Research & Resources

s.M.A.R.T. Works!

Getting children ready for school involves more than rehearsing specific behaviors and skills – brain development and stimulation are important tools in getting children prepared to learn, and once in school, continuing to support learning.

When using nationally normed measures on students across the state and nation, the results have shown that students who participate in S.M.A.R.T. outperform those who do not participate in S.M.A.R.T. S.M.A.R.T. addresses an underlying cause of learning deficits rather than addressing a specific learning deficit. The following research is a reinforcement of the importance of brain-related learning and the need to integrate brain stimulation into the normal educational regimen.

A teacher training program at heart
Teachers have reported how their S.M.A.R.T. training, classroom experiences, and the ongoing mentoring they received, got them to re-examine their teaching approaches, gave them a better perspective on the relationship between brain development and early childhood education, and alerted them to important changes in children’s learning, behaviors, and school readiness.

A Summary of
our Findings

Since the early 1990s, A Chance To Grow (ACTG) has completed over 30 assessments of the impacts of its brain-centered interventions on learning readiness and early literacy skills. In order to document these studies and to summarize them in one place, ACTG contracted with Gary J. Miller, Ph.D., to review each of these evaluations and to provide a comprehensive report of these results. This is a brief summary of the report. Click here to download the comprehensive report.

S.M.A.R.T. Kindergarten
When measuring 412 Minnesota kindergartners from 18 classrooms on the Metropolitan Readiness Test 6, Level 2 (MRT), two of every three S.M.A.R.T. Kindergarten students scored above the national mean for reading readiness.

- Only 9% of students scored in the lowest quartile in reading readiness, versus the expected 25%
- 72% scored above the national mean, versus the expected 50%
- 91% scored in the average range or superior
- 31% scored at the superior level

S.M.A.R.T. First Grade
When measuring 403 S.M.A.R.T. first graders from 21 classrooms using the word recognition Slosson Oral Reading Test –R3, S.M.A.R.T. students scored at the 2.5 reading grade level versus the expected grade level of 2.0 at the end of first grade.

In S.M.A.R.T. schools across the state, first graders showed a 42% faster oral reading rate on Curriculum Based Measures with 27 more words per minute. In math, they showed 90% faster calculation and 9% more accuracy.

S.M.A.R.T. Second Grade
When measuring 271 S.M.A.R.T. second graders from 17 classrooms using the word recognition Slosson Oral Reading Test –R3, S.M.A.R.T. students scored at the 3.8 reading level versus the expected grade level of 3.0 at the end of second grade.

Johansen Individualized Auditory Stimulation (JIAS)
All student groups involved made some gains on reading assessments, but two schools in suburban Minneapolis that used JIAS made the most significant gains (an average of one year and seven months).

Audio-Visual Entrainment
Of the 204 students in first through eleventh grade who participated in thirty 20-minute AVE sessions over a three-month period, the average student gained over eight months in reading skills as measured by the Slosson Oral Reading Test. On the Behavioral Dimensions Scale, 91% of the students improved pretest scores in areas such as inattentiveness, hyperactivity and oppositional defiance.

Additional Research Studies
"S.M.A.R.T. integrates developmental maturation techniques into the regular elementary school curriculum to produce a “booster” effect for the acquisition, retention, and mastery of basic academic skills."
- 2010 S.M.A.R.T. Early Childhood Final Report

S.m.A.R.T. Studies
(Kinders, 2nd & 3rd graders)