Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (March 2011) Jade Wexler, Sharon Vaughn, Greg R... more Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (March 2011) Jade Wexler, Sharon Vaughn, Greg Roberts, Nicole Pyle, Anna-Maria Fall: Preventing School Dropout With Secondary Students: The Implementation of an Individualized Reading and Dropout Prevention Intervention
This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive readi... more This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive reading intervention targeting current and former English learners identified as struggling readers based on their performance on the state accountability assessment. Students who enrolled at three participating urban high schools were randomly assigned to the Reading Intervention for Adolescents treatment condition (n = 175) or a business-as-usual comparison condition. Students assigned to the treatment condition participated in the intervention for approximately 50 minutes daily for 2 school years in lieu of a school-provided elective course, which business-as-usual students took consistent with typical scheduling. Findings revealed significant effects for the treatment condition on sentence-level fluency and comprehension (g = 0.18) and on a proximal measure of vocabulary learning (g = .41), but not on standardized measures of word reading, vocabulary, or reading comprehension (g range:-0.09 to 0.06). Posthoc moderation analyses investigated whether initial proficiency levels interacted with treatment effects. On sentencelevel fluency and comprehension and on vocabulary learning, initial scores were significantly associated with treatment effects-however, in opposite directions. Students who scored low at baseline on sentence reading and comprehension scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure, whereas students who scored high at baseline on the proximal vocabulary measure scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure. The discussion focuses on the difficulty of remediating persistent reading difficulties in high school, particularly among English learners, who are often still in the process of acquiring academic proficiency in English.
The history of research on interventions for struggling readers in Grades 4 through 12 dates back... more The history of research on interventions for struggling readers in Grades 4 through 12 dates back to 19th-century case studies of seemingly intelligent children who were unable to learn to read. Physicians, psychologists, educators, and others were determined to help them. In the process, they launched a century of research on a wide variety of approaches to reading intervention. As shown in this systematic narrative review, much has changed over time in the conceptualization of reading interventions and the methods used to determine their efficacy in improving outcomes for struggling readers. Building on the knowledge gathered over the past 100 years, researchers and practitioners are well-poised to continue to make progress in developing and testing reading interventions over the next 100 years.
We examined the effects of a text-processing reading comprehension intervention emphasizing liste... more We examined the effects of a text-processing reading comprehension intervention emphasizing listening comprehension and expressive language practices with middle school students with reading difficulties. Method: A total of 134 struggling readers in grades 6-8 were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 83) and control conditions (n = 51) using a 2:1 ratio (two students randomized to treatment for every one student randomized to control). Students in the treatment condition received 40 min of daily instruction in small groups of four to six students for approximately 17 hr. Results: One-way analysis of covariance models on outcome measures with the respective pretest scores as a covariate revealed significant gains on proximal measures of vocabulary and key word and main idea formulation. No significant differences were found on standardized measures of listening and reading comprehension. Discussion: Results provide preliminary support for integrating listening comprehension and expressive language practices within a text-processing reading comprehension intervention framework for middle-grade struggling readers.
We examined cognitive attributes, attention, and self-efficacy of fourth grade struggling readers... more We examined cognitive attributes, attention, and self-efficacy of fourth grade struggling readers who were identified as adequate responders (n = 27), inadequate responders with comprehension only deficits (n = 46), and inadequate responders with comprehension and word reading deficits (n = 52) after receiving a multicomponent reading intervention. We also included typical readers (n = 40). These four groups were compared on measures of nonverbal reasoning, working memory, verbal knowledge, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, and rapid naming as well as on teacher ratings of attention problems and self-reported selfefficacy. The two inadequate responder groups demonstrated difficulties primarily with verbal knowledge and listening comprehension compared to typical readers and adequate responders. Phonological awareness and rapid naming differentiated the two inadequate responder groups. In addition, both inadequate responder groups showed more attention problems and low self-efficacy compared to typical readers.
