Context Effects on Students’ Gains in Reading Comprehension in Reading First Schools in Michigan by Kai S. Cortina, Joanne F. Carlisle, and Ji Zeng

Reading First, Part B of Title 1 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, provides support for states with approved programs to improve the reading achievement of early elementary students in high poverty, chronically low achieving schools. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the Reading First program in the state of Michigan is making progress in meeting this goal after four years of implementation. The study design makes use of the reading comprehension achievement test results for cohorts of students who entered the program in different years and who took the test two or three times while attending a Reading First school in Michigan between 2002 and 2006. The results indicate that overall the students showed significant gains in reading comprehension; further, students with three years in Reading First tended to score higher than those with two years in Reading First. However, students whose socio-demographic characteristics place them at an educational disadvantage (i.e., minority students and those eligible for subsidized lunch) made relatively modest gains in reading comprehension. For economic disadvantage, negative effects attributable to students’ economic disadvantage were compounded when 80% or more of the students in the school qualified for subsidized lunch. However, minority students made smaller gains in reading than white students, whether the student body had a high proportion of minority students or not. Thus, in Michigan Reading First appears to be differentially successful at improving the reading achievement of students, depending on the socio-demographic characteristics of students and schools.