CHAPTER I- INTRODUCTION

“Learning to read is a prerequisite for success in our literate society” (Hines,

2012). The studies and theories revolving around reading are numerous. Researchers
and teachers ponder many questions about reading, but many answers are ambiguous.
“The abundance of information now available about how to teach reading effectively
provides teachers more strategies but, at the same time, makes reading instruction
more difficult to master” (Menzies, Mahdavi, & Lewis, 2011). More research needs to be
completed and reviewed to better understand the enigmas of reading and the effects
reading interventions have on elementary children who are at-risk of reading
disabilities. The more quality research done, the more the students of today and
tomorrow will benefit. It is important that we provide all children with strategies to help
them become proficient readers.

With so many struggling readers with various reading difficulties, it is imperative

that teachers not only identify struggling readers, but know the best reading
intervention practices. The literature was reviewed in an effort to find the best, effective
practices to intervene with students who are at-risk of reading disabilities. It is essential
for students to get the proper instruction needed for them to find accomplishment in
the classroom. Achievement in reading can affect success in every subject area in a
child’s school day as well as their future success in pursuing a career.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Many reading interventions are used to help students at-risk for reading
disabilities succeed. Several studies and theories have addressed reading since the early
1900s. Dating back to the 1970s, many landmark studies have been done on reading. In
recent years, the focus of many studies has turned to the effects reading interventions
have on students. Several questions remain surrounding the topic of reading, including
the possible benefits of reading interventions.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Reading achievement is essential for school achievement (Reis, McCoach, Little,

Muller, & Kaniskan, 2013). Reading is one topic that is used in all aspects of the school
day. Whether you are walking down the hallway reading posters, reading the directions
to the next assignment, or reading a note from your teacher, reading is ubiquitous. If a
student struggles with reading, the difficulties will affect more than a single subject
area.

A student who is a-risk is hard to define. Many factors could place a student at-
risk (Swanson, et al., 2014). Many kinds of struggling readers could be candidates for
intervention (Gustafson, Falth, Svensson, Tjus, & Heimann, 2014). Numerous teachers
and researchers are seeking evidence to help identify or prevent reading disabilities
(Swanson et al., 2014). A need exists for thorough research on how well interventions
work and the most effective intervention techniques. “It is important to know that a
student who achieves at a low level academically is not automatically LD” (Sze, 2012, p.
1015). We need to find the best ways to teach these struggling readers.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Reading is a hot topic in education research. Because reading is vital to

elementary education, many theories have been formed over the years. The cognitive
stages theory of Piaget, the social development theory of Vygotsky, the constructivist
theory of Bruner, the functional literacy theory of Sticht are all pertinent to reading. The
script theory of Schank and the connectionism framework of Thorndike can also be
associated with reading through comprehension (Kearsley, 2014).

Besides being able to incorporate theories to reading, theories are made about
reading. One landmark reading theory is founded by the principles of perceptual
development, as noted by Gibson and Levin (1975). The seven keys of Gibson and
Levin’s (1975) theory are distinctive features, invariant relations in events, higher order
structures, abstraction, ignoring irrelevant information, peripheral mechanisms, and
reduction of uncertainty. With an emphasis on the different types of reading and
various readers, Gibson and Levin have done much research into the psychology of
reading.

A landmark, inclusive investigation of troubles associated with learning to read

was completed by Resnick and Weaver (1979). The results of the examination led
Resnick and Weaver (1979) to conclude about the dependency of the early stages of
reading to letter correspondence. In time, Resnick and Weaver (1979) believed in the
increasing significance of semantic-linguistic features. The study looked into the
significance of decoding, the nature of reading skills, the relationship between reading
and language, the factors that interfere with learning to read, and the acquisition of
reading competence. The studies of Resnick and Weaver (1979) suggest there may be an
association between a reading skill, such as decoding, and becoming a competent
reader, which leave many questions unanswered for the reader.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. To what extent do various reading intervention strategies affect k-5 student

progress in reading?
2. How does the use of early intervention affect k-3 student reading progress?
3. Which intervention strategies work the best to teach reading?
4. How can the same strategies be used to teach reading to all students?

