Fluency and Comprehension Interventions for Third-Grade Students

Abstract

Eight third-grade teachers and their 111 students participated in this 12-week study that was conducted within regular classroom settings. Sixteen of the students demonstrated significant reading problems and qualified for special education or were identified by the school district as dyslexic. This study addressed the differential effects of fluency and comprehension instruction on fluency and comprehension outcomes in two groups of students: those with significant reading problems and those who are low- to average-achieving students. Eight classrooms of third graders and their teachers were assigned to one of two interventions : partner reading, designed to enhance fluency, or collaborative strategic reading, designed to enhance comprehension. Results indicated no statistically significant main effects or group-by-time interaction effects; however, over time (pre- to posttest), there were statistically significant effects for rate of reading and correct words read per minute (but not accuracy or comprehension) for both partner reading and collaborative strategic reading for both low- to average-achieving students and students with reading disabilities.

Comparison of the effectiveness and efficiency of oral and written retellings and passage review as strategies for comprehending text

“…These strategies were implemented within the context of repeated reading with phrase drill error correction because repeated readings have been scientifically supported for ensuring fluent reading Daly, Murdoch, Lillenstein, Webber, & Lentz, 2002;Mercer, Campbell, Miller, Mercer, & Lane, 2000;O'Shea, Sindelar, & O'Shea, 1985;Staubitz, Cartledge, Yurick, & Lo, 2004;Valleley & Shriver, 2003;Vaughn et al, 2000) as well as for having a positive effect on reading comprehension (see Therrien, 2004, for a review). Phrase drill has been a particularly helpful error-correction method for students while they are engaged in repeated readings of connected text (Begeny, Daly, & Valleley, 2006;Daly, Martens, Dool, & Hintze, 1998).…”

Developing Automaticity in Children with Learning Disabilities: A Functional Perspective Part One: Theory and Assessment

“…Given evidence that reading fluency improves through a variety of different types of interventions involving teacher, parent or peer-tutored reading (for example, see [80,89,[92][93][94]), both in children with learning disabilities [88,[109][110][111][112] and in children without learning disabilities [82,87,88], a major issue is whether reading fluency can be addressed solely through fluency-focused reading strategies (for example, see [79,113]) or whether it also needs to be addressed through building connections between the processes involved in reading, writing and spelling, as well as focus on language and reading comprehension [99,114,115].…”

Interaction Quality during Partner Reading

“…Vaughn et al (2000) compared the effectiveness of partner reading to a comprehension-oriented strategy for third grade students. In that study, more capable readers were paired with less capable readers.…”