EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Impact of Team Read Program on Student Test Performance
Joe Montgomery, Ph.D.

An assessment was made of the impact of the Team Read tutoring program on 62 4th grade students attending either Amistad, Eastgate, Edison, or Westgate elementary schools.  Their reading test performance was compared to 293 non-Team Read participants at the same schools.  Compared to the non-participants, Team Read students tended to be Hispanic, designated as LEP (Limited English Proficiency), receiving free/reduced cost lunches, and had been designated as ESL in Kindergarten. 

Test taken prior to Team Read involvement, from Kindergarten through second grade, indicated that Team Read students had performed at significantly lower levels than Non Team Read students in the fall.  However, Team Read participants had generally caught up to the other students by spring.  Team Read scores then declined drastically again in the fall.  By third grade, on the other hand, there was no indication that Team Read students were able to catch up on their own by spring.   In addition, it was found that student test scores correlated strongly from Kindergarten through the fall of 4th grade, the latest date for which test scores were available.  That is, students who performed well on Kindergarten tests and first grade tests tended to perform well on the MAP tests starting in the spring of 2nd grade, and vice versa. 

An analysis of RIT score gains from 3rd Fall to 3rd Spring indicated that Team Read students tended to show the greater gains.  The average gain for Team Read participants was 20.4 points, compared to 12.9 for Non Team Read students.  For both groups, gains from fall to spring were the greatest for those having the lowest fall scores.     

Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the overall impact of Team Read on Spring 3rd grade and Fall 4th grade RIT scores.  In each analysis, the Team Read “factor” was highly significant, indicating that, overall, Team Read had a significant and positive impact on students' later RIT scores.  In addition, the interaction term for Team Read and Fall 3rd RIT score was significant and negative, indicating that Team Read was more effective for students with lower initial scores than for student with higher scores.

It was concluded that Team Read does, indeed, have a positive impact on student reading performance, especially for those with the lowest initial scores.  With Team Read, nearly 70% of participants demonstrated grade level reading proficiency in the spring of 3rd grade. However, it was also observed that Team Read students were particularly susceptible to strong declines from spring to fall throughout their K-4 careers and the gains were potentially short-term.  In terms of program improvement, the analyses suggested that the lowest-scoring students, who are most impacted by the tutoring process, should be selected for the program.  In addition, follow-up, perhaps in the form of summer reading programs, could be initiated to prevent the typical spring to fall declines in performance.