Program Description

"For helping kindergartners and first graders who are having difficulty on their early literacy skills, Road to the Code is a successful, 11-week program for teaching phonemic awareness and letter sound correspondence. Developmentally sequenced, each of the 44 15- to 20-minute lessons features three activities — Say-It-and-Move-It, Letter Name and Sound Instruction, and Phonological Awareness Practice — that give students repeated opportunities to practice and enhance their beginning reading and spelling abilities. Road to the Code is backed by more than 10 years of study in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms."

Cost

$59.95 for one spiral-bound program handbook

Intended Population

• Intervention

Grade

• Elementary School

Intended Group Size

• Individual
• Small group

ELL/DLL

• Unspecified

Multisensory Applications

• Yes

Computer-Based Delivery

• None

Scripted

• Instructor Scripted

Comprehensive or Skill Specific

• Comprehensive

Placement Tests

• No

Accelerated Learning

• No

Assessment to Monitor Skills Mastery

• No

Error Correction Built In

• No

Fidelity Measures Provided by Publisher

• Unspecified

Research Summary

There is limited peer reviewed evidence supporting Road to the Code at this time. One peer reviewed study (Schmitz & Loy, 2014) reported gains for students who received at least part of the entire program with students who received all components of the program having the most growth. Another peer reviewed study investigated the effectiveness of Road to the Code for non-Spanish speaking ELLS and found that the majority of students made gains in phonological awareness and phonemes between pre and post test (Dussling, 2018). A non-peer reviewed study (dissertation by Schmitz, 2011) had mixed evidence. Given insufficient peer-reviewed empirical literature utilizing a comparison or control group, there is insufficient evidence to support the efficacy of Road to the Code at this time.

Study Citations

Schmitz, S. L. & Loy, S. (2014). Road to the code: Examining the necessity and sufficiency of program components. Reading Improvement 51(4) 341-358.

Dussling, T. M. (2018). Examining the effectiveness of a supplemental reading intervention on the early literacy skills of English language learners. Literacy Research and Instruction, 57(3), 276-284.

Schmitz, S. L. (2011). The development of phonological awareness in young children: Examining the effectiveness of a phonological awareness program (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Report

• No studies met WWC inclusion criteria

Evidence Base (ESSA)

• No studies met inclusion requirements

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)

• Insufficient evidence

Additional Reviews

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11840289_The_Role_of_the_Speech-Language_Pathologist_in_Improving_Decoding_Skills
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/20205045?seq=1