Study of Project CRISS Reading Program on Rural 9th Graders (CRISS)

This randomized study tests the effectiveness of Project CRISS (Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies), an education program designed to improve reading comprehension. Project CRISS uses extended teacher professional development and follow-up support to help teachers and students apply research-based learning principles to improve reading comprehension. Developed with the emerging knowledge base on learning theory and reading comprehension, the program has been field-tested and revised over two decades. In 1985, after field-testing in a Montana school district, the program was disseminated through the former National Diffusion Network of the U.S. Department of Education (Santa 1993).The primary research question for this study is: What impact does Project CRISS have on the reading comprehension of grade 9 students in rural high schools? This study also addresses two process questions on the implementation of CRISS and differences in classroom practices: To what extent is Project CRISS implemented with fidelity in the treatment schools? What adjustments or adaptations are made to the program developer's prescribed intervention during implementation? How do classroom instructional practices in the treatment schools compare with those in the control schools? Aimed at teaching reading comprehension across multiple subjects, Project CRISS is intended to help struggling adolescent readers succeed in core high school subjects in the current environment of challenging standards-based content. Achieving reading proficiency in the early high school years is a high-priority need in the Northwest Region, especially among poor and minority students. This study's goal is to determine whether Project CRISS can improve the reading comprehension of early high school students. If so, students might have greater potential for success in content-area coursework that requires extensive reading and understanding of text. The results will provide scientific evidence on Project CRISS in rural and small town high schools in the Northwest Region, as well as its effect size in such settings. The study can be used by other researchers and IES to add to the growing body of scientific evidence on "what works" to improve American education.