Previous research has indicated that students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have challe... more Previous research has indicated that students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have challenges with literacy skills, particularly with reading comprehension (O'Connor & Hermelin, 1994; O'Connor & Klein, 2004). Many students with ASD exhibit strengths in basic reading skills (i.e., word recognition) coupled with difficulties in reading comprehension (
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2010
In this study, we compared the effects of two experimental multiple-strategy approaches (content-... more In this study, we compared the effects of two experimental multiple-strategy approaches (content-area comprehension and vocabulary) to typical fourth-grade social studies instructional practices. An 18-week, cluster-randomized study was conducted to estimate effects measured by normative-referenced reading comprehension and vocabulary measures and researcher-and district-developed measures of social studies vocabulary and content. Forty-eight teachers and their respective 903 students from 15 schools were randomly assigned by school to one of three conditions: content vocabulary, content reading comprehension, or typical practice. Experimental teachers participated in 6 professional development sessions over 21 weeks. Structural equation modeling results indicated reliable differences favoring both experimental conditions over typical practice on the social studies content measure and substantively important effects on content and standardized vocabulary measures. Students in the vocabulary intervention also outperformed typical practice peers on the curriculum-based vocabulary assessment. Effects of the comprehension and vocabulary conditions were comparable except for the significant effect of vocabulary on the curriculum-based vocabulary measure. Effect sizes for teaching quality on the standardized comprehension measure ranged from d = .26 to .32; however, these effects were not statistically significant.
In this study we investigated the effectiveness of a cooperative learning approach designed to fo... more In this study we investigated the effectiveness of a cooperative learning approach designed to foster strategic reading in 3 heterogeneous, culturally and linguistically diverse, general education classrooms in 1 school. Fourth graders in an 11-day experimental condition (N = 85) were taught by the researchers to apply reading comprehension strategies ("preview," "click and clunk," "get the gist," and "wrap up") while reading social studies text in small student-led groups. Control condition students (N = 56) in 2 classes did not learn comprehension strategies but received researcher-led instruction in the same content. Outcome measures (a standardized reading test, social studies unit test, audiotapes of group work) indicated that students in the experimental condition made greater gains in reading comprehension, F(1,138) = 10.68, p = .001, and equal gains in content knowledge. Discourse analyses of peer talk during cooperative group sessions indicated that 65% of discourse was academic in nature and content related, 25% was procedural, 8% was feedback, and 2% was unrelated to the task. Students implemented the clarification (click and clunk) and main idea (get the gist) strategies the most consistently and effectively.
This article reports a synthesis of intervention studies conducted between 1994 and 2004 with old... more This article reports a synthesis of intervention studies conducted between 1994 and 2004 with older students (Grades 6–12) with reading difficulties. Interventions addressing decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension were included if they measured the effects on reading comprehension. Twenty-nine studies were located and synthesized. Thirteen studies met criteria for a meta-analysis, yielding an effect size (ES) of 0.89 for the weighted average of the difference in comprehension outcomes between treatment and comparison students. Word-level interventions were associated with ES = 0.34 in comprehension outcomes between treatment and comparison students. Implications for comprehension instruction for older struggling readers are described.
This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researche... more This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researcher-developed computer program, Computer-Assisted Collaborative Strategic Reading (CACSR), with students who had disabilities. Two reading/ language arts teachers and their 34 students with disabilities participated. Students in the intervention group received the CACSR intervention, which consisted of 50-min instructional sessions twice per week over 10 to 12 weeks. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between intervention and comparison groups' reading comprehension ability as measured by a researcher-developed, proximal measure (i.e., finding main ideas and question generation) and a distal, standardized measure (i.e., Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, Passage Comprehension). Effect sizes for all dependent measures favored the CACSR group. Furthermore, a majority of students expressed positive overall perspectives of the CACSR intervention and believed that their...
The present study extends 8 years of previous research using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR... more The present study extends 8 years of previous research using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), a set of comprehension strategies designed to improve understanding of expository text. We examined teachers' yearlong implementation of CSR. Five intervention and five control teachers from five schools participated along with their students. Intervention teachers attended a CSR professional development workshop and were provided with ongoing follow-up support. Students in CSR classrooms improved significantly in reading comprehension when compared with students in control classrooms. Teacher case studies reveal that with the exception of one teacher, students' comprehension gains were associated with the quality of CSR implementation.
The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with p... more The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was condu... more A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The two schools had recently restructured their special education program to include students with LD in the general education class full-time. Teachers were taught four reading and writing practices (one during each nine-week grading block). All but two of the teachers partially or completely implemented the practices during the nine-week period. Sustained implementation during the school year was maintained by four of the seven teachers, and three of the seven teachers continued high implementation of the instructional practices during the next school year. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered.
