This program takes advantage of the mastery learning strategies, fits the Chicago reading curriculum, and keeps in mind the "facts of life" of urban education. (Author/IRT)

The Chicago Public Schools have been developing and implementing a citywide instructional program of continuous progress/mastery learning in reading. It includes the delineation of a K-8 continuum of instructional objectives; a criterion-referenced testing program which serves as the basis for instruction, promotion, and administrative monitoring;…

Describes the instructional materials and features that distinguish the Chicago model of mastery learning instruction from other models of mastery learning. Also describes innovative ways to examine the effects of mastery learning instruction, given that school data often are limited to norm referenced tests and are lacking in controls. (Author/GC)

Briefly describes a comprehensive reading program based on the ideas of mastery learning. (Author/JM)

This paper reports the interim results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the Chicago Mastery Learning Reading Program, an application of Bloom's mastery-learning instructional model to the elementary reading curriculum. Two approximately equivalent classrooms were selected from each of 10 inner-city schools with minority pupils who were below…

Chicago's mastery learning program takes into account the complexities of reading and the realities of urban classrooms. Its designers say that if a program does not lead to success, it is not a mastery learning program. (Author/JM)