The Effects of Read‐Aloud Accommodations for Students With and Without Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Abstract

Read‐aloud accommodations have been proposed as a way to help remove barriers faced by students with disabilities in reading comprehension. Many empirical studies have examined the effects of read‐aloud accommodations; however, the results are mixed. With a variance‐known hierarchical linear modeling approach, based on 114 effect sizes from 23 studies, a meta‐analysis was conducted to examine the effects of read‐aloud accommodations for students with and without disabilities. In general, both students with disabilities and students without disabilities benefited from the read‐aloud accommodations, and the accommodation effect size for students with disabilities was significantly larger than the effect size for students without disabilities. Further, this meta‐analysis reveals important factors that influence the effects of read‐aloud accommodations. For instance, the accommodation effect was significantly stronger when the subject area was reading than when the subject area was math. The effect of read‐aloud accommodations was also significantly stronger when the test was read by human proctors than when it was read by video/audio players or computers. Finally, the implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Comment on Buzick and Stone: Two Tales of One City

“…Buzick and Stone () and I (Li, ) each independently conducted a meta‐analysis of read aloud accommodations. Although the two meta‐analyses adopted different methods, they revealed some similar patterns.…”

“…*Indicates articles included in Li () but not in Buzick and Stone (); + indicates articles included in Buzick and Stone () but not in Li ().…”

A Comment on Li: The Same Side of a Different Coin

“…Our studies differ in the specific information that supports our general conclusions about the efficacy of read aloud accommodations. Li's () meta‐analysis included all effect sizes in one model (i.e., combining content areas and student groups), and had a greater focus on the role of moderator variables in explaining the variability in effect sizes derived from previous research. Our primary goal was to estimate the combined effect of the read aloud accommodation and test the statistical significance of the average effect separately by content area and whether or not students had a disability.…”

“…Li () estimated a differential boost from read aloud accommodations of .13 standard deviation units overall. Our estimates were .35 standard deviation units for reading and .03 for math.…”

“…Overall, we think that the interpretations are more straightforward from our approach that estimated six separate random‐effects models (reading and math for students with disabilities, students without disabilities, and the difference between groups). We also think that Li's () approach was more informative with respect to moderator variables. Nonetheless, both meta‐analyses could not fully explain the variation in effect sizes and likely had standard errors that were biased downward due to some violations of model assumptions.…”