Oregon Reading First Center:
Review of Comprehensive Reading Programs

Amendment to the Review of Comprehensive Reading Programs

March, 2004

After substantial and persuasive input from several significant sources (publishers, authors, Oregon colleagues), coupled with our own consideration of the complexities and vagaries associated with the review of comprehensive, core reading programs, we have decided to issue a revised edition to the original Oregon Reading First Review of Comprehensive Reading Programs.

The purpose of this notice is to formally institute the following changes:

Recommended Changes

The amended or revised review includes the following changes:

1. Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension percentage scores have been removed from the high priority and discretionary items in the following tables:
   • Summary by program (appears before each program analysis in Sections I through IX)
   • Summary by essential components (Section X)
   • Summary by grade (Section XI)
   The percentage scores for the other big ideasPhonological Awareness, Phonics, and Fluencyare reported across all tables.

2. Within each program analysis (Sections I through IX), Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension percentage scores have been removed from the following sections:
   • High Priority and Discretionary Vocabulary and Comprehension Instruction
   • Summary Grade Ratings of High Priority and Discretionary Items
   • Overall Assessment of Instructional Sufficiency by Critical Element and Grade
   This will NOT be done for the other big ideas; only for vocabulary and reading comprehension across grade levels, K-3.

3. The rationale for the proposed changes is twofold:
   1. The number of high priority items for selected grades are restricted (e.g., 2), which makes the ratings problematic.
   2. The restricted item scale coupled with the lack of convergence in the National Reading Panel (2000) report on vocabulary and reading comprehension (i.e., they weren't able to conduct a meta-analysis because of limited studies) makes it very difficult to argue convincingly (and from an SBRR footing), that quantification using percentage scores that ostensibly results in a rank order of program design and quality is justified.

What does this mean for determining quality of vocabulary and reading comprehension? This is not likely to affect the adoption of comprehensive, core reading programs, for Oregon Reading First schools. However, for other States using the results, it will require schools and adoption committees to critically examine the items for each of these big ideas and determine quality based on a close scrutiny of the evaluation on an item-by-item basis.

What does this mean for the current review of Supplemental and Intervention programs? It means that we will apply the same revision and decision rules to this review. That means, we will NOT report percentage scores for vocabulary and reading comprehension but follow the same procedures described previously in items # 1 and 2 above.