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

摘要

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Scholastic, Incorporated'sReadAbout software system on student achievement in the subject of reading. The studyassessed the relationship between the amount of time third and fourth grade studentsspent utilizing the program and their scale scores on the Texas Assessment ofKnowledge and Skills (TAKS) reading test, as reported in student records of third andfourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. Additionally, the studyattempted to determine possible differences among students for the variables of gender,primary language of learning, and socio-economic status, as reported in student recordsof third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas.For the purpose of this study, school and student performance analysis includedonly the nine elementary schools in the Comal Independent School District that servedthird 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 timethat both third grade and fourth grade students spent using the ReadAboutsoftware system and their performance on the third and fourth grade TAKSreading tests.2. No statistically significant relationships were determined for gender or socioeconomicstatus when the amount of time individuals in each subpopulationspent using ReadAbout and the students' TAKS reading test scale scores werecompared. However, in the analysis for primary language of learning, a smallgroup of Spanish-speaking students who used ReadAbout for more than 16.5hours prior to taking the test outperformed their English-speaking peers in thesame usage category, and this difference did prove to be statisticallysignificant.