Throughout this five-year project, we aim to advance the understanding of the persistent disparities in reading achievement between Black and White students. We investigate potential sources of individual differences in intervention effects by aggregating data from multiple rigorous studies of supplemental reading interventions that provide intensive, targeted support to students with or at-risk for reading disabilities (RD). To date, few studies separate findings by student race, making it difficult to know whether reading interventions deemed evidence-based are generalizable and valid for Black students.  

 

In this project, we aim to explore racial differences in the effectiveness of supplemental reading interventions. The project is built on a cross-disciplinary framework that integrates bioecological systems theory, which recognizes sources of individual differences that stem from dynamic interactions within and between our social environments, with QuantCrit, a methodological subfield of critical race theory. Taken together, this framework recognizes that interventions are likely not race neutral, and complex systems may differentially affect the effectiveness of these interventions for certain groups of students. 

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The overall goal of this project will be addressed through three specific aims. First, we assemble an integrated dataset with data from rigorous reading intervention studies. Second, we use the integrated data to determine whether there are differential intervention effects for Black students compared to their White peers. And finally, we identify characteristics of students, interventions, and outcomes that explain differential response to reading intervention for Black students as compared to their White peers. The integrated dataset will be archived and shared on the LDbase data repository (click logo below to learn more), an NIH-funded data repository containing decades of knowledge from educational and developmental sciences.

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Characteristics of included datasets:

• Experimental study of a reading intervention

• Participants include K-12 students in the United States

• Participants include students identified with or at-risk for reading disabilities or difficulties

• Participant demographic information is available

• Pre- and posttest assessment battery includes measures of reading performance