The Relationship of Student Use of the Scholastic ReadAbout Software Systemon Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) Reading Test Scores as Reported in Student Records of Third and Fourth Grade Students at Comal Independent School District, Texas

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Scholastic, Incorporated's ReadAbout software system on student achievement in the subject of reading. The study assessed the relationship between the amount of time third and fourth grade students spent utilizing the program and their scale scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) reading test, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. Additionally, the study attempted to determine possible differences among students for the variables of gender, primary language of learning, and socio-economic status, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. For the purpose of this study, school and student performance analysis included only the nine elementary schools in the Comal Independent School District that served third and fourth grade students during the 2007-2008 school year. The student population under study consisted of a total of 585 third graders and 792 fourth graders (1377 total students). The research findings of this study include the following: 1. There was a statistically significant relationship between the amount of time that both third grade and fourth grade students spent using the ReadAbout software system and their performance on the third and fourth grade TAKS reading tests. 2. No statistically significant relationships were determined for gender or socioeconomic status when the amount of time individuals in each subpopulation spent using ReadAbout and the students' TAKS reading test scale scores were compared. However, in the analysis for primary language of learning, a small group of Spanish-speaking students who used ReadAbout for more than 16.5 hours prior to taking the test outperformed their English-speaking peers in the same usage category, and this difference did prove to be statistically significant.