© 2025 Vista Higher Learning Reading and Writing Growth with Vista’s Engage 27 SUMMARY OF RESULTS SEG Measurement conducted a study of the e ectiveness of instruction incorporating Vista Higher Learning’s Engage with Literature and Content program during the 2024–2025 school year. We found that Engage e ectively increased high school (grades 9–12) ML students’ English reading and writing skills. A group of approximately 171 ML students in the district received instruction incorporating Engage and took both a placement test before instruction and a follow-up assessment after instruction. First, we examined the level of reading and writing skills growth achieved by those 171 students to evaluate the level of growth achieved. The extent of reading and writing skills improvement was assessed by comparing the beginning of year reading and writing skills assessment scores to the end of year scores. Students are assessed at entrance to the district and then are assessed every spring until skills are su icient to exit ML instruction. Those students entering the fall of 2024 were measured at the beginning of the 2024–2025 school year and again at the end of the same school year, permitting a sound “apples-to-apples” comparison for evaluating growth. The growth in reading scores from pre-instruction to post-instruction was statistically significant (p<.001), with an e ect size of .37, or about a third of a standard deviation. The growth in writing scores from pre-instruction to post-instruction was also statistically significant (p<.001), with an e ect size of .54, or about a half of a standard deviation. Based on our experience with educational e ectiveness research in authentic settings, .15 to .29 can be considered small, .30 to .49 can be considered moderate, and e ect sizes .50 and above can be considered large. We then turned our attention to the impact of instruction incorporating Engage for population subgroups (Question 2). Specifically, we investigated the impact for boys and girls and among ethnic groups. The results revealed that Engage instruction was equally e ective for boys and girls. Similarly, we found that Engage instruction was equally e ective for all ethnic groups studied. Finally, we examined the growth achieved by at-risk students when receiving instruction incorporating Engage (Question 3). When looking solely at the academically at-risk students, we found that incorporating Engage was particularly e ective in producing reading and writing skills growth. The e ect sizes for at risk students (.56 for reading, .81 for writing) were meaningfully greater than those seen in the total group.
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