American Reading Company’s ARC Core® (formerly Zoology One) is receiving top marks in a new study being released by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) for the federally funded Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The study investigated the impacts of ARC Core on Kindergarten students’ achievement, motivation, and learning behaviors as compared to business-as-usual literacy instruction. 

In CPRE’s summary of findings, ARC Core students outperformed control students in reading comprehension, letter-naming fluency, and motivation to read. Additionally, ARC Core Kindergarten students were rated higher than control students on five learning behaviors by their first- and second-grade teachers. Most notably, the results showed that, on average, classrooms using ARC Core achieved the same or better results than control classrooms while using three fewer instructional programs.  

Interestingly, CPRE findings also show ARC Core confronts gender stereotypes. Female student participants in ARC Core classrooms defied gender stereotypes for reading interests. Girls in the ARC Core study group were 26% less likely to choose stereotypical book topics (e.g., princesses, Barbies®, etc.) than girls in the control group.

The full study is scheduled to be released later this year.