2004 Research Results

DR. CUPP READERS^®AND Ten Minute Phonics^™

A SUMMARY OF DOCUMENTED RESULTS

JUNE, 2004

Prepared for Cupp Publishing, Inc.

by Cathy Puett Miller, Independent Literacy Consultant

Canton, GA

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Cupp Readers®, in its fourth year of implementation, continues to provide schools and individual teachers in the southeast with an effective system for teaching reading, writing, listening and communicating. Successfully implemented in urban and suburban as well as rural school settings, Dr. Cupp Readers® offers explicit, systematic methods of instruction, paced to encourage student mastery at every step. This approach has resulted in overall marked improvement in student performance in the classroom and on standardized tests.

With a specific, trackable scope and sequence, teachers find in Dr. Cupp Readers® a logical, progressive plan to move children toward literacy, allowing for individual learning styles and abilities. The flexibility of Ten Minute Phonics™ as an integrated component of Dr. Cupp Readers® or as a stand-alone phonics program also makes it a simple yet valuable tool in today’s complex classroom.

You will find in this report a summary of total results as well as information from individual teachers and administrators who documented students’ improvement in their ability to read. Perhaps a reasonable starting point is a typical comment shared by a user school in rural Georgia:

During the 2003-2004 school year, Daughtry Elementary in Butts County, GA had six first grade classes. One of these classes contained all EIP children. The five non-EIP classes used the McMillan/McGraw Hill series as the core reading program. The EIP class used Dr. Cupp Readers® and CRCT scores confirmed that the EIP class using Dr. Cupp Readers® ranked as the second highest class of the six in Daughtry’s first grade unit. EIP students using Dr. Cupp Readers® as the core instructional program outscored non-EIP students using other materials in four of the six classes.

Although connections to mainstream reading research are extremely important as a starting point from which to evaluate a core reading program, those details have not been included in this year’s review for brevity’s sake. The only notation included in this summary (the fourth in a series of research publications on Dr. Cupp Readers®, beginning in 2001) is a comparison between Dr. Cupp’s program and the key components of reading as defined by the National Reading Panel (see the following chart). If you wish to review more detail on the research basis for Dr. Cupp Readers®, see the previous research online at www.cindycupp.com, review Cathy Puett Miller’s article entitled ”Beginning to Read Curriculum” from the April, 2004 issue of the Georgia Journal of Reading or contact Mrs. Miller, Independent Literacy Consultant directly at cathypmiller@starband.net.

U.S. Dept of Education Dr. Cupp Readers^®/

Key Reform Areas for Classroom Ten Minute Phonics^™ Basis®

Phonemic awareness ] Phonemic awareness

Phonics ] Phonics

Fluency ] Oral fluency

Vocabulary ] Spelling & vocabulary

Comprehension ] Comprehension

Motivation ] Writing & communication

Homework & parent interaction

Assessment & study skills

In the current public education environment, virtually all reading programs identify links between their products and mainstream reading research. The true test of effectiveness is to evaluate those connections AND assess how children respond and learn in the classroom, noting which methods effect change over the widest population and with the greatest number of students. Dr. Cindy Cupp, creator of Dr. Cupp Readers®, has combined her own teaching experience with a controlled, sequential introduction of important skills and experiences to build a comprehensive package. With her materials, children begin learning to read at once in Book 1, needing only recognition of a few consonants, and the short “a”.

Beginning in Book 1, students and teachers are introduced to a pattern of a reading story, phonics, fluency and sight word practice, spelling and vocabulary, comprehension, writing and a closing story. Teachers describe the materials as “classroom and teacher friendly” and confirm they can easily teach any lesson once they’ve taught the first.

DETAILS OF THE STUDY

In the course of the 2003-2004 school year, results of Dr. Cupp Readers® were tracked in an average of 112 classrooms with over 2700 individual students involved. They ranged from gifted kindergarten classes to average, fairly homogeneous average-ability classrooms to EIP classes serving children up to 9 years of age. The percentage of students on free and reduced lunch (often used as an indicator of risk) represented at these schools ranged from 8% to 83% with the average being 42%.

This year for the first time a key group of 17 schools completed more in-depth reports (called PayDay Updates) in which they provided monthly documentation on the progress of their students, giving details of individual book levels for individual students. Many of these schools also implemented a three-group rotation method for teaching Dr. Cupp Readers®, focusing on small group instruction in 20-minute increments to most successfully implement the program. Because of these enhancements, these schools reported better than average outcomes.