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 2008
This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented wi... more This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Most were Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) with identified disabilities. Nearly all demonstrated severely limited oral vocabularies in English and, for ELLs, in both English and Spanish. Students were randomly assigned to receive the research intervention (n = 20) or typical instruction provided in their school's remedial reading or special education classes (n = 18). Students in the treatment group received daily explicit and systematic smallgroup intervention for 40 minutes over 13 weeks, consisting of a modified version of a phonicsbased remedial program augmented with English as a Second Language practices and instruction in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Results indicated that treatment students did not demonstrate significantly higher outcomes in word recognition, comprehension, or fluency than students who received the school's typical instruction and that neither group demonstrated significant growth over the course of the study. Significant correlations were found between scores on teachers' ratings of students' social skills and problem behaviors and posttest decoding and spelling scores, and between English oral vocabulary scores and scores in word identification and comprehension. The researchers hypothesize that middle school students with the most severe reading difficulties, particularly those who are ELLs and those with limited oral vocabularies, may require intervention of considerably greater intensity than that provided in this study. Further research directly addressing features of effective remediation for these students is needed. In the last decade considerable knowledge has been synthesized (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, &
This study used multigroup structural equations to evaluate the possibility that a theory-driven,... more This study used multigroup structural equations to evaluate the possibility that a theory-driven, evidence-based, yearlong reading program for sixth-grade struggling readers moderates the interrelationships among elements of the simple model of reading (i.e., listening comprehension, word reading, and reading comprehension; Hoover & Gough, 1990). Our specific interest was in the relation of theory, program, and evaluation. Our motivating assumptions were that 1) a welldesigned, theory-based program affects performance in predictable ways and that 2) treatment effects may be present even when group differences in posttest means are not robust. The analysis sample comprised 327 students, 113 in the business-as-usual condition and 214 in treatment. We pretested students in the fall of sixth grade and collected posttest data in the fall of seventh grade. There were 217 cases in the posttest sample, 47 comparison students and 170 treatment students at posttest. The findings support the possibility that treated sixth-grade students improved in response to an intensive, yearlong intervention, when conceptualizing change in terms of predictable interrelationships of important underlying skills, rather than in terms of group mean differences at posttest. Specifically, the results suggest that verbal knowledge is less proximal to the reading comprehension of students who have become proficient in the use of text processing and reading comprehension strategies. The evidence base for intervening with adolescent struggling readers comprises a number of small-scale studies characterized by highly focused, well-implemented experimental interventions (see Kamil et al., 2008; Roberts, Torgesen, Boardman, & Scammacca, 2008). Results suggest that older students who struggle with word-level skills benefit from systematic instruction in decoding (Archer & Gleason, 2003; Scammacca et al., 2007),
The authors conducted a synthesis of studies of reading comprehension interventions for middle sc... more The authors conducted a synthesis of studies of reading comprehension interventions for middle school students (Grades 6–8) identified with a learning disability. They identified 12 studies between 1979 and 2009 with treatment and comparison designs and 2 single-participant studies. Findings from the studies indicate large effect sizes for researcher-developed comprehension measures. Few studies ( n = 4) reported standardized measures of reading comprehension, which indicated medium effect sizes. The majority of study treatments ( n = 13) utilized strategy instruction related to main idea or summarization.
The authors report the effects of a yearlong, very small-group, intensive reading intervention fo... more The authors report the effects of a yearlong, very small-group, intensive reading intervention for eighth-grade students with serious reading difficulties who had demonstrated low response to intervention (RTI) in both Grades 6 and 7. At the beginning of Grade 6, a cohort of students identified as having reading difficulties were randomized to treatment or comparison conditions. Treatment group students received researcher-provided reading intervention in Grade 6, which continued in Grade 7 for those with low response to intervention; comparison students received no researcher-provided intervention. Participants in the Grade 8 study were members of the original treatment ( N = 28) and comparison ( N = 13) conditions who had failed to pass a state-mandated reading comprehension test in both Grades 6 and 7. In Grade 8, treatment group students received a 50-minute, daily, individualized, intensive reading intervention in groups of two to four students per teacher. The results showed t...
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (March 2011) Jade Wexler, Sharon Vaughn, Greg R... more Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (March 2011) Jade Wexler, Sharon Vaughn, Greg Roberts, Nicole Pyle, Anna-Maria Fall: Preventing School Dropout With Secondary Students: The Implementation of an Individualized Reading and Dropout Prevention Intervention
This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive readi... more This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive reading intervention targeting current and former English learners identified as struggling readers based on their performance on the state accountability assessment. Students who enrolled at three participating urban high schools were randomly assigned to the Reading Intervention for Adolescents treatment condition (n = 175) or a business-as-usual comparison condition. Students assigned to the treatment condition participated in the intervention for approximately 50 minutes daily for 2 school years in lieu of a school-provided elective course, which business-as-usual students took consistent with typical scheduling. Findings revealed significant effects for the treatment condition on sentence-level fluency and comprehension (g = 0.18) and on a proximal measure of vocabulary learning (g = .41), but not on standardized measures of word reading, vocabulary, or reading comprehension (g range:-0.09 to 0.06). Posthoc moderation analyses investigated whether initial proficiency levels interacted with treatment effects. On sentencelevel fluency and comprehension and on vocabulary learning, initial scores were significantly associated with treatment effects-however, in opposite directions. Students who scored low at baseline on sentence reading and comprehension scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure, whereas students who scored high at baseline on the proximal vocabulary measure scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure. The discussion focuses on the difficulty of remediating persistent reading difficulties in high school, particularly among English learners, who are often still in the process of acquiring academic proficiency in English.
The history of research on interventions for struggling readers in Grades 4 through 12 dates back... more The history of research on interventions for struggling readers in Grades 4 through 12 dates back to 19th-century case studies of seemingly intelligent children who were unable to learn to read. Physicians, psychologists, educators, and others were determined to help them. In the process, they launched a century of research on a wide variety of approaches to reading intervention. As shown in this systematic narrative review, much has changed over time in the conceptualization of reading interventions and the methods used to determine their efficacy in improving outcomes for struggling readers. Building on the knowledge gathered over the past 100 years, researchers and practitioners are well-poised to continue to make progress in developing and testing reading interventions over the next 100 years.
We examined the effects of a text-processing reading comprehension intervention emphasizing liste... more We examined the effects of a text-processing reading comprehension intervention emphasizing listening comprehension and expressive language practices with middle school students with reading difficulties. Method: A total of 134 struggling readers in grades 6-8 were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 83) and control conditions (n = 51) using a 2:1 ratio (two students randomized to treatment for every one student randomized to control). Students in the treatment condition received 40 min of daily instruction in small groups of four to six students for approximately 17 hr. Results: One-way analysis of covariance models on outcome measures with the respective pretest scores as a covariate revealed significant gains on proximal measures of vocabulary and key word and main idea formulation. No significant differences were found on standardized measures of listening and reading comprehension. Discussion: Results provide preliminary support for integrating listening comprehension and expressive language practices within a text-processing reading comprehension intervention framework for middle-grade struggling readers.
We examined cognitive attributes, attention, and self-efficacy of fourth grade struggling readers... more We examined cognitive attributes, attention, and self-efficacy of fourth grade struggling readers who were identified as adequate responders (n = 27), inadequate responders with comprehension only deficits (n = 46), and inadequate responders with comprehension and word reading deficits (n = 52) after receiving a multicomponent reading intervention. We also included typical readers (n = 40). These four groups were compared on measures of nonverbal reasoning, working memory, verbal knowledge, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, and rapid naming as well as on teacher ratings of attention problems and self-reported selfefficacy. The two inadequate responder groups demonstrated difficulties primarily with verbal knowledge and listening comprehension compared to typical readers and adequate responders. Phonological awareness and rapid naming differentiated the two inadequate responder groups. In addition, both inadequate responder groups showed more attention problems and low self-efficacy compared to typical readers.
Previous research has indicated that students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have challe... more Previous research has indicated that students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have challenges with literacy skills, particularly with reading comprehension (O'Connor & Hermelin, 1994; O'Connor & Klein, 2004). Many students with ASD exhibit strengths in basic reading skills (i.e., word recognition) coupled with difficulties in reading comprehension (
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2010
In this study, we compared the effects of two experimental multiple-strategy approaches (content-... more In this study, we compared the effects of two experimental multiple-strategy approaches (content-area comprehension and vocabulary) to typical fourth-grade social studies instructional practices. An 18-week, cluster-randomized study was conducted to estimate effects measured by normative-referenced reading comprehension and vocabulary measures and researcher-and district-developed measures of social studies vocabulary and content. Forty-eight teachers and their respective 903 students from 15 schools were randomly assigned by school to one of three conditions: content vocabulary, content reading comprehension, or typical practice. Experimental teachers participated in 6 professional development sessions over 21 weeks. Structural equation modeling results indicated reliable differences favoring both experimental conditions over typical practice on the social studies content measure and substantively important effects on content and standardized vocabulary measures. Students in the vocabulary intervention also outperformed typical practice peers on the curriculum-based vocabulary assessment. Effects of the comprehension and vocabulary conditions were comparable except for the significant effect of vocabulary on the curriculum-based vocabulary measure. Effect sizes for teaching quality on the standardized comprehension measure ranged from d = .26 to .32; however, these effects were not statistically significant.
In this study we investigated the effectiveness of a cooperative learning approach designed to fo... more In this study we investigated the effectiveness of a cooperative learning approach designed to foster strategic reading in 3 heterogeneous, culturally and linguistically diverse, general education classrooms in 1 school. Fourth graders in an 11-day experimental condition (N = 85) were taught by the researchers to apply reading comprehension strategies ("preview," "click and clunk," "get the gist," and "wrap up") while reading social studies text in small student-led groups. Control condition students (N = 56) in 2 classes did not learn comprehension strategies but received researcher-led instruction in the same content. Outcome measures (a standardized reading test, social studies unit test, audiotapes of group work) indicated that students in the experimental condition made greater gains in reading comprehension, F(1,138) = 10.68, p = .001, and equal gains in content knowledge. Discourse analyses of peer talk during cooperative group sessions indicated that 65% of discourse was academic in nature and content related, 25% was procedural, 8% was feedback, and 2% was unrelated to the task. Students implemented the clarification (click and clunk) and main idea (get the gist) strategies the most consistently and effectively.
This article reports a synthesis of intervention studies conducted between 1994 and 2004 with old... more This article reports a synthesis of intervention studies conducted between 1994 and 2004 with older students (Grades 6–12) with reading difficulties. Interventions addressing decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension were included if they measured the effects on reading comprehension. Twenty-nine studies were located and synthesized. Thirteen studies met criteria for a meta-analysis, yielding an effect size (ES) of 0.89 for the weighted average of the difference in comprehension outcomes between treatment and comparison students. Word-level interventions were associated with ES = 0.34 in comprehension outcomes between treatment and comparison students. Implications for comprehension instruction for older struggling readers are described.
This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researche... more This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researcher-developed computer program, Computer-Assisted Collaborative Strategic Reading (CACSR), with students who had disabilities. Two reading/ language arts teachers and their 34 students with disabilities participated. Students in the intervention group received the CACSR intervention, which consisted of 50-min instructional sessions twice per week over 10 to 12 weeks. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between intervention and comparison groups' reading comprehension ability as measured by a researcher-developed, proximal measure (i.e., finding main ideas and question generation) and a distal, standardized measure (i.e., Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, Passage Comprehension). Effect sizes for all dependent measures favored the CACSR group. Furthermore, a majority of students expressed positive overall perspectives of the CACSR intervention and believed that their...
The present study extends 8 years of previous research using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR... more The present study extends 8 years of previous research using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), a set of comprehension strategies designed to improve understanding of expository text. We examined teachers' yearlong implementation of CSR. Five intervention and five control teachers from five schools participated along with their students. Intervention teachers attended a CSR professional development workshop and were provided with ongoing follow-up support. Students in CSR classrooms improved significantly in reading comprehension when compared with students in control classrooms. Teacher case studies reveal that with the exception of one teacher, students' comprehension gains were associated with the quality of CSR implementation.
The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with p... more The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was condu... more A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The two schools had recently restructured their special education program to include students with LD in the general education class full-time. Teachers were taught four reading and writing practices (one during each nine-week grading block). All but two of the teachers partially or completely implemented the practices during the nine-week period. Sustained implementation during the school year was maintained by four of the seven teachers, and three of the seven teachers continued high implementation of the instructional practices during the next school year. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered.
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 2008
This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented wi... more This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Most were Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) with identified disabilities. Nearly all demonstrated severely limited oral vocabularies in English and, for ELLs, in both English and Spanish. Students were randomly assigned to receive the research intervention (n = 20) or typical instruction provided in their school's remedial reading or special education classes (n = 18). Students in the treatment group received daily explicit and systematic smallgroup intervention for 40 minutes over 13 weeks, consisting of a modified version of a phonicsbased remedial program augmented with English as a Second Language practices and instruction in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Results indicated that treatment students did not demonstrate significantly higher outcomes in word recognition, comprehension, or fluency than students who received the school's typical instruction and that neither group demonstrated significant growth over the course of the study. Significant correlations were found between scores on teachers' ratings of students' social skills and problem behaviors and posttest decoding and spelling scores, and between English oral vocabulary scores and scores in word identification and comprehension. The researchers hypothesize that middle school students with the most severe reading difficulties, particularly those who are ELLs and those with limited oral vocabularies, may require intervention of considerably greater intensity than that provided in this study. Further research directly addressing features of effective remediation for these students is needed. In the last decade considerable knowledge has been synthesized (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, &
This study used multigroup structural equations to evaluate the possibility that a theory-driven,... more This study used multigroup structural equations to evaluate the possibility that a theory-driven, evidence-based, yearlong reading program for sixth-grade struggling readers moderates the interrelationships among elements of the simple model of reading (i.e., listening comprehension, word reading, and reading comprehension; Hoover & Gough, 1990). Our specific interest was in the relation of theory, program, and evaluation. Our motivating assumptions were that 1) a welldesigned, theory-based program affects performance in predictable ways and that 2) treatment effects may be present even when group differences in posttest means are not robust. The analysis sample comprised 327 students, 113 in the business-as-usual condition and 214 in treatment. We pretested students in the fall of sixth grade and collected posttest data in the fall of seventh grade. There were 217 cases in the posttest sample, 47 comparison students and 170 treatment students at posttest. The findings support the possibility that treated sixth-grade students improved in response to an intensive, yearlong intervention, when conceptualizing change in terms of predictable interrelationships of important underlying skills, rather than in terms of group mean differences at posttest. Specifically, the results suggest that verbal knowledge is less proximal to the reading comprehension of students who have become proficient in the use of text processing and reading comprehension strategies. The evidence base for intervening with adolescent struggling readers comprises a number of small-scale studies characterized by highly focused, well-implemented experimental interventions (see Kamil et al., 2008; Roberts, Torgesen, Boardman, & Scammacca, 2008). Results suggest that older students who struggle with word-level skills benefit from systematic instruction in decoding (Archer & Gleason, 2003; Scammacca et al., 2007),
The authors conducted a synthesis of studies of reading comprehension interventions for middle sc... more The authors conducted a synthesis of studies of reading comprehension interventions for middle school students (Grades 6–8) identified with a learning disability. They identified 12 studies between 1979 and 2009 with treatment and comparison designs and 2 single-participant studies. Findings from the studies indicate large effect sizes for researcher-developed comprehension measures. Few studies ( n = 4) reported standardized measures of reading comprehension, which indicated medium effect sizes. The majority of study treatments ( n = 13) utilized strategy instruction related to main idea or summarization.
The authors report the effects of a yearlong, very small-group, intensive reading intervention fo... more The authors report the effects of a yearlong, very small-group, intensive reading intervention for eighth-grade students with serious reading difficulties who had demonstrated low response to intervention (RTI) in both Grades 6 and 7. At the beginning of Grade 6, a cohort of students identified as having reading difficulties were randomized to treatment or comparison conditions. Treatment group students received researcher-provided reading intervention in Grade 6, which continued in Grade 7 for those with low response to intervention; comparison students received no researcher-provided intervention. Participants in the Grade 8 study were members of the original treatment ( N = 28) and comparison ( N = 13) conditions who had failed to pass a state-mandated reading comprehension test in both Grades 6 and 7. In Grade 8, treatment group students received a 50-minute, daily, individualized, intensive reading intervention in groups of two to four students per teacher. The results showed t...
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