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outperformed students in the control group. Students
in the experimental group with reduced lunch and
paid lunch had end of year scores slightly higher than
the control group, but the difference was not
significant.
4 DISCUSSION
According to ESSA, schools need to be continually
improving aspects of the education they provide for
their students, specifically through improving
curriculum for students of all demographics (Darling-
Hammond et al., 2016). The achievement gap in
literacy skills of students entering school needs to be
accounted for, or students are bound on a track to
dropping out of high school (Hernandez, 2011). One
solution to the achievement gap is adding computer-
assisted instruction technology into the classroom.
CAI technology in the classroom was found in this
study to allow children to learn at their own pace, as
found in other studies (Flewitt et al. 2014 Vernadakis
et al., 2005). In both kindergarten and first grade,
students in the experimental groups significantly
outperformed students in the control groups.
Moreover, across demographics, students in the
experimental groups scored consistently higher than
the students in the control groups.
This study also supports previous findings that
early literacy skills are improved when technology is
integrated into an existing elementary school
curriculum (Shamir et al., 2011). In the current study,
the hypothesis was supported, that students with high
usage of Waterford curriculum will have higher
literacy test scores than their control counterparts. If
the expected usage had been met by all students, the
literacy test scores of the students could have been
even greater. Additionally, this study involved only
one elementary school district, so further research can
incorporate a more diverse population to increase
generalizability of the results. Overall, these findings
indicate that computer-assisted instruction improves
literacy test scores and literacy skills when combined
with in-class curriculum.
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