In addition, at year’s end, results from a variety of assessments including Lexia, BLT (the Basic Literacy Test), GKAP (the Georgia Kindergarten Assessment), GCRCT (the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test), Informal Reading Inventories and STAR (a Renaissance Learning tool) were collected for categorizing and evaluation.

RESULTS – Specific Formal Assessments Track Success

On both ends of the spectrum, as has historically been the case, test scores indicate that students taught with Dr. Cupp Readers® improved in their ability to read.

As a group, schools using Dr. Cupp Readers® most often used the STAR and BLT or Lexia assessments in evaluating their student’s progress. The following shows average first grade outcomes for a group of approximately 180 randomly selected students:

                                                                                                                                Average
                                          Average                             Range of                        Improvement
                                         Spring Score                     Spring Scores                     Fall to Spring

STAR	2.27	.5 to 4.00	1 year, 2 months
BLT	67.74	21 to 100	34.70 points
Lexia	57.53	25 to 90	30.10 points

Compared to the other studies conducted over the course of the last three years, these results remain very close (within 2 months on STAR and within 10 points on BLT).

Even schools labeled as “at risk” saw a majority of their students advance. One such school took an unusual step by testing their kindergarteners along with the first graders via the Lexia assessment. Another school used the STAR (a Renaissance Learning product) for their kindergarten assessment. Although these assessments are not usually administered to five year olds, the schools determined these students were performing well in the area of reading and used these tests to further quantify the effects they saw from using Dr. Cupp Readers®.

Kindergarten and first grade students from the first mentioned school began with Lexia scores of 11. On average their students improved 15 points for a final score of 26 (average improvement of the group). Nearly 30% improved more than 20 points on their scores with the high being 33 points. Only 10% improved less than 10 points. The STAR testing indicated that a group of gifted kindergarten students began in ninth month of kindergarten and progressed to a second grade level, on average. Sixty-three percent of them improved more than nine school months/one school year.

In another study case, a rural south Georgia school with 83% free and reduced lunch reported 91% of their first grade students mastered over 283 sight words as a results of Dr. Cupp Readers®. Their average book level for first grade students at the end of the year was 59.30 out of 60. The outcome on their Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (the state-mandated test to used to evaluate how effectively schools are teaching and children are learning the Quality Core Curriculum) reflects 100% literacy among their first graders. The cumulative effect of full implementation (a two-year package of Dr. Cupp Readers® with 30 booklets per year) is particularly noteworthy at this location since the first graders mentioned above were introduced to Dr. Cupp Readers® during their kindergarten year.

Another principal observed this contrast in her school:

Percentage of students passing

GA CRCT* Dr. Cupp Readers® Fully Implemented Other Methods Combined

Reading	94%	89%
Language Arts	100%	78%

*Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test

In this same school (with nearly half of their students on free and reduced lunch), all kindergarten students were promoted to 1^st grade with an average of Level E (second level of first grade) in guided reading (according to the Steck-Vaughn guided reading scale).

A third school reported that every student being taught to read with Dr. Cupp Readers® passed the reading portion of the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test for the 2003-2004 school year (including all EIP students and all special ed students using that program).

One teacher from a second year Dr. Cupp Readers® school commented, “We used to be happy if the children averaged an 18 on Lexia; now we are sad if they don’t get a 30! Dr. Cupp Readers® is helping us raise standards for our children and they are responding.” Another who has been using the program consistently for at least two years remarked, “Our school has seen increases every year since we began using Dr. Cupp Readers®. Together we set targets last year for our first graders including a BLT score of between 50 and 60. This year our actual first grade average was a 68. In kindergarten, we projected a range of 25-35 as average in 2002-2003; this year our average rose to 41.4. Twenty-four of my own 35 EIP students [68%] scored about 30! It will be very exciting to see where our rising second graders will go with two years of this program.” [This final comment comes, not from a traditionally high-achieving school but from one with 40% of their students on free and reduced lunch.]

GENERAL STATISTICS – Overall Accomplishments

In the evaluation of classrooms using Dr. Cupp Readers®:

Ø On average, of the Georgia schools reporting results, 92% of students were successful in passing the reading portion of the state-mandated Criterion Referenced Competency Test (GCRCT).

Ø Twenty-four percent (24%) of kindergarteners finished Book 30 of the Readers (ended the year knowing all 116 kindergarten sight words)

Ø Forty-seven percent (47%) finished Book 20 or better (the target level for average kindergarteners – knowing 66 sight words).

Ø On the first grade level, nearly 66% finished their 60^th booklet in Dr. Cupp Readers®, reaching a reading level of 2.1.

Ø Seventy-seven percent (77%) of the tracked population knew 220 sight words by the end of the school year.

The following is a chart showing the progress, on average in number of sight words mastered, of the students followed in the study:

Beginning Average Number Ending Average Number
Grade Level of Sight Words Mastered (9/03) of Sight Words Mastered (5/04)

Kindergarten	6	66
1^st Grade	85	192

As a subset of this group, the seventeen PayDay Update schools improved more quickly, ending the school year with the average kindergartener mastering 76 sight words and first grader mastering 227.

HIGHLIGHTING THE PHONICS COMPONENT

With the national emphasis on phonics in early reading, Dr. Cupp’s Ten Minute Phonics™ component is a particularly important element. By explicitly and sequentially introducing phonics from the very first lesson, this essential skill is woven into the overall approach along with other elements such as fluency and comprehension. The practice time on phonics skills is sufficient and frequent enough to bring mastery and students quickly see the connection between phonics and real reading. By the end of the school year, the average kindergartener using Dr. Cupp Readers® and the phonics package had mastered the following phonics skills:

Ø All consonants

Ø Rimes: an, am, ap, ag, ac, ad, as, af, ak, aj, av, az

Ø Short vowels a, i and u

They are reading from the first booklet on at least a .4 grade level and often much higher.

The average first grader had mastered these phonics skills:

Every child comes to school wanting to learn to read. Dr. Cupp Readers® capitalizes on that interest and enthusiasm by beginning a concrete track for reading instruction at a simple level and early in the kindergarten experience. Her readiness instruction and the “Word House Book” make sure that even at-risk readers pick up the pre-literacy skills they need to begin with success. When children have mastered only four sight words, and a few letters and sounds, they can read the first story. Students learn to connect the individual skills they are learning (onset and rime, phonemic awareness, etc.) to what they are doing as readers early on.

Initial sight words in Dr. Cupp Readers® are no more than five letters long. This aids children in beginning to read successfully right away. Motivation is fed by the games and fun activities in each lesson (Hop N Pop sight word practice continues to be a favorite among the children).

Also, in Dr. Cupp Readers®, at least eighty-five to ninety-five percent (85-95%) of the text contains words already introduced in previous lessons. This not only allows the stories to become more complex in terms of vocabulary, comprehension and interest, but also greatly increases the chances a child will succeed. The remaining five to fifteen percent (5-10%) of the text are newly introduced “sound-it-out” words that children see when they begin the booklet. Clear labels identify “tricky words” that do not follow any rules and these words are introduced and explicitly reviewed.

Unlike many comprehensive beginning-reading curricula, Dr. Cupp Readers® allows flexibility and simplicity in individualizing instructions without introducing different materials. Built into each booklet is convenient space for notations and single student test results. The program is created to allow for individualized instruction within smaller groups, ensuring that students can read at a 2.1 level by the end of the first grade. Exceptional students who progress more quickly have extensions such as the “After Dr. Cupp Readers” reading list to move them into real literature.

Each student moves to the next level only when they have mastered the key ingredients of a particular book. This consultant and many of the administrators and teachers who were a part of this study have observed first hand the impact this has on children’s belief that they can become a reader. Instilling confidence and skills early in the process avoids the “layering” of reading difficulties that occur when a curriculum moves too fast for the student’s abilities.

Within smaller group instruction, individual participation and small group activities create chances for more intensive teaching. This is especially important for struggling, “at-risk," readers who might move at a slower pace and be “left behind” with more conventional curriculum.

Although the majority of schools participating in this year’s research have used Dr. Cupp Readers^® and Ten Minute Phonics™ for two years or less, it is noteworthy that, among schools using her materials longer, assessment shows continued student achievement. The fact that many of the schools who began using her products when first introduced are still using them today (a rare occurrence in the modern education environment) is as valid a testimonial for the program as the data collected on test results of students learning with Dr. Cupp Readers®. “I use it because it works,” says one teacher, “and I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every year to know that my students will learn to read and love to read.”

This research summary has been prepared by Cathy Puett Miller, Independent Literacy Consultant, June, 2004

©2004 Cindy Cupp and Associates. All rights reserved. Schools and school districts are able to make single copies of this document for the purpose of grant applications and documentation. Any other duplication of a part or the whole of this report is prohibited without written permission from Cindy Cupp and Associates.

For additional information about the Dr. Cupp Readers® or Ten Minute Phonics™ visit www.cindycupp.com

Cindy Cupp and Associates, Inc.
Savannah, Georgia 31406

Office phone 912 691-2434
Fax 912 691-1449
cindycupp@mindspring.com