Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI)

Features

Grade Level
Grades 6-8
Grades 9-12
Intervention Group Size
Group (5+)
Intervention Lesson Time
45+ Minutes Per Session
Technology Requirements
None

STARI is a literature-focused, Tier II intervention for students in grades 6-9 who read two or more years below grade level. Using research-based practices and engaging texts, STARI addresses gaps in fluency, decoding, reading stamina, and comprehension, aiming to move struggling students to higher levels of proficiency at the end of one year.

To Access More Information: https://www.serpinstitute.org/stari

Publisher Statement (Click to View)

The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) is an open education resource designed to accelerate the reading skills of middle school students who read two or more years below grade level. STARI actively engages students in discussions of cognitively challenging content aligned to 21st century standards.

Students love STARI because they work with partners, engage in discussion and debate of interesting topics, and read accessible books that genuinely interest them. Teachers love STARI because the materials allow them to be successful, even with limited training in how to teach reading.

Evidence: STARI is aligned with the science of reading and has demonstrated strong evidence of effectiveness (ESSA TIER 1). In randomized studies, STARI students demonstrated double the expected annual growth for a middle school student, or more than a year’s worth of growth above and beyond the growth demonstrated by students in other interventions.

Materials and Costs: Curriculum materials (workbooks, lesson plans, fluency passages) can be downloaded for free or purchased pre-printed. Accompanying literature must be purchased. Costs vary; $2,500 would cover costs for literature and printed materials for one class of 14 for a year as well as online training for one teacher.

Professional Learning: SERP offers a flexible online professional learning series that prepares educators to use STARI that can be completed independently or collaboratively.

Find out more about how and why STARI works, download a STARI Overview, find more information on getting started with STARI, or request a quote for printed curriculum materials, literature, and professional learning.

Alignment with Evidence-Based Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Decoding Multisyllabic Words
Partially aligns/supports

The STARI materials are partially aligned with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide. The intervention demonstrates strengths in teaching vowel and consonant letter-sounds and combinations, as necessary. Teachers will need to supplement materials for engaging students in a wide array of activities that allow them to practice reading multisyllabic words accurately and with increasing automaticity.

Recommendation 2: Fluency Building
Fully aligns/supports

The STARI materials are fully aligned with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide. While the intervention exhibits strengths in focusing some instructional time on reading with prosody and regularly providing opportunities for students to read a wide range of texts, teachers will need to supplement materials in providing a purpose for each repeated reading.  

Recommendation 3: Comprehension Building
Partially aligns/supports

The STARI materials are partially aligned with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide. The intervention demonstrates strengths in building students’ world and word knowledge so they can make sense of the text and consistently provide students with opportunities to ask and answer questions to better understand the text they read. Teachers will need to supplement materials for teaching students a routine for determining the gist of a short section of text and teaching students to monitor their comprehension as they read.

Recommendation 4: Practice with Stretch Texts
Fully aligns/supports

The STARI materials are fully aligned with this recommendation of the IES Practice Guide. The intervention demonstrates strengths in preparing for the lesson by carefully selecting appropriate stretch texts, choosing points to stop for discussion and clarification, and identifying words to teach and providing significant support as the group works through a stretch text together. The review panel did not find evidence of electronic supports for independent reading within the program materials.

Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices

Criterion 1: Teacher Guidance
Partially aligns/supports

The STARI materials partially support teachers to plan and implement intervention lessons through culturally and linguistically sustaining practices. Teachers will need to consult and/or supplement with additional resources to fully enact this practice.

Criterion 2: Cultural Competence and Sociopolitical Consciousness
Fully aligns/supports

The STARI materials fully support students in reflecting critically on historical and current experiences from their own and others’ perspectives. 

Criterion 3: Supporting Multilingual and Bidialectal Learners
Does not align/support

The STARI materials were not found to support the enactment of this linguistically sustaining practice.