Collaborative Strategic Reading practices: no effect on 5th grade reading

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REL Southwest conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) practices on student reading comprehension in 26 linguistically diverse schools in 5 districts in Texas and Oklahoma. CSR is a set of instructional strategies designed to improve the reading comprehension of students with diverse abilities.

The study, The Impact of Collaborative Strategic Reading on the Reading Comprehension of Grade 5 Students in Linguistically Diverse Schools, found that this set of instructional strategies did not significantly improve the reading comprehension of Grade 5 students.

The CSR study included 26 schools, 74 classrooms and teachers, and 1,355 5th grade students (681 treatment and 674 control students).

Other findings include:

• Grade 5 former and current English language learner (ELL) students in CSR classrooms did not have significantly higher average reading comprehension posttest scores on the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE) than ELL students in control classrooms.

• Grade 5 non–ELL students in CSR classrooms did not have significantly higher average reading comprehension posttest scores on the GRADE than non–ELL students in control classrooms.