Student Team Reading and Writing. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report
Author: What Works Clearinghouse (ED)
Date: 2011-11-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Reading Instruction,Writing Instruction,Cooperative Learning,Teamwork,Intervention,Instructional Effectiveness,Educational Research,Middle School Students,Reading Comprehension,Literacy,Urban Schools

&quot;Student team reading and writing&quot; refers to two cooperative learning programs for secondary students included in this intervention report: (1) &quot;Student Team Reading and Writing&quot; and (2) Student Team Reading. The &quot;Student Team Reading and Writing&quot; program (Stevens, 2003) is an integrated approach to reading and language arts for early adolescents. The program incorporates (1) cooperative learning classroom processes; (2) a literature anthology for high-interest reading material; (3) explicit instruction in reading comprehension; (4) integrated reading, writing, and language arts instruction; and (5) a writing process approach to language arts. &quot;Student Team Reading (Stevens, 1989; Stevens &amp; Durkin, 1992) comprises the reading part of Student Team Reading and Writing&quot; and consists of two principal elements: (1) literature-related activities (including partner reading, treasure hunts, word mastery, story retelling, story-related writing, and quizzes) and (2) direct instruction in reading comprehension strategies (such as identifying main ideas and themes, drawing conclusions, making predictions, and understanding figurative language). The writing part of the &quot;Student Team Reading and Writing&quot; program includes selection-related writing. As part of the two programs that are the focus of this report, students work in heterogeneous learning teams, and activities are designed to follow a regular cycle that involves teacher presentation, team practice, independent practice, peer pre-assessment, and individual assessments that form the basis for team scores. The cooperative learning teams used in the programs are intended to engage students in academic interactions. Two studies of student team reading and writing that fall within the scope of the Adolescent Literacy review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards with reservations. The two studies included more than 5,200 adolescent learners from grades 6 through 8 in urban middle schools in the eastern United States. Based on these two studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for student team reading and writing on adolescent learners to be medium to large for the comprehension domain and small for the general literacy achievement domain. The two studies that meet WWC evidence standards with reservations did not examine the effectiveness of student team reading and writing on adolescent learners in the alphabetics and reading fluency domains. Student team reading and writing was found to have potentially positive effects on comprehension and no discernible effects on general literacy achievement for adolescent learners. Appended are: (1) Research details for Stevens (2003); (2) Research details for Stevens &amp; Durkin (1992); (3) Summary of findings; (4) Outcome measures for each domain; (5) Findings included in the rating for the comprehension domain; (6) Findings included in the rating for the general literacy achievement domain; (7) Criteria used to determine the rating of a study; (8) Criteria used to determine the rating of effectiveness for an intervention; and (9) Criteria used to determine the extent of evidence for an intervention. [The following study that met WWC evidence standards with reservations was reviewed in this intervention report: Stevens, R. J. (2003). &quot;Student team reading and writing: A cooperative learning approach to middle school literacy instruction.&quot; Educational Research and Evaluation, v9 n2 p137-160.] (Contains 4 tables and 5 endnotes.)