Fort Smith Public Schools – Chaffin Junior High School – General Education – Decoding
Arkansas, Reading, Response to Intervention, RtI, Secondary, Seeing Stars, Tier 3
Chaffin Junior High School in Fort Smith, Arkansas serves a large percentage of students who are at-risk of reading failure. During the 2020-21 school year, Chaffin Junior High implemented Lindamood-Bell® instruction to address the specific needs of this student population. Twenty-four general education students received an average of 65.8 hours of Seeing Stars instruction to develop symbol imagery for reading. Instruction was delivered by Fort Smith teachers who received professional development in the programs developed by Lindamood-Bell’s founders. Student gains were measured with a battery of reading assessments.
RESULTS:
On average, Seeing Stars students achieved significant improvements in reading. They made large standard score changes on all measures. Additionally, the 39-point percentile increase in word recognition put these students above the normal range (25th-75th percentile). Their pre- to posttest results were statistically significant on all measures. The results of this study illustrate that Lindamood-Bell instruction in the Seeing Stars program leads to improved reading, which is essential to achieving success with school curricula.
PROFILE: Chaffin Junior High – General Education
Number of Students: 24 Average Age: 14.2
Average Hours of Instruction: 65.8
Lindamood-Bell Programs Implemented: Seeing Stars®
Outcome Measures:
• Symbol Imagery Test
• Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Test-3rd
• Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-3rd (word attack)
• Wide Range Achievement Test-4th (reading and spelling)
• Gray Oral Reading Tests-4th (accuracy, fluency, and comprehension)
• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-5th (vocabulary
