The Coach also follows a balanced instruction approach, teaching both basic skills—especially foundational and enabling ones—and more advanced and abstract critical thinking skills—such as reading comprehension or mathematical problem solving. Experiments and observational studies, including in the area of early literacy instruction (see, e.g., Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Allington, Block, Morrow, Tracey, Baker, Brooks, Cronin, Nelson, and Woo, 1998), support the view that balancing both basic and higher-order skills is more effective than teaching either one in isolation.

Coach Reading and Language Arts books provide extensive coverage of two of the key pillars of early literacy identified by the National Reading Panel: vocabulary and reading comprehension. In addition, while not primarily designed for use in fluency instruction, they can be used for additional fluency practice. Coach mathematics books review all of the NCTM strands or domains. In addition, both reading and mathematics books are written to—not merely correlated with, but specifically written for—state educational standards.

Research supporting the Coach pedagogy incorporates systematically collected and empirical evidence. These studies have been subjected to rigorous data analysis, and many have been peer reviewed in academic publications. Both experimental and observational studies support the Coach pedagogy, as do studies that cut a broad spectrum in terms of context—explicit instruction has found support in research on brain function and in studies of how expert teachers teach—all serving to reinforce the strength of the underlying research.

In addition to the wealth of scientific support for the Coach instructional bases, the Coach itself has been studied—initially in East Moline, Illinois, and again in 33 schools in seven states in the spring of 2004. In East Moline, Douglas Whisker conducted an experiment involving two groups of sixth-grade readers: those given reading strategies only, and those given reading strategies and the Coach book as part of a test-readiness program. The students who used Coach met or exceeded Illinois Reading Assessment standards at higher rates (70.2% vs. 48.5%) and obtained higher mean scores (234.17 vs. 193.18)—both statistically significant increases. The 2004 efficacy research involved 33 elementary, middle, and high schools in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, and looked at performance in both Reading/Language Arts and Mathematics; the number of students who met or exceeded standards increased in every instance—sometimes by as much as 50%–100%. Read about our Validation Study.

In short, Coach is a thoroughly tested, research-based tool that helps students meet educational standards and expectations, improves their educational outcomes, and raises their scores on today’s high-stakes tests.