Research History

READ 180 is built on more than a decade of scientifically based research and the collaboration of reading experts. Developed in clinical and classroom settings, the program is uniquely positioned to address the needs of struggling readers.

Early Research

Research by Dr. Ted Hasselbring of Vanderbilt University leads to a breakthrough prototype for software that uses individual student performance data to differentiate reading instruction. This research was partially funded by a grant from the office of Special Education, U.S. Department of Education.

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Continuous Research, Testing, and Development

1994–1996:
Dr. Hasselbring joins forces with Dr. Janet Allen of the University of Florida and Florida’s Orange County public school system to create the Orange County Literacy Project for its lowest-performing students. The Project uses the Vanderbilt software as part of a larger reading intervention. The Project’s instructional model, rooted in research-proven literacy practices, becomes the basis of the READ 180 Instructional Model.

1997:
Scholastic enters into collaboration with Orange County Schools and Vanderbilt University to replicate the best practices of their research in the published program. READ 180 adopts the Lexile Framework^®, developed by Dr. Jack Stenner of MetaMetrics, Inc., as a leveling system. This framework provides a common metric for measuring text difficulty and student reading levels.

1998:
Dr. David Rose of Harvard University and his team at the Center for Applied Special Technologies develop Universal Access capabilities for the developing program.

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Research and Implementation

The Council of Great City Schools pilots READ 180 in some of its largest urban schools and enters into a partnership to study the efficacy of the program.

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Implementation and Validation

1999:
Scholastic publishes READ 180, which is immediately implemented in hundreds of schools nationwide.

2002–2004:
READ 180 has been the subject of continuous scientific research. The results are consistent: students reveal significant growth on multiple measures of reading comprehension. For sites where comparison groups are available, the performance for students in READ 180 is significantly greater than that of comparison groups. Furthermore, READ 180 results reveal significant gains made across subgroups including English-Language Learners, Special Education, African-American students, and Native American students.

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Launch of READ 180 Enterprise Edition

Through continued collaboration with Dr. Ted Hasselbring, and a new partnership with Dr. Kevin Feldman (Director of Reading and Early Intervention with the Sonoma County Office of Education) and Dr. Kate Kinsella (2002 recipient of the Marcus Foster Memorial Reading Award), Scholastic launches READ 180 Enterprise Edition. This new edition brings together five years of observing best practices in the classroom and the knowledge of experts in the field of adolescent literacy to provide an even more effective reading intervention program.

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