2 comments

  • Hannah Putman

    Hi Dr. Pfeiffer,

    I came across one of your studies recently (THE EFFECT OF THE DAVIS LEARNING STRATEGIES ON FIRST GRADE WORD RECOGNITION AND SUBSEQUENT SPECIAL EDUCATION REFERRALS, 2001), which stated, “According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, it takes four times as much assistance to improve a child’s reading skills if help is offered in fourth grade versus starting the help in mid,kindergarten.”

    I haven’t been able to track down the original source for this statement but it would be a very helpful statistic to cite. Would you be able to send me the original source? Thanks so much!

    • Abigail Marshall, DDAI webmaster

      Hannah, I am sorry, but Sharon Pfeiffer passed away in 2019. The study that you referenced was published in 2001, so the source for that statement would be more than 20 years old — even if you could find it, I don’t know if that statistic is current. I think all educators agree that early intervention is better, of course!

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