DEFINITION OF TERMS

At-risk readers. “Conditions that place children at risk for reading difficulties include
poverty, cultural and linguistic difficulties, neurologically based problems, inadequate
instruction, limited development-enhancing opportunities, or familial history of reading
disabilities” (Swanson et al., 2014, p. 2).

Bottom-Up Processing. “Phonological abilities and word decoding skills” (Gustafson,

Falth, Scensson, Tjus, & Heimann, 2014, p. 3).

Dialogic Reading. “The storytelling role is gradually shifted from the adult reader to the
child through various techniques” (Swanson et al., 2014, p.10).

Encoding. “Encoding instruction is not limited to just teaching spelling patterns and
memorization skills. Encoding instruction also includes explicitly teaching beginning
readers and spellers to write words according to their phoneme-grapheme
correspondences, to build words using manipulatives (e.g., letter tiles, plastic letters,
etc.), and to learn to manipulate phoneme-grapheme relationships to make new words
(e.g., pat and tap, stop and pots) (Weiser & Mathes, 2014, p. 3).

Onsets and Rimes. “An onset in a syllable is the initial consonant(s) (e.g., the c in cat);
the rime comprises the vowel and consonants that follow (e.g., the at in cat)” (Hines,
2012, p. 21).

Phonological Training. “Theories which address phonological skills describe

development in terms of word-level skills, such as a ‘full alphabetic phase’, where the
reader is not only able to form alphabetic connections but can also map phonemes and
graphemes on to sight words, and a ‘consolidated alphabetic phase’ where recurring
letter patterns become consolidated” (Hurry & Sylva, 2013, p. 2).

READ 180. “READ 180 aims to address the diversity in student reading profiles by
providing differentiated instruction in each of the components of reading: phonemic
and phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension” (Kim,
Capotosto, Hartry, & Fitzgerald, 2014, p.4).

Reading Recovery. “In Reading Recovery lessons, children are shown how to self-
monitor, to check their understanding using all the strategies available to them, to
predict and to confirm. In other words, they are shown how to develop and make use of
metacognitive strategies in their reading” (Hurry & Sylva, 2010, p. 3).

Response to Intervention Models (RTI). “RTI models often employ interventions

validated for improving reading of children at risk for reading disabilities (Tran, Sanchez,
Arellano, & Swanson, 2014, p.2)

SEM-R. “The SEM-R’s three phases follow this learning approach, as Phase 1 focuses on
exposing students to brooks, Phase 2 incorporates differentiated instruction, including
specific reading strategy instruction, applied to self-selected independent reading, and
Phase 3 allows students to pursue self-selected enrichment activities and projects
related to reading” (Reis, McCoach, Little, Muller, & Kaniskan, 2013, p. 5).

Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI). “TRI provided kindergarten and first-grade

teachers with diagnostic strategies designed to facilitate rapid reading progress for
struggling students, ongoing professional development, and long-distance coaching via
webcams”(Amendum, Vernon-Feagans, & Ginsberg, 2014, p. 108).

Top-down Processing. “Comprehension” (Gustafson, Falth, Svensson, Tjus, & Heimann,

2014, p.3).
 CHAPTER II- REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Schools everywhere have a focus on literacy. The following literature review

contains an analysis of several studies on the effects of reading intervention strategies
on elementary students at-risk of reading disabilities. Various interventions were
examined to see what extent various reading intervention strategies affect elementary
(k-5) student progress in reading. The intervention strategies were also analyzed to see
how reading progress is affected by early intervention and the most effective strategies
for all types of students in kindergarten through fifth grade. A student’s reading skills
are essential, but various conclusions exist about the best ways to teach and learn
reading.

