Houston Blue Ribbon School’s Deaf Population Achieves AYP With Direct Instruction

This case study examines the implementation of McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction programs at T.H. Rogers Elementary School, a public Blue Ribbon school in the Houston Independent School District, located in Houston, Texas. The school serves approximately 300 students in grades K–5, which includes three distinct populations: gifted and talented, multi-impaired, and deaf students. Direct Instruction programs (including Language for Learning and Reading Mastery in grades K–3 and Corrective Reading in grades 3–8) were implemented in grades K–8 at the start of the 2002–2003 school year. For deaf and hard-of-hearing students, Direct Instruction was supplemented by Visual Phonics. The study includes an analysis of the 2004–2005 school year, focusing on Kindergarten and Grade 1 students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Outcomes examined include scores on the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-II (WIAT-II), measuring Word Reading, Pseudoword Decoding, and Reading Comprehension, as well as school accountability measures including the State-Developed Alternative Assessment (SDAA) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Results showed that after one year of instruction, Kindergarten and Grade 1 deaf or hard-of-hearing students demonstrated improvements in beginning reading skills, performing better than the national average for deaf or hard-of-hearing students. The school’s deaf student population achieved AYP in the 2003–2004 and 2004–2005 school years.