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READ 180: The Efficacy of a Literacy Intervention for Incarcerated Adolescents

At a glance

  • Strong Evidence
  • Program: Read 180®
  • Subjects: Literacy Curriculum, Intervention Curriculum
  • Report Type: Efficacy Study, Study Conducted by Third Party
  • Grade Level: Middle, High
  • Region: Southeast
  • Population: Students with Disabilities, Incarcerated Youth
  • Implementation Model: 80+ Minutes
  • Participants: N = 464
  • Outcome Measures: SRI, WASI®, WJ III, TOWRE, PPVT-4, AIMSWeb CBMs
  • Evaluation Period: 31 months (dates not specified)
  • Study Conducted by: David E. Houchins, Joseph C. Gagnon, Holly B. Lane, Richard G. Lambert & Erica D. McCray

Abstract

Houchins and his colleagues (2018) examined the effectiveness of the READ 180® literacy intervention program for incarcerated adolescents. A randomized controlled trial experimental design with repeated measures was used to compare the READ 180 program to a business-as-usual literacy control condition that used a literacy program with computer instruction. Students were provided 110 minutes of daily instruction, five days a week. A total of 464 male students aged 12-18 from a rural, private, medium-security, long-term juvenile corrections residential facility in the southeastern U.S. participated in the experiment over the course of 31 months. Growth curve analyses revealed that students who received READ 180 made significantly greater gains than the control group on standardized measures of reading comprehension (WJ III® Passage Comprehension), receptive vocabulary (PPVT-4), and on curriculum-based measures of comprehension (AIMSWeb® Maze Comprehension). This study, therefore, demonstrated that READ 180 is an effective program to increase the reading ability of incarcerated youth.

Houchins, D. E., Gagnon, J. C., Lane, H. B., Lambert, R. G., & McCray, E. D. (2018). The efficacy of a literacy intervention for incarcerated adolescents. Residential Treatment for Children & Youth, 35(1), 60-91.