Reading Roots 5th Edition: Reading 'Between the Lions'--Project Summary and Evaluation

Success for All Foundation (SFAF) is a non-profit organization that strives to enable every child to read and succeed. Its core value is built upon implementing evidence-based and research-proven programs to enhance students' literacy skills. Sirius Thinking, Ltd., is a world-renowned children's media production company that specializes in combining educational content with animated, memorable, and appealing media experiences to increase students' learning engagement. These two organizations worked together under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop a pilot project for Reading "Between the Lions" called Reading Roots 5th Edition (RR5). Reading "Between the Lions" brings the famous public television series "Between the Lions" into classrooms daily to enhance teachers' instruction. Building upon the proven instructional power of SFAF's original Reading Roots curriculum, RR5 integrates Reading "Between the Lions" as an additional resource. The goal of RR5 is to improve first grade students' reading skills through highly engaging, fast-paced teacher instruction, and partner-based practice activities, built around a synthetic phonics approach to early reading, supplemented by targeted media elements. Simply speaking, RR5 is a multimedia classroom instructional program that leverages technology to engage students and customize literacy instruction with instructional videos and collaborative games. SFAF and Sirius Thinking contracted with the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) at Johns Hopkins University in February 2021 to conduct an evaluation of the initial implementation of RR5 and determine the program's impacts on students' reading outcomes. The evaluation found that overall participating students' reading achievement and fluency increased over the period when RR5 was implemented.