How does the use of early intervention affect k-3 student reading progress?

Positive results have been shown by many studies on various reading

interventions in the early elementary levels. A lot of support for interventions can be
found in looking through several peer-reviewed journal articles. No interventions in the
studies show a negative impact on students, although the demographics, interventions,
research methods, and quality of the articles vary. In fact, many interventions show a
positive effect on all types of students, especially those who are struggling readers. “It is
easier to prevent reading difficulties in the early grades before they emerge than to try
and remediate them after they become entrenched and intractable” (Coyne, Zipoli, &
Ruby, 2009, p. 166).

Response to intervention models have been found to increase school-aged

student achievement relative to control conditions with an effect size of 1.02-1.54 (Tran,
Sanchez, Arellano, & Swanson, 2014). Tran et al. (2014) synthesized various English
articles with studies written in English to help identify common characteristics of
intervention responders and low responders. One review by Burns, Appleton, &
Stehouwer (2008) suggested the number of students in the United States with learning
disabilities was reduced to two percent from the government reported five percent. The
RTI may reduce the number of special education services. The students used in the
studies were from diverse backgrounds, but school aged (6.5 years to 10.08 years of
age) and determined to be at-risk of disabilities. All students were receiving tier 1 or tier
2 intervention, but the interventions used varied. A weak correlation was found in the
meta-analysis of the differences between responders and low-responders (post-test
compared to pre-test) due to substantive changes in performance from intervention.
The meta-analysis also suggested students without disabilities respond greater to
intense intervention than students with learning disabilities. The effect size was 1.44,
but a pre-test was not considered. Not all tests in the studies were the same or
administered the same, so that is something to consider.

After reading studies about the effectiveness of onset and rime instruction,
Hines (2012), performed a study of her own on seven first grade students from the
eastern United States. Upon completion of a screening, the four participating students
were those found to be of the seven most at-risk students of all of the first grade
students in the district that were given parent consent. The other three students were
disqualified due to lack of knowledge, too many absences, and a holiday vacation
disruption of the intervention schedule. The screening qualifications measured
intervention letter name knowledge, intervention consonant sound knowledge, and
recognizing intervention CVC/CVCC words. To be included in the study, the student must
identify 80% of the letter names, provide 75% of the consonant sounds, and failure to
decode CVC/CVCC words with more than 15% accuracy. Some of the participants were
already receiving reading intervention prior to the study. Each of the students during
this intervention read eight “Rime to Read” books. If the student made more than five
errors in the first four books or eight errors in the last four books, the book was reread
during the next session. After completion of the first four books and then again the last
four books, a color coded flashcard sort was completed by the child containing the four
sets of rimes from the books. After the child completed the sort, it was done again
without the color coding. The amount of time each student needed to get through the
intervention program varied greatly.

Hines (2012) administered the study with the four first graders on her own, but
taped her sessions. Fidelity at an average of 96% was measured by a second party based
on how well the script and correction procedures were followed. “The reliability was
86% with a range from 67% to 100% for the measure of instructional words, 89% with a
range from 75% to 100% for the measure of near-transfer words, and 91% with a range
of 67% to 100% for the measure of far-transfer words (Hines, 2012, p. 26). As a result,
the four students found to increase in instructional words by an average of 73% over
baseline. The students also had positive results on the near-transfer measure on
average of 56% over baseline. Hines (2012) felt that the onset and rime reading
intervention was positive.

Substantial progress was shown in the short-term for students with the Reading
Recovery intervention compared to the controls. In English schools already teaching
Reading Recovery with a trained teacher, nearly four-hundred children age six to six-
and-a-half years old were included in the study. With seven months of interventions
given by a trained teachers provided by the schools, the effect size was medium to large
and the students were believed to have an eight month advantage (Hurry & Sylva,
2010). The phonological training was more specific than Reading Recovery, but not
secure. Phonological training was ahead of the controls on phonemic awareness. The
effect size was small within school comparison. A significantly higher effect size was
found with between-school comparisons on the Diagnostic Survey. No significant effect
on reading was found.

Four years after the initial intervention was administered, the students were
assessed again by the researchers (Hurry & Sylva, 2010). Both interventions were
somewhat above the controls, but many intervention effects were negligible or small.
The effects were statistically insignificant with the exception of spelling in the
phonological training group. Better progress for reading and spelling was significantly
associated with phonological training in between school control groups, but not in the
within-school comparison.

The Reading Recovery program is more effective for non-readers where

phonological training seemed equal at all levels (Hurry & Sylva, 2014). Both
interventions seemed to work in the short-term. Reading Recovery seemed to improve
reading and spelling over a broad spectrum, but had no consistent effect on children’s
phonological awareness. The non-readers made significantly more progress than their
peers in the control group in long term reading. Phonological training seemed effective
at improving phonological awareness in both within and between-school comparisons,
but had little short-term effect on reading.

Research has proven that early intervention is the key to helping students catch
up with their peers faster (Sze, 2012, p. 1016). It is clear that early intervention in
reading for at-risk students has shown positive results. All of the studies have shown
success for students. Despite the positive results, it is unclear as to what extent the
interventions work in the long term for the students. Which intervention strategies work
the best for teaching reading is also an unknown. With the best intervention practices,
teachers can provide students with more success and achievement.
Which intervention strategies work the best to teach reading?

A variety of reading intervention strategies seem to be effective on students.

More research is needed before anyone can determine which intervention strategies
work best. The READ 180 program has also had positive effects on students. Dialogic
reading, decoding instruction, a combination of bottom-up and top-down strategies,
and SEM-R are known strategies that have produced positive results.

The effects of teacher delivered read-aloud interventions on pre-school age to

third graders were studied with a synthesis and meta-analysis of various studies
(Swanson et al., 2014). All participants had to be at-risk for reading difficulties due to
low achievement in phonemic awareness, vocabulary, or letter identification, lacking
exposure to literacy, low socioeconomic status, reading disabilities in the family history,
or low reading achievement historically in the school. The study needed to take place in
a preschool, daycare, or school and with a design such as treatment-comparison,
multiple treatment, single-group, or single subject research. The intervention needed to
include read-alouds and have one or more dependent measures assessed and published
in a journal. Out of the 29 studies synthesized totaling 2,025 students receiving
intervention treatment or used as comparison, 18 of these studies were used for further
meta-analysis. The interventions implemented by teachers, paraprofessionals, or
researchers were vocabulary, dialogic, repeated reading, limited, or other. The number
of sessions varied as well as the size of the student population in each study. The diverse
study designs lead Swanson et al. (2014) to believe the synthesis and meta-analysis are
more reliable and credible.

Decoding has been a topic of studies and theories for many years, including the
inclusive investigation work of Resnick and Waver (1979). The importance of encoding
instruction has also been studied (Weiser & Mathes, 2014). Through the use of analysis
and syntheses, the authors provide empirical evidence to support their directional
hypotheses that encoding instruction will enhance student abilities to read and spell. A
total of 960 students between kindergarten and third grade that read below a third
grade level were involved in the eleven studies. Each study was administered in a variety
of ways for different amounts of times, but each study was using encoding
interventions.

After studying theories and results, the researchers feel they have the evidence
needed for a reasonable, informed conclusion (Weiser & Mathes, 2014). The qualitative
and quantitative evidence points to both special needs and general education students
benefiting from encoding instruction. When encoding instruction is integrated with
decoding instruction, the researchers believe substantial gains are made in phoneme
awareness, alphabetic decoding, word reading, spelling, fluency, and comprehension. All
of the studies showed positive effects for struggling readers and spellers as well as
decoding instruction as a context for teaching phoneme–grapheme correspondences,
blending, and segmenting. The average Cohen’s d effