Tech Report 3.1: Gains in Reading Achievement Over Two Years in Michigan’s Reading First Schools by Joanne F. Carlisle, Kai S. Cortina, Ji Zeng , and Stephen G. Schilling

Part B of the No Child Left Behind Law of 2001 authorizes funding for a federal initiative called Reading First (RF), which is designed to help schools characterized by high poverty and low achievement make progress in improving students’ reading performance. Of considerable interest is the question of whether Michigan’s RF schools are improving the reading of students in grades 1-3. In this report, we base an analysis of school improvement on the assumption that one indication of improvement would be better performance in reading after two years of a school’s participation in RF than after one year. Results show that a larger percentage of first through third graders were reading at grade level after two than after one year in RF schools; similarly a smaller percentage of first through third graders were substantially underachieving in reading after two than after one year in RF schools. We also found that socio-demographic characteristics of schools did not significantly reduce the effects of RF on the progress made in improving reading achievement. Further studies in subsequent years will be needed to determine whether RF schools in Michigan can sustain the level of progress demonstrated in these first years of implementation of this program.