The Voyager Universal Literacy System® is a core reading program designed
to help students learn to read at or above grade level by the end of the third
grade. This program uses strategies such as individual reading instruction,
higher-level comprehension activities, problem solving, and writing. Students
are also exposed to computer-based practice and reinforcement in phonological
skills, comprehension, fluency, language development, and writing. The program
uses whole classroom, small group, and independent group settings. Voyager
Universal Literacy System® emphasizes regular assessments, with biweekly
reviews for struggling students and quarterly assessments for all students.
Reading Program Research
Two studies of Voyager Universal Literacy System® met WWC evidence
standards with reservations. The two studies included over 600 kindergarten
students from Florida, Ohio, and Washington, DC. 2 The WWC considers
the extent of evidence for Voyager Universal Literacy System® to be medium
to large for alphabetics and small for comprehension. No studies that met WWC
evidence standards with or without reservations addressed fluency or general
reading achievement.
Effectiveness
Voyager Universal Literacy System® was found to have potentially positive
effects on alphabetics and potentially negative effects on comprehension.
1 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from publicly
available sources: the program's website (http://www.voyagerlearning.com/;
downloaded April 2007) and the research literature (Frechtling, Zhang,
& Silverstein, 2006). The WWC requests developers to review the program
description sections for accuracy from their perspective. Further verification
of the accuracy of the descriptive information for this program is beyond the
scope of this review.
2 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research.
Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available.
3 These numbers show the average and range of student-level improvement
indices for all findings across the studies.
Teachers, Parents, and Administrators:
Please Give your Input On The Voyager Universal Literacy System®
WWC is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's
Institute of Education Sciences, the WWC:
Produces user-friendly practice guides for educators that address
instructional challenges with research-based recommendations for
schools and classrooms; Assesses the rigor of research evidence
on the effectiveness of interventions (programs, products, practices,
and policies), giving educators the tools to make informed decisions;
Develops and implements standards for reviewing and synthesizing
education research; and
Provides a public and easily accessible
to assist schools, school districts, and program
developers with designing and carrying out
rigorous evaluations.
All reports are reprinted from the
US Department of Education website
WWC for informational purposes.
Complete Reports Can Be Found
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