WESTAT Evaluation: Washington, DC and Cleveland, OH
The Council of the Great City Schools and Voyager sponsored a longitudinal study through WESTAT to evaluate kindergarten and first grade students in the Universal Literacy System in randomly selected treatment and control schools. Overall gains for students in Universal Literacy were large and significant and they out performed students in the other major reading program on all seven measures.

Within School Treatment and Control Study: Orange County, FL
This independent research studied the effectiveness of the Universal Literacy System with economically disadvantaged kindergartners in Orange County, Florida over a three-month period. The results show students enrolled in the Universal Literacy System made significant gains compared with students who continued in their Houghton Mifflin reading program.

Universal Literacy as Measured by PALS: Richmond, VA
This study compared program impact of kindergarten and first grade students enrolled in the Universal Literacy System to students enrolled in other reading programs using Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS). By year’s end, the majority of Universal Literacy students were at or above grade level as measured by PALS, while there were no changes from fall to spring for children in the non Voyager schools.

Universal Literacy: Birmingham, AL

This pretest/posttest study in Birmingham, Alabama compared the progress of Universal Literacy students to a national representative sample using the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery (WDRB). Both kindergarten and first grade students effectively moved from below the normative expectation to considerably above as measured by the WDRB.

Technical Evaluation Report: Birmingham, AL; Orlando, FL; Augusta, GA; and Richmond, VA
Universal Literacy was evaluated in kindergarten and first grade in four school districts during the 2001-2002 school year. During the nine-month span, the number of established readers in first grade more than doubled while the percentage of struggling readers was reduced by more than 65 percent as measured by Vital Indicators of Progress.

Qualitative Case Studies of Universal Literacy in Three Districts
Case studies were conducted to supplement the numerous quantitative evaluations of the program's impact. Qualitative data were gathered from observations and interview with principals and teachers implementing Universal Literacy in six distinctly different schools in three district settings.

2002-2003 Evaluation of Universal Literacy: 25 Districts
Kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students in Universal Literacy were systematically evaluated in 25 school districts during the 2002-2003 school year. More than 90 percent of these children were reading at grade level or emerging as capable readers and less than 10 percent were struggling at year's end.

Longitudinal Study of the Effect of Universal Literacy
This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to analyze Vital Indicators of Progress data over a two-year period. The results indicate that children participating in Universal Literacy kindergarten enter first grade with a significant advantage over students enrolled in other kindergarten reading programs.

Treatment and Control Study: Orange County, FL 2002-2003
This report summarizes the second evaluation of the Universal Literacy System in Orange County, Florida. Economically disadvantaged kindergarten children were evaluated over a five-month period during the 2002-2003 school year. The study provides additional evidence of Voyager's effectiveness and a consistent pattern of academic gains across evaluations.