Abstract

The effectiveness of reading literacy programs is crucial to the development of reading skills and confidence in students. The National Institute for Direct Instruction has created the Reading Excellence: Word Attack & Rate Development Strategies (REWARDS) program to build literacy confidence in secondary students (NIFDI, n.d.). The purpose of this study is to examine the REWARDS program within various local school districts, utilizing both teacher and student perception on its effectiveness of building literacy confidence and motivation. For students, we utilized a Qualtrics survey containing Likert scale questions from the questionnaire, “The Reader Self-Perception Scale” (Henk & Melnick, 1995), alongside conducting interviews for teachers about their general opinions of the program. Initial results indicate that the reading confidence of students who partake in this intervention is fairly high. These findings will help BOCES decide whether or not they should implement the REWARDS program across all of its school districts.