Project CRISS[R] (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies). What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report
Author: What Works Clearinghouse (ED)
Date: 2010-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Reading Comprehension,Intervention,Reading Fluency,Program Effectiveness,Brain,Cognitive Psychology,Professional Development,Reading Achievement,Learning Processes,Adolescents,Public Schools,Alphabets,Literacy,Teaching Styles

Project CRISS[R] (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies) is a professional development program for teachers that aims to improve reading, writing, and learning for 3rd- through 12th-grade students. The implementation of Project CRISS[R] does not require a change in the curriculum or materials being used in the classroom, but instead calls for a change in teaching style to focus on three primary concepts derived from cognitive psychology and brain research. These three concepts include students (1) monitoring their learning to assess when they have understood content, (2) integrating new information with prior knowledge, and (3) being actively involved in the learning process through discussing, writing, organizing information, and analyzing the structure of text to help improve comprehension. In Project CRISS[R], teachers incorporate these concepts into their regular classroom instruction through the use of comprehension strategies (such as using background knowledge, questioning, organizing graphically, and summarizing). Project CRISS[R] calls for students to apply these comprehension strategies to content they encounter, to gain an understanding of when and how it is most appropriate to use these strategies, and to learn to use the strategies that work best for them. Two studies of Project CRISS[R] that fall within the scope of the Adolescent Literacy review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. The two studies included 2,569 students, ranging from grade 4 through grade 6, who attended public schools in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Based on these two studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Project CRISS[R] on adolescent learners to be medium to large for the comprehension domain. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards examined the effectiveness of Project CRISS[R] on adolescent learners in the alphabetics, reading fluency, or general literacy achievement domains. Project CRISS[R] was found to have potentially positive effects on comprehension for adolescent learners. Appended are: (1) Study characteristics: Horsfall &amp; Santa, 1994 (random assignment study); (2) Study characteristics: James-Burdumy et al., 2009 (randomized controlled trial); (3) Outcome measures for the comprehension domain; (4) Summary of study findings included in the rating for the comprehension domain; (5) Project CRISS[R] rating for the comprehension domain; and (6) Extent of evidence by domain. (Contains 20 footnotes.) [The following two studies are reviewed in this intervention report: Horsfall, S., &amp; Santa, C. (1994). &quot;Project CRISS: Validation report for the Program Effectiveness Panel.&quot; Unpublished manuscript; and James-Burdumy, S., Mansfield, W., Deke, J., Carey, N., Lugo-Gil, J., Hershey, A., et al. (2009). &quot;Effectiveness of selected supplemental reading comprehension interventions: Impacts on a first cohort of fifth-grade students&quot; (NCEE 2009-4032). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.]