© 2025 Vista Higher Learning Vista’s Bridges: A Study of Reading Growth in MLs 15 The average (mean) iReady Reading skills pretest score for the 233 students in the treatment group was 533.18 (SD=52.92). The average (mean) iReady Reading skills posttest score for the treatment group was 550.55 (SD=60.75). (t=6.6; p<.001) The 17.37-point gain represents an effect size of .29 (Cohen’s d). These gains are an indicator of the reading growth made by students receiving instruction that incorporated Bridges. Comparing Bridges Students and Non-Bridges Students’ Reading Growth Question 2: Do grade 6–8 ML students receiving instruction incorporating Bridges (treatment group) achieve greater growth in English reading skills than ML students provided with traditional instruction, without Bridges (control group)? (main effects) The first question established that grade 6–8 ML students receiving instruction incorporating Bridges significantly improve their reading skills. However, without a control group for comparison, it is difficult to determine if the reading skills growth seen was the result of the treatment or other factors, including expected student growth, regardless of the instructional treatment. A more complete picture of effectiveness emerges through the treatment-control group comparison. For this reason, the second question compares the level of growth for the treatment group using Bridges to that of a control group following traditional practice. Including the control group in the design enables us to see how Bridges “stacks up” against current practice. The following analysis compares the reading growth of students who used the Bridges program with that of students who received traditional instruction, controlling for their initial reading levels. Table 6 ANCOVA Results Comparing Bridges and Control Group Reading Scores (Adjusted for Initial Reading Level) Source Type III Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig Corrected Model 837622.79a 2 418811.40 233.70 <.001 Intercept 28370.29 1 28370.00 15.83 <.001 iReady Fall 2024 Assessment 818523.77 1 818523.76 456.75 <.001 Study Group 17081.513 1 17081.51 9.53 .002 Error 820767.91 458 1792.07 Total 138176294.00 461 Corrected Total 1658390.669 460 Results show that students who participated in the Bridges program scored significantly higher on the iReady Reading posttest than those in the control group, even after accounting for initial reading ability (p=.002).
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