A high school principal believes that new directed reading activities in the classroom will help elementary school students improve some aspects of their reading ability. She arranges for a fifth grade class of 21 students to take part in these activities for an 8 week period. A control classroom of 23 fifth graders follows the same curriculum without the activities. At the end of 8 weeks, all students are given a standardized literacy exam, which measures the aspects of reading ability that the activities are designed to improve. The group that is engaged in the directed reading activities has an average score of 51.48 and a standard deviation of 11.01 while the control group has an average score of 41.52 and standard deviation of 17.51. Using the p value method determine whether the data suggests reading activities improved the average score.

What was the testing prior to starting the program