PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR'S CORNER

Dear Educator,

I am delighted that you are visiting the Thinking Reader Study Web site to learn more about this program and about the impact study. This project is one of the ways we are trying to accomplish the Northeast and the Islands Regional Educational Laboratory mission of improving student achievement in the region, by identifying and testing promising educational interventions.

During our regional needs analysis, it was clear that adolescent literacy was and is one of the most urgent issues to address. We conducted a scan of different adolescent literacy interventions, trying to determine which ones had promising — and rigorous — prior research to support the developer’s claims. The Thinking Reader software program stood out as an intervention that was both grounded in literacy theory and based on empirically proven literacy strategies. The impact study we have designed has been carefully and critically reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education, and we are confident in the quality of the project we have set out to do.

The Thinking Reader intervention:

• Targets four outcomes:
  • Improved reading comprehension
  • Improved reading vocabulary
  • Improved use of reading comprehension strategies
  • Improved motivation to read
    
    
• Uses open-ended and multiple-choice prompts embedded in the software that offer good practice for responding to Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), and New England Common Assessments Program (NECAP) reading comprehension items.

We have been thrilled about the widespread interest across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island because not only is it a way of possibly improving literacy among struggling adolescent readers, but also it is an excellent opportunity to inject resources into some of the region’s highest need schools. We recognize how busy schools are and how limited resources are, and so we have provided all the materials and professional development free of charge.

Please look through the study website, and feel free to contact us - we’d be delighted to answer any questions you might have. My email address is tduncan@air.org.

Very best wishes,

Teresa García Duncan, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator