, the percent of students scoring at a below-basic performance level decreased from first to last testing each year: from 37% to 24% in the 2019–2020 school year, from 28% to 15% in the 2020–2021 school year, and from 39% to 19% in the 2021–2022 school year. The increase in students’ overall performance levels on the Reading Inventory was statistically significant in each year of this analysis.

Read Naturally Reading Fluency

Read 180 students demonstrated statistically significant growth in oral reading fluency (ORF) on the Read Naturally Reading Fluency Progress Monitor (see Graph 5). Read 180 students averaged a 5% increase (from 107.6 to 112.9) in wcpm from the fall to winter of the 2019–2020 school year, an increase 1.7 times greater than the average SWD [5]. Students averaged a 20% increase (from 94.0 to 114.3) in wcpm from fall to spring after a full year of Read 180 implementation in the 2021–2022 school year, an increase 3.3 times greater than the average SWD and equal to the average student in the general population.

^{[5] Tindal (2017) found that middle school SWD achieved approximately 30.5% of the ORF growth of the general population, based on normative data provided by Hasbrouck & Tindal (2006).}

Track My Progress

Notably, after a full year of Read 180 instruction, Charles Armstrong students showed accelerated growth in Track My Progress reading comprehension percentile scores compared to their initially same-scoring peers (see Graph 6). On average, students scored better than 45% of their peers in both quarter 1 and in quarter 2 of the 2019–2020 school year. During this partial-year Read 180 implementation, the number of students who tested at the 41st percentile or greater (indicating grade-level proficiency) increased from 57.9% (22/38) to 65.8% (25/38). On average, students scored better than 44% of their peers at the first test but better than 48% of their peers at the last test of the 2021–2022 school year, indicating accelerated growth compared to a national sample. At the end of this full-year Read 180 implementation, 76.9% of students tested at the 41st percentile or greater.

The Charles Armstrong School targeted students who were not reading with grade-level proficiency to participate in Read 180 instruction during the 2019–2020 school year, with full-year implementation beginning in the 2021–2022 school year. In a correlational analysis across a three-year time span, Charles Armstrong School students in Grades 5–8 who received Read 180 instruction demonstrated statistically significant increases across multiple independent English language arts and literacy achievement measures.

Students in the Charles Armstrong School demonstrated yearly statistically significant increases in Reading Inventory Lexile scores and gained 1.7–2.8 times as many Lexile scores as an initially same-scoring national sample during the 2019–2020 through 2021–2022 school years. Students also increased in assessment performance status: 33%, 54%, and 50% of students achieved at least a grade-level proficient performance status on the Reading Inventory in years 1, 2, and 3, respectively, indicating an ability to access grade-level curriculum. Disaggregation of the data indicated that use of Read 180 was associated with significant gains in Reading Inventory Lexile scores for each student category of gender and grade, and there were no significant differences in gains based on ethnicity. Importantly, 50% of Read 180 students increased at least two grade levels in reading comprehension after one full year of instruction.

In addition to gains measured by HMH metrics, 77% of Read 180 students achieved at least a 41st percentile on the Track My Progress reading comprehension assessment, indicating grade-level proficiency. Further, Read 180 students achieved 1.7–3.3 times more oral reading fluency growth than the average SWD.

Students worked through varying amounts of the self-paced, online instruction components. In the 2021–2022 school year, an increased number of completed segments of the Read 180 online Student App resulted in a significant increase in Reading Inventory Lexile score growth. Qualitative data aligned with quantitative data as students and teachers agreed that Read 180 was effective at improving students’ reading skills and boosted students’ confidence in their reading ability. This study demonstrates that Read 180 is an effective program for increasing literacy skills among students with language-based learning differences who are struggling to achieve grade-level ELA proficiency.

Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. A. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for reading teachers. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 636–642.

Tindal, G. A. (2017). Oral reading fluency: Outcomes from 30 years of research (Technical Report No. 1701). Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon.