Abstract:

Research has indicated that high-quality early childhood education is associated with later academic success, such as higher rates of high school graduation. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has been shown to be a particularly impactful method of educating students at their individual level. CAI can be used as a tool to close achievement gaps between lower-performing and higher-performing students; however, the degree to which students are able to spend time using CAI software also plays a role in how impactful the instruction will be. In the current study, literacy scores were compared for first-grade students who spent either a high or low amount of time using a computer-adaptive reading program during their kindergarten school year. It was hypothesized that students who had higher usage of CAI software, when assessed one year after using it, would have higher literacy assessment scores than students who had low usage of CAI, demonstrating a long-term effect of CAI on literacy scores. The overall sample consisted of first-grade students in a school district in Texas in two separate cohorts during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. The sample includes 52% female, 55% Latino/a, and 38% Caucasian. Additionally, 52% of learners were experiencing poverty, and 11% held special education status. Students were separated into experimental and control groups based on their total amount of time spent using the computer-adaptive program during the previous school year when they were in kindergarten. Students with at least 1,000 minutes of usage of the program during their kindergarten school year were included in the experimental group, while students with less than 500 minutes of usage during their kindergarten school year were included in the control group. The TPRI literacy assessment was administered to students in each cohort at the end of their school year in first grade, one year after the use of the program had ceased. Independent samples t-tests of TPRI Word Reading end-of-first-grade scores were conducted, examining differences within each cohort and in aggregate. Analysis revealed a significant difference between groups, as experimental group students significantly outperformed control group students. Separate two-way ANOVA were conducted to examine the long-term effects of WRA and demographics on end-of-first-grade Word Reading scores, including ethnicity, special education status, and economic disadvantage. The benefit from using the program was consistently observed across both years of the study. Across all groups assessed, students with more use of the program outperformed comparison students with lower use of the program in each cohort. Effect sizes were also in the medium range (d = .59 to d = .65), indicating substantively better performance was associated with higher use of the computer-adaptive reading program. These findings point to CAI as a viable tool with a lasting and equitable impact on the educational outcomes of all young learners.

Keywords:

Computer-assisted Instruction, Early Childhood Education, Fidelity of Usage, Early Literacy.