The effects of the Success for All program on improving reading readiness skills for at-risk students in kindergarten

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Success for All Early Learning program in developing reading readiness skills for at-risk kindergarten students. Reading readiness effects were measured using the Reading Readiness Cluster of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test and the Early Prevention of School Failure program assessment. Together, the tests provided a measure of concepts of print, recognition of letters and sounds, oral and receptive language, and visual discrimination and memory. Increasingly in the United States, kindergartens have been assigned the role of preparing children to become effective readers. This has become more challenging as children enter kindergarten with different levels of early care and educational experiences. Success for All is a program designed to assist schools in developing these prereading skills, especially for at-risk students.; Participants in this study were from four schools in a large rural community in Mississippi. The two Success for All schools implemented the program in the 1999–2000 school year and had just completed their first year of implementation. Two other schools of similar demographic composition that did not implement Success for All served as control schools. Students were determined to be at-risk based upon performance on the Early Prevention of School Failure assessment in kindergarten. Incoming first graders who had attended their respective schools for the entire kindergarten school year were tested in September 2000.; Results of the multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) and multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) are reported, followed by univariate analyses whenever the program effect was significant. The findings of this study indicate that students at the Success for All schools scored higher than their control counterparts on two of the three portions of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test. The findings suggest that Success for All can have a positive effect on at-risk students' reading readiness achievement. The impact can be especially positive, as demonstrated by one SFA school, if the program is supplemented by the provision of additional tutoring and other student support services.