Corrective Reading is a  direct instruction phonics program designed for older struggling readers. It is a scripted program that provides instruction in decoding, phonemic awareness, fluency, writing, vocabulary, and comprehension. It does not appear to include significant morphology instruction. I was unable to evaluate the scaffolding of the program, as it is not included in the company program descriptions. 

To the best of my knowledge, there exists no peer-reviewed meta-analyses on the topic of Corrective Reading. However, there was an excellent literature review done by Przychodzin-Havis, in 2001. That being said, there were no effect sizes calculated, the literature review was quite outdated, and the paper was written for a journal for the company that publishes the program. There is a ton of research on the program; however, the vast majority of that research ended up being unusable for my purposes.

Many papers were so old that they were only available in physical form and not available in person. Most papers did not have control groups, or sufficient statistical data. I was able to find 5 papers that were available online, had control groups, and reported sufficient data. However, I then excluded two more papers. One was on adults, which I did not think was relevant to my audience and another had a sample size of 6, which I deemed insufficient to produce meaningful results. 

Study Summaries: 

Benner 2022: This study was quasi-experimental, and compared the efficacy of Corrective Reading with the Rewards program. The study outperformed by a statistically significant effect size. The sample included 213 grade 5-8 students considered at risk or learning disabled. I found a mean effect size for this study of .35. 

Benner 2005: This study was a quasi-experimental study. It was 34 hours long, and included a sample of 51 suspected learning disabled students in grades 3-8. I found a mean effect size for this study of 1.09. 

Loyd 1980: This study was an RCT study. It compared Corrective Reading to a Whole Language program. It included a sample of 23 Junior grade students. It only looked at comprehension outcomes. I found a mean effect size for this study of .60. 

I conducted a small non-peer reviewed meta-analysis of these studies to get the following results: