Intervention works!

Well, the results are finally in and, after reviewing all the data, it looks as though the interventions we put into place had a positive effect.

I did have to make a few changes to my original plan, however, which while changing the scope of the research did not significantly alter the goal - to determine if intervention was going to make a difference for those students at risk of not passing the NJ ASK.

In order to limit the scope of the research and make it manageable, I decided to focus on just one grade - fourth - and work with the interventions that the teachers in that grade felt were most necessary for the students they chose.

And, when the results were analyzed, the test group did very well - having their scores rise over 11% from the previous year, with 50% of the group exceeding the Passing threshold and the remainder falling just short. Not a bad result for only 10 weeks of intervention.

The control group also improved, but not nearly as much. And what was more surprising was the the higher-scoring group from third grade did not improve nearly as much. In fact, 30% of those students ended up falling below the Passing threshold.

So, targeted intensive interventions can make a difference in language arts scores. Exactly what I had hoped to see.

In my next post, I will outline what I would have done differently and what I would like to see going forward.