Is “Academy of Reading” Effective?

A new “intervention report” from the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews the research on Academy of READING®, an online program that aims to improve students’ reading skills using a structured and sequential approach to learning. The program focuses on practice in five core areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The WWC did a systematic search of all publicly-available research of Academy of READING® and identified 38 studies that were published or released between 1989 and 2013 that were related to adolescent readers. Only one of the studies met the WWC criteria for an eligible sample and research design and this study does not meet WWC group design standards. At this time, more quality effectiveness studies are needed to determine the impacts of Academy of READING® on adolescent readers. (For more details about how the WWC determines which studies are “eligible” for each review, please see the protocols that describe the parameters for each review.)