Indiana ’ s Early Literacy Intervention

the support of the Indiana General Assembly. The grant provided annual funding for schools to implement Reading Recovery, a highly regarded early literacy program, or other literacy interventions. From its inception, approximately $31.4 million has been distributed through the grant program. Since 1997, the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP, formerly the Indi-ana Education Policy Center) has conducted a series of evaluations on ELIGP implementation. This report draws from eleven previous reports in order to describe and provide evidence of the effectiveness of the ELIGP program between 1997 and 2004. Findings are based on a variety of data, including records provided by the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), surveys collected from principals and teachers at funded and comparison schools, observational and interview data collected during site visits, and ISTEP+ results. Findings indicate that ELIGP has had a considerable impact on literacy education in Indiana, serving more than 10,000 students per year and over 700 schools since 1997. While analysis across the eight years of the grant is complex, due in part to the variability in interventions chosen each year of the grant, data generally links funding to improvements in areas of teacher professional development, lower grade retention, decreased special education referrals, and increased student achievement. • ELIGP funds are apparently being awarded to the intended recipients— students at high risk for literacy difficulties. And most of the funded interventions, including Reading Recovery, appear particularly effective among this target group. • Programs appear to do best given time to develop, as demonstrated in evaluations comparing success rates between first-year programs and those with extended funding. • Programs associated with success do not necessarily represent extreme departures from standard literacy instruction in Indiana schools. Rather, those programs tend to reflect a balanced approach to literacy education including a comprehensive set of features. Contextual, holis-tic approaches, as well as more direct, phonics-oriented tactics, are both found in the most successful programs funded by ELIGP, and the combination appears to be associated with desired student outcomes. Based on these conclusions and drawing from seven years of ELIGP data analysis, the following recommendations are made to the IDOE: Research and Evaluation • Continue to conduct an annual survey of ELIGP and comparison schools with the sustained funding in the 2005-07 state budget. Experimental and/or multi-year designs should be considered, to allow for the most rigorous evaluation of program outcomes. • Continue to identify research-based …