The Effects of Sound Partners when Implemented During Out of School Time

Book excerpt: Out-of-school time (OST) programs offer additional education services for students that supplement their regular school day (Fashola, 2002). Research related to OST programs has shown that OST programs can be effective in working with populations at risk for academic challenges. However, OST programs' effectiveness is difficult to interpret since OST programs are often not evaluated rigorously, are not implemented with fidelity, and do not use effective instruction (Linden, Herrera, & Baldwin-Gossman, 2013; Mahoney & Zigler, 2006). The Sound Partners program is a published, intensive reading intervention with a strong evidence research base (Vadasy, Sanders, & Peyton, 2005). Sound Partners is developed to help struggling students develop early reading decoding and fluency skills (Vadasy et al., 2005) This study examined the effects of the Sound Partners program when implemented at an OST setting and with a diverse population. The study analyzed the effects of the program in a single-subject, multiple baseline research design and used several measures of early literacy to evaluate reading. The study showed emerging to moderate evidence of positive effects of the intervention on phonemic awareness, reading decoding skills, reading fluency, and reading accuracy. The study provides more information regarding teaching diverse learners, effective instruction outside of a school setting, integrating evidence-based practices in OST settings, and the effectiveness of the Sound Partners intervention.