I'm Not Throwing Away My Shot: What Alexander Hamilton Can Tell Us about Standard Reading Interventions

Abstract

This article summarizes findings from a two‐year randomized control trial, focusing on a subset of 194 fourth graders with reading comprehension scores at or below the 15th percentile. Students in the treatment condition received an average of 94 daily 30‐min sessions of small group intervention implemented with fidelity by well‐trained research staff. Standardized measures of word identification, vocabulary, and comprehension, and an oral reading fluency measure were administered pre‐ and post‐testing. Results indicated no statistically significant differences between students in the treatment or business‐as‐usual conditions; effect sizes for comprehension were small (0.14 and 0.19); a quantile regression, however, revealed slightly larger effect sizes for students at the 0.25 to 0.50 quantiles. The effect sizes for word identification, fluency, and vocabulary were less than 0.05. We discuss implications of the study, as well as limitations and directions for future research. We conclude with recommendations for intensifying interventions.

The Critical Role of Word Reading as a Predictor of Response to Intervention

“…1 The University of Texas at Austin, USA 2 University of Houston, TX, USA have used multi-component interventions to address word reading and/or fluency and comprehension (Al Otaiba et al, 2018;Vaughn & Wanzek, 2014). Although these findings provide promise and direction for additional research, the general pattern that reading interventions for struggling readers yield greater effects for students in Grades K to 3 than Grades 4 and beyond holds true.…”

“…Although moderator results suggest there are not differences across grade groupings in the effects of interventions, there are at least a few studies that have yielded significant, moderate to large effects on measures of reading comprehension or broad reading achievement for students in these grades (O’Connor et al, 2010). These studies have used multi-component interventions to address word reading and/or fluency and comprehension (Al Otaiba et al, 2018; Vaughn & Wanzek, 2014). Although these findings provide promise and direction for additional research, the general pattern that reading interventions for struggling readers yield greater effects for students in Grades K to 3 than Grades 4 and beyond holds true.…”