Impact of Lexia® Core5® Reading in California Schools

PURPOSE: After the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. school districts received federal aid through the ESSER Act to support the use of evidence-based interventions. With the expiration of ESSER funds, school leaders need to decide whether to continue investing in intervention programs like Lexia Core5 Reading. This study asked if elementary schools in California that used Core5 outperformed schools that did not use Core5 on the Smarter Balanced English Language Arts (SBAC ELA) assessment.

METHOD: In this quasi-experimental study, Lexia researchers examined differences between Core5 and non-Core5 schools in terms of 2023 SBAC ELA achievement scores using propensity score matching and multiple regression, controlling for demographics and prior SBAC ELA scores from 2022.

KEY FINDINGS

• Students in California schools that used Core5 scored significantly higher on the SBAC ELA assessment than students in schools that did not use Core5.
• Students at Core5 schools also scored higher on the SBAC Math assessment than students in non-Core5 schools.