A Synthesis of the Sustainability of Remedial Reading Intervention Effects for Struggling Adolescent Readers

A majority of reading-related intervention studies aiming to remediate struggling readers’ reading outcomes assess student performance immediately following the conclusion of an intervention to determine intervention effects. Few studies collect follow-up data to measure the long-term sustainability of treatment effects. Hence, the aim of the current synthesis was to examine follow-up intervention effects of reading interventions involving adolescent struggling readers in Grades 6 to 12. Our literature search yielded only 10 studies that reported follow-up data for intervention participants, which highlights the dearth of intervention research that examines sustainability of intervention effects. Of the 10 included studies, the weighted mean effect size for all reading outcome measures was gw = 0.78 at immediate posttest and gw = 0.27 at follow-up, in favor of treatment group students. Although the magnitude of difference between treatment and control groups diminished at follow-up time, a comparison of treatment group students’ immediate posttest and follow-up scores showed that students mostly maintained gains made during intervention at follow-up time points.

The Differential Importance of Component Skills on Reading Comprehension Test Performance Among Struggling Adolescent Readers

Reading comprehension tests vary in format and characteristics, which may influence the extent to which component skills are involved in test performance. With students in Grades 6 to 8 with reading difficulties, dominance analyses examined the differential importance of component reading and language skills (word- and text-reading fluency, vocabulary, listening comprehension, and working memory) on several standardized tests of reading comprehension: The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, 4th edition (GMRT), Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation, Gray Oral Reading Test, 5th edition (GORT-5), and the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension (TOSREC). Students’ word- and text-reading fluency skills were generally the most dominant predictors of performance on most reading comprehension tests, especially those with a time limit (GMRT and TOSREC). Listening comprehension was most important on the GORT-5, a test in which students read passages orally and listen to questions read by an examiner. Working memory was the least important component skill across the reading comprehension tests. Overall, results were consistent with previous work indicating that reading comprehension measures vary with regard to the skills or knowledge sources that are most important for test performance and extend these findings to struggling adolescent readers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Phrase-Reading Mediates Between Words and Syntax in Struggling Adolescent Readers

The components involved in adolescent reading are complex and not clearly understood in struggling readers. Phrase reading, a language skill associated with prosodic understanding of syntactic phrases, has received little attention. We studied 70 adolescent readers including delayed readers to answer the following questions: (a) Do phrase-reading ability, syntactic awareness, passage-reading rate, and reading comprehension have a positive, significant correlation; (b) Do language-related variables (i.e., phrasing ability, syntactic awareness) account for more of the variance in comprehension than passage-reading rate; (c) Does phrase-reading ability, as measured by phrase-level prosody, provide a mechanism for, or at least partially mediate, how passage-reading rate and syntactic awareness affect reading comprehension? Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression and mediation regression. All answers were affirmative suggesting that researchers studying adolescent struggling readers should investigate prosodic phrasing-reading ability as a tool for improving reading comprehension.

Gaming to Increase Reading Skills

When considering instructional supports for struggling adolescent readers, Fisher and Ivey (2006) suggested that the interventions be comprehensive, include a variety of authentic reading and writing opportunities, and be based on varied assessment data. The researchers developed a schedule for Maya, an 8th grade student to work on vocabulary and reading comprehension via games that reviewed discreet skills as well as social media per Maya's preferences. The use of technology interventions for Maya allowed her to read, listen to, and think about meaningful texts, while maintaining balance with instruction in skills related to reading for a variety of purposes.