© 2025 Vista Higher Learning Reading and Writing Growth with Vista’s Engage 2 OVERVIEW SEG Measurement conducted a study of the e ectiveness of Vista’s Engage with Literature and Content for improving the language skills of high school ML students. We found that ML students receiving instruction incorporating Engage achieved substantial growth in reading and writing skills. Engage instruction was equally e ective for both boys and girls and among di erent ethnicities. Engage was also found to be particularly e ective for use with academically at-risk students. The first part of this report introduces Engage and explains the study design, research questions, and data collection process. The second part summarizes the student sample and presents the findings that answer each research question. The final section highlights what we learned from the study, including key results, implications for instruction, and overall conclusions about the e ectiveness of Engage. THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT Language skills are essential to academic and career success and vital to personal satisfaction. Language skills have a significant relationship to academic performance throughout students’ schooling. Beyond academic performance, language skills development substantially impacts career opportunities and likelihood of incarceration. While early development of language skills is the broadest challenge, many students continue to struggle with language in adolescence—well into middle school and high school. Research has established that children who have di iculty reading at the end of first grade rarely catch up by the end of elementary school (Torgesen, 2004; Francis et al., 1996; Juel, 1988; Shaywitz et al., 1999; Torgesen & Burgess, 1998). Students who do not master foundational skills early on (by third grade) experience a long-term negative impact on their reading ability and overall academic success. Acquiring reading skills can be particularly challenging for students whose first language is not (MLs). In terms of academic growth, Soland and Sandilos (2020) report that students classified as ML at any point in their academic career had lower achievement than their non-ML peers. One out of every ten students is classified as ML at some point during their K–12 schooling (NCES, 2018). Not only is ML status associated with lower academic expectations from teachers and the students themselves (Kanno & Kangas, 2014), it also contributes to a lower likelihood of taking general and advanced courses in core subjects
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