An Exploratory Study of Reading in Urban and Suburban Middle Schools: Implications for At-Risk and Special Education Learners

Mariage, Troy V.; Burgener, Joyce; Wolbers, Kimberly A.; Shankland, Rebecca K.; Wasburn-Moses, Leah; Dimling, Lisa M.; Kosobud, Kathleen; Peters, Susan

doi:10.1177/0013124509336327

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Factors that characterize “at‐risk” high school students include academic failure in elementary and middle school, low family SES, and special education status (Mariage et al, 2009). Particularly in urban, understaffed, or underfunded schools, special education status has been associated with deficits in reading skills (Mariage et al, 2009). There is evidence that students with multiple risk factors for low achievement (e.g., needing special education services and coming from a high‐poverty household) may respond differently to interventions designed to increase educational attainment (Feldman & Matjasko, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Participating in a policy debate program and academic achievement among at‐risk adolescents in an urban public school district: 1997–2007

Anderson

Mezuk

2012

Journal of Adolescence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates the relationship between participating in a high school debate program on college‐readiness in the Chicago Public School district over a 10‐year period. At‐risk school students were identified using an index including 8th grade achievement, poverty status, and enrollment in special education. Regression analyses were used to assess the association between debate participation and graduation and ACT performance. Overall, debaters were 3.1 times more likely to graduate from high school (95% confidence interval: 2.7–3.5) than non‐debaters, and more likely to reach the college‐readiness benchmarks on the English, Reading, and Science portions of the ACT. This association was similar for both low‐risk and at‐risk students. Debate intensity was positively related to higher scores on all sections of the ACT. Findings indicate that debate participation is associated with improved academic performance for at‐risk adolescents.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participating in a policy debate program and academic achievement among at‐risk adolescents in an urban public school district: 1997–2007

Anderson

Mezuk

2012

Journal of Adolescence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The Effect of Prosody Instruction on Reading Fluency and Comprehension Among Third-Grade Students

Overstreet¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Problem Many students are failing to become proficient readers with current instructional methods used in American schools. Students frequently make improvements in two of fluency’s dimensions, rate and accuracy, but these improvements have not consistently correlated to improvements in reading comprehension, which is the objective of reading. The automaticity plus prosody (APP) model was developed by this researcher from Topping’s deep processing fluency model to explain why teaching and assessing the multiple dimensions of fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) improve comprehension. The purpose of this study was to compare students in a private school in a small town in southwestern Michigan who received a treatment of only repeated reading and self- graphing with students who received a treatment of repeated reading, self-graphing, and an instructional focus of prosody. Method An experimental pretest-posttest with control group design was used in this study. Participants were members of a class of third-grade students (n=20) from a private school in southwestern Michigan. The control group consisted of half the students (n=10), and the treatment group consisted of the remainder of the students (n=10). Students were initially matched based on their teacher’s informal assessment results for reading comprehension and reading fluency based on the students’ raw scores from the MASI-R Oral Reading Fluency Measures and CORE Reading Maze Comprehension Test . One student from each matched pair was then randomly assigned to the treatment or control group. The students were trained to engage in repeated reading using fiction passages at their independent reading level. Students in the intervention group were also taught lessons with an instructional focus on prosody. The study consisted of 21 sessions, 20-30 minutes per session, 3 days per week, over 7 weeks. Reading comprehension and dimensions of fluency (rate, accuracy, and prosody) were the dependent variables. These variables were measured with the AIMS-web Maze-CBM, the AIMS-web R-CBM, and the Multidimensional Fluency Scale. Results One between (treatment) and within subjects (test period) ANOVA indicated that treatment and interaction (treatment by test period) effects for all dependent variables (rate, accuracy, prosody, and reading comprehension) were not statistically significant at the 0.05 level. However, test period main effect was statistically significant for three of the four dependent variables (p<0.05). No significant changes over test periods were found for accuracy. For prosody (F(3,60) = 6.30, p= .001, ɳ2 =.26), and rate F(1.85, 36.91) = 13.09, p<.001, ɳ2 =.42), significant increases took place between test period 2 (week 3) and test period 3 (week 6). For reading comprehension (F(3,60)=33.20, p<.001, ɳ2 =.65), significant change was observed between test periods 3 and 4. These results indicate that students improved in rate, prosody, and reading comprehension regardless of whether or not they received instruction on prosody. Thus, for this group of third-grade students, prosody instruction appears to be not effective in helping students improve reading fluency and comprehension. Conclusions The APP model, as applied to reading development, was supported by the results. Repeated reading with self-graphing, which was done with students in both the control and intervention groups, developed students’ basic fluency through appropriate, successful practice that led to automaticity. These gains in automaticity contributed to higher comprehension and oral expression, both of which are elements of expressive fluency. Whereas non-significant results did not show an instructional focus on prosody- created heightened levels of fluency or comprehension, the length of the study, the small sample size, and other limitations may have mitigated against adequate opportunity to identify differences between the groups. This study did confirm that students’ fluency and comprehension levels can be significantly raised in a short period of time.

show abstract

An Exploratory Study of Reading in Urban and Suburban Middle Schools: Implications for At-Risk and Special Education Learners

Cited by 2 publications

References 15 publications

Participating in a policy debate program and academic achievement among at‐risk adolescents in an urban public school district: 1997–2007

Participating in a policy debate program and academic achievement among at‐risk adolescents in an urban public school district: 1997–2007

The Effect of Prosody Instruction on Reading Fluency and Comprehension Among Third-Grade Students

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About