Success for All

Success for All

OVERVIEW

Success for All is a comprehensive school- and home-based reading program with a persistent focus on improving students’ reading skills. A team of teachers, tutors, facilitators, advisors, and family work together to help kindergarteners through sixth graders with their reading. The program relies on incorporating reading skills into the school day, both in reading classes and in other academic topics. The program can be adapted to improve the reading outcomes of students who are not English-dominant. An experimental evaluation of the program randomized schools to receive Success for All or not. Hierarchical linear model analyses were conducted on two overlapping samples: all students followed longitudinally for three years from kindergarten through second grade; and all students enrolled in second grade including children who moved in as well as those who were in each school from the start of the study. Results were statistically significant for both samples for all three literacy outcomes, specifically word identification, word attack, and passage comprehension.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: Students in grades K through 6

Success for All is a reading program that can vary based on school needs and resources; however, there are basic components that are constant in the program. The program is based on reading teachers at every grade level, from kindergarten through 6, reading to the children and discussing the story to help students’ understanding, vocabulary, and knowledge of story structure. Students have daily 90-minute reading periods and 20-minute reading sessions outside of their reading or math periods. The main focus of Success for All that is present in all schools is a focus on student success, using evidence-based practices. Success for All is a coordinated, proactive plan across a school to convert positive expectations to positive results for every student.

Among kindergarteners and first graders, oral language and prereading skills are emphasized within science or social studies topics. Story Telling and Retelling (STaR) involves students listening to, retelling, and dramatizing children’s literature. Phoenetic awareness is emphasized as well.

Reading Roots is used in the second semester of kindergarten or the beginning of first grade to introduce phonetically regular minibooks. The minibooks contain “shared stories” where parts of the story are read by the teacher and other parts are read by the students. Repeated oral reading to teachers and student partners is emphasized. Over time, the teacher-read parts decrease and the student-read parts increase to the point where students are reading the whole book. Spanish bilingual programs use an adaptation named Lee Conmigo.

The next reading level uses the Reading Wings program. Reading Wings uses student partner reading and discussion to increase vocabulary and mastery of story content. The cooperative learning increases student motivation, elaboration, summarization, and rephrasing. As homework, students choose a book to read for 20 minutes each night. These home readings are shared with the class through presentations and summaries twice a week. Reading Wings can be used through sixth grade.

During the 20-minute reading sessions, students in kindergarten through third grade are assembled into groups based on reading performance levels. Initial group assessment is based on informal reading inventories given by tutors. During this time, tutors and other staff teach the small groups. Reading teachers assess the students’ progress at 8-week intervals in order to determine need for regrouping, tutoring, or other types of assistance.

The tutors in Success for All are certified teachers with Title I, reading, or special education teaching experience. Well-qualified paraprofessionals tutor children with less severe reading problems. These tutors can also assist teachers during the 90-minute reading period. Tutoring is a priority for first graders.

A family support team within each school works to increase comfort and family support for their child’s education. The support team is made up of a parent liaison, vice principal, counselor, facilitator, and other appropriate staff members in the school. Family visits and parenting skills workshops can be arranged for the families. The family support team also works with teachers and parents to solve behavior problems and conflict in school and at home. The family support team also receives referrals regarding students who are not making adequate progress. Parents are encouraged and trained to participate in volunteer roles within the school.

A program facilitator works with the school principal to oversee the program and help with scheduling, classroom visits, and teacher concerns. Teachers receive manuals and three days of training that focuses on implementation of the reading program. Presentations on classroom management, pacing, and cooperative learning are made to the teachers throughout the year. Program facilitators can organize informal sessions with teachers to share problems, solutions, changes, and individual children.

An advisory committee consisting of the principal, program facilitator, teacher representatives, parent representatives, and family support staff holds regular meetings to review program progress and discuss problems.

Because a main goal of Success for All is to keep students with learning problems out of special education programs and to not disrupt the regular classroom experience for those students in special education, there is substantial effort to deal with student learning problems within the regular classroom. The tutors evaluate strengths and weaknesses and develop strategies to teach students in the most effective way possible.

First year costs for personnel, materials, and training are between $70,000 and $270,000 per school in 2001 dollars.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Borman, G. D., Slavin, R. E., Cheung, A., Chamberlain, A., Madden, N., & Chambers, B. (2006). Final reading outcomes of the national randomized field trial of Success for All. American Educational Research Journal, 44(3), 701-731.

Evaluated population: Thirty-five urban Midwestern and rural Southern elementary schools participated in this study. Approximately 72 per cent of the students participated in the federal free lunch program. Approximately 56 per cent of the sample was African American, 30 per cent was white non-Hispanic, and 10 per cent was Hispanic.

Approach: Forty-one schools were randomly assigned, and 35 provided three years of data. In the fall of 2001, an initial sample of six schools was given $30,000 in exchange for participation in this study. Randomly assigned Success for All intervention group schools (n = 3) used the money to implement the program, and schools randomly assigned to the control group (n = 3) were allowed to use the money in any way they saw fit, including purchasing and implementing any innovation, except for Success for All. To increase the sample of schools, a second sample of 35 schools was recruited in the fall of 2002. One group of schools (n = 18) was randomly assigned to receive the Success for All intervention in grades K-2 and no intervention in grades 3-5 (these are the experimental group schools). The other group of schools (n = 17) was randomly assigned to receive the Success for All intervention in grades 3-5 and no intervention in grades K-2 (these are the control group schools. Fidelity observations did not indicate significant contamination of samples due to interventions taking place within control group schools. Six schools, three from each random assignment group, dropped out of the study before the third year analysis was complete. Baseline analyses showed no significant differences between experimental and control group schools on demographics or Peabody Picture Vocabulary pretest scores.

At the three-year post-test, students were assessed on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests – Revised (WMTR), including the Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension subtests. Thirty-seven per cent of the sample was unavailable for year three post-test due to student relocation or school closure. There was no significant difference among drop-outs between groups. Students remaining in the sample had significantly higher pretest scores than those dropping out. The authors suggest that based on past quasi-experimental studies of Success for All, this significant difference would likely result in downward biases of treatment impact estimates.

Results: At post-test, HLM analyses of 2,100 students in their schools all three years found significant impacts on Word Attack, Word Identification, and Passage Comprehension for experimental group students when compared with control group students. Effect sizes ranged from 0.21 to 0.36 for post-test Word Attack scores. Additional analyses of these students plus students who moved into the school also found statistically significant impacts on all three literacy outcomes.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Cost and manual information are available at:

http://www.successforall.net/

sfainfo@successforall.org

Success For All Foundation, Inc.
200 W. Towsontown Boulevard
Baltimore, Maryland 21204-5200
1-800-548-4998 ext. 2372
410-324-4444 (Fax)

http://www.successforall.net/Navbar/contact.html

References:

Chambers, B., Abrami, P. C., Massue, F. M., & Morrison, S. (1997). The challenges of implementing Success for All in a Canadian context. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Centre for the Study of Classroom Processes.

Slavin, R. E., & Madden, N. A. (1999). Effects of bilingual and English as a Second Language adaptations of Success for All on the reading achievement of students acquiring English. Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk, 4(4), 393-416.

Slavin, R. E., Madden, N. A., Dolan, L. J., Wasik, B. A., Ross, S., Smith, L., & Dianda, M. (1996). Success for All: A Summary of Research. Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk, 1(1), 41-76.

Program categorized in this guide according to the following:

Evaluated participant ages: 5-11

Program age ranges in the guide: Early Childhood, Middle Childhood

Program components: Parent or family component, Mentoring/tutoring

Measured outcomes: Education and Cognitive Development

KEYWORDS: Children, Elementary, co-ed, Urban, Rural, High-Risk, Tutoring, Reading/Literacy, Cost information is available, Manual is available.

Program information last updated on 9/29/10.