Evidence & Outcomes Overview
Building Confident Readers Through Structured Literacy
CR Success Learning was developed to help schools provide explicit, systematic literacy instruction grounded in the Science of Reading while remaining practical and manageable for teachers in real classrooms.
The program integrates phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, writing, and decodable reading into one coordinated instructional system. Instruction is cumulative, carefully sequenced, and reinforced through daily routines that help students build accuracy, automaticity, and confidence as readers.
Over time, CR Success Learning and its predecessor framework, F.A.S.T. Reading, have been implemented in a variety of educational settings, including public schools, intervention programs, and literacy support environments. These implementations have produced positive student outcomes across multiple measures of reading achievement.
While CR Success Learning has not yet undergone large-scale randomized controlled trials, the available research, implementation studies, and longitudinal school data provide encouraging evidence supporting the effectiveness of the instructional framework and its structured literacy approach.
A Coherent System of Literacy Instruction
CR Success Learning is built around several core instructional principles:
• Explicit and systematic instruction
• Strong phonemic awareness development
• Direct phonics instruction tied to orthographic understanding
• Decodable texts aligned to taught concepts
• Cumulative review and application
• Structured routines that support teacher consistency
• Integration of reading, spelling, writing, and fluency
Programs within the system include:
• Jump Start – Pre-literacy foundations and alphabetic readiness
• First Steps – Early decoding and foundational phonics
• Streamlined Level 1 – Orthographic patterns and multisyllabic decoding
• Streamlined Level 2 – Advanced orthography and morphology
• Decodable Readers – Application of taught phonetic concepts in connected text
• PRISM – Structured intervention support for struggling readers
Evidence of Student Outcomes (4 studies)
Oklahoma Study (2018–2019)
A quasi-experimental study conducted during the 2018–2019 school year examined second-grade students in an Oklahoma school district using a pretest/posttest design with a comparison group.
Results indicated:
• 100% of students receiving CR Success Learning instruction achieved grade-level proficiency
• 20.3% of students in the comparison group remained at risk for not meeting grade-level expectations
Michigan Longitudinal Study (2007–2012)
A five-year longitudinal implementation study conducted in a suburban Michigan school district included approximately 1,300 students across 10 elementary schools.
Students receiving CR Success Learning intervention demonstrated positive growth on standardized assessments including:
• NWEA
• MEAP
(Add link to revised doc) Mesa Elementary Outcomes (2010–2012)
At Mesa Elementary, implementation of instructional practices aligned with the CR Success Learning framework coincided with substantial improvement in student reading performance over a multi-year period. During implementation, the percentage of students meeting state reading proficiency standards increased from 41.0% to 61.0%, while the school’s state performance rankings also demonstrated significant upward growth. These outcomes provide additional evidence supporting the effectiveness of structured, systematic literacy instruction grounded in explicit phonics and foundational reading development.
Saline Area Schools Intervention Study (2025–2026)
At Harvest Elementary in Saline Area Schools, Michigan, CR Success Learning instructional practices were used as part of a targeted literacy intervention for highly impacted first- and second-grade students receiving special education support.
Using instructional components from First Steps and Streamlined Level 1, educators provided structured one-on-one intervention focused on phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, and fluency development. Over the course of the implementation period, students demonstrated measurable growth in decoding accuracy, phonics application, and progression through targeted phonics skill sequences, including growth in both real-word and nonsense-word decoding tasks.
This implementation provided encouraging evidence that students with significant literacy and learning challenges can make meaningful progress when provided with explicit, systematic instruction aligned to structured literacy principles. (Read summary)
Foundations in Structured Literacy
CR Success Learning reflects a structured literacy approach grounded in current reading research and aligned to core components identified in the Science of Reading.
Instruction includes:
• Explicit phonemic awareness instruction
• Systematic phonics instruction
• Cumulative orthographic development
• Decodable text application
• Fluency development through accurate decoding
• Vocabulary and language development
• Comprehension instruction connected to increasingly complex text
Implementation Matters
Schools often identify implementation consistency as one of the greatest challenges in literacy instruction.
CR Success Learning was designed not only around research-based literacy principles, but also around practical classroom implementation. The system includes:
• Structured lesson routines
• Teacher modeling and guided practice
• Aligned decodable texts
• Integrated spelling and writing
• Cumulative review
• Assessment and progress monitoring tools
This instructional consistency helps support teacher confidence while reducing fragmentation across literacy components.
Continuing Development
CR Success Learning continues to expand its instructional supports and evidence base through:
• Ongoing implementation partnerships
• Additional digital resources
• Structured literacy professional development
• Enhanced teacher support systems
• Continued collection of implementation and outcome data
The goal remains consistent: helping schools build confident readers through explicit, systematic, and practical literacy instruction.