THE COOPERATIVE RESEARCH-PROGRAM IN FIRST-GRADE READING-INSTRUCTION

PRESENTS THE report of the Coordinating Center of the Cooperative Rese arch Program in First-Grade Reading Instruction. Data used in the stud y were compiled from the 27 individual studies comprising the Cooperat ive Research Program in First-Grade Reading Instruction relevant to th ree basic questions: (1) To what extent are various pupil, teacher, cl ass, school, and community characteristics related to pupil achievemen t in first-grade reading and spelling? (2) Which of the many approache s to initial reading instruction produces superior reading and spellin g achievement at the end of the first grade? (3) Is any program unique ly effective or ineffective for pupils with high or low readiness for reading? The instructional approaches evaluated included Basal, Basal plus Phonics, i.t.a., Linguistic, Language Experience, and Phonic/Ling uistic. Identical information was gathered in each project concerning teacher, school, and community characteristics and common experimental guidelines were followed in all 27 studies. Results of the correlatio n analysis revealed that the ability to recognize letters of the alpha bet prior to the beginning of reading instruction was the single best predictor of first-grade reading achievement. The analysis of methodol ogy indicated that the various nonbasal instructional programs tended to be superior to basal programs as measured by word recognition skill s of pupils after 1 year of reading instruction. Differences between b asal and nonbasal programs were less consistent when measures of compr ehension, spelling, rate of accuracy of reading, and word study skills constituted the criterion of reading achievement. The analysis of tre atments according to level of readiness for reading revealed that no m ethod was especially effective or ineffective for pupils of high or lo w readiness as measured by tests of intelligence, auditory discriminat ion, and letter knowledge. The research reported here was performed pu rsuant to a contract with the United States Department of Health, Educ ation, and Welfare, Office of Education, under the provisions of the C ooperative Research Program.