Effects of a Multicomponent Intervention to Improve Reading Fluency in Adult Students

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to use a delayed multiple probe design to evaluate the effects of a multicomponent intervention on reading fluency in three adult Norwegian university students. Prior to the study, all the participants had below average reading speed and one had the diagnosis dyslexia. The present procedure consisted of reading support, fluency aim, repeated reading, performance feedback, and error correction. Training involved daily sessions where a passage was read four times in a session or until a predetermined fluency aim was reached. Each participant read 10 passages during the intervention. Maintenance, generalization, and reading comprehension were tested to evaluate characteristics of fluent performance. The main findings indicate that reading fluency of all the participants improved. Results are discussed with regard to (i) conducting a multicomponent intervention; (ii) maintenance of the achieved improvements; (iii) possible effects on reading comprehension; and (iv) social validity of the study. Copyright

Exploring Thresholds in the Foundational Skills for Reading and Comprehension Outcomes in the Context of Postsecondary Readers

“…The results of this study are consistent with prior research indicating that a subset of developmental students does not have sufficient foundational reading skills upon entering college (Ari, 2016; Halldórsdóttir et al, 2016). It is no wonder that postsecondary institutions have spent an enormous amount of money to support students who struggle as readers (e.g., Crisp & Delgado, 2014).…”

“…There is evidence that college students also demonstrate low proficiencies in foundational reading skills (Ari, 2016; Halldórsdóttir et al, 2016; Macaruso & Shankweiler, 2010; Perin, 2020). For example, Macaruso and Shankweiler (2010) assessed proficiency in many of the components of reading skills from word processing to auditory language comprehension of students enrolled in general education courses at a community college.…”

“…We have distinguished between the foundational skills that support the act of reading (word recognition, morphological knowledge, vocabulary, and sentence processing) and higher-level inferences skills (bridging between texts constituents, elaborating based on relevant prior knowledge). Although both lower- and higher-level skills account for variance in performance on literacy tasks, it is arguably surprising how much variance in performance is accounted for by lower-level foundational skills (Ari, 2016; Halldórsdóttir et al, 2016). Ideally, by the time students reach college they should be proficient readers, which would provide the requisite skills to support the development of discipline-specific literacy skills (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).…”

Leveraging a multidimensional linguistic analysis of constructed responses produced by college readers

“…Foundational skills of reading support processing the printed word, which provides input for the higher order processes that support the construction of a coherent mental model. Some college readers struggle with the foundational skills associated with word reading ( Ari, 2016 ; Halldórsdóttir et al, 2016 ; Magliano et al, in press ; Kopatich et al, 2022 ), others may be proficient readers, but do not engage in higher order comprehension strategies that support comprehension ( Magliano and Millis, 2003 ; Kopatich et al, 2022 ), some struggle with both ( Magliano et al, in press ; Kopatich et al, 2022 ). These findings suggest that providing support for these different types of struggling college students requires a deeper understanding of the relations between foundational reading skills and comprehension outcomes and better means of evaluating students’ different strengths and weaknesses ( Magliano and Millis, 2003 ; Magliano et al, 2011 ; Perin, 2020 ).…”

Does reading anxiety impact on academic achievement in higher education students?

“…Poor readers are individuals who perform at the low end of the reading ability continuum for their age (Seidenberg et al, 1986 ). 1 Reading is an essential skill for most individuals (Halldórsdóttir, 2017 ), especially university students, who are required to read constantly due to the large academic workload (Quick, 2013 ). As such, relative to typical readers, poor readers perform less well at university (Pirttimaa et al, 2015 ).…”