More than 25 years ago, Dr. Marie Carbo reported high reading gains with her learning disabled students using her recorded books for just six weeks, with some of her students gaining ten to twenty times their previous progress in reading. Since then, numerous published articles and field studies have verified Dr. Carbo’s work, reporting high increases in student motivation, fluency, and comprehension in short periods of time. Dr. Carbo has written many articles about her method which have been published in journals and magazines such as: The Reading Teacher, Teaching Exceptional Children, Learning, Teaching K/8, Educational Leadership, Phi Delta Kappan and Principal Magazine.

Hundreds of educators using the Carbo Method report higher student motivation and achievement, and lowered discipline problems. For example, Molbeck (1994) reported consistently "phenomenal" gains in fluency and comprehension with "angry remedial readers" in high school who were also gang members. Bradsby, Wise, Mundell, and Haas (1992) described gains of 1.7 years in reading comprehension for severely learning disabled students in grades 1-6, within 10 months. Working with special education tenth graders, some of whom were also ESOL, Queiruga reported a 2.2-year gain in reading comprehension in only four months. And, Paula Hill, principal of Gilmer Intermediate School in Gilmer, Texas, conducted longitudinal studies on the effect of Carbo recordings on library circulation. In two years, library circulation rose from 8,263 books during the 1997-1998 school year to 52,394 books during the 1999-2000 school year.

Devinny Elementary School, Lakewood, CO
Severely Learning-Disabled Students in Grades 1-6 Increase Reading Comprehension Scores by an Average of 1.7 Years on the Brigance Comprehension Inventory of Basic Skills After One Year

Source: Bradsby, Wise, Mundell, & Haas, 1992

 

Canyon del Oro High School, Tucson, AZ
Tenth-Grade Education Students Make High Gains in Reading Comprehension
and Vocabulary on Gates-MacGinitie Test After Four Months of CRS

 

Gilmer Intermediate School, Gilmer, TX
Library Circulation increases six times to 52,394 Books

Bradsby, S., Wise, J., Mundell, S. & Haas, S. (1992). "Making a Difference for LD Students – Matching Reading Instruction to Reading Styles Through Recorded Books," Research in the Classroom, ED 347 765.

Carbo, M. (1978a). "Teaching Reading with Talking Books," The Reading Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 267-73.

Carbo, M. (1978b). "A Word Imprinting Technique for Children With Severe Memory Disorders," Teaching Exceptional Children, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 3-5.

Molbeck, C. H. (1994). "Using Recorded Books with Reluctant Readers," WSRA Wisconsin Reading Association, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 39-42.

Queiruga, L. (1992). "Increasing Reading Achievement Using Carbo Recordings with Special Education Tenth Graders," Unpublished Paper, National Reading Styles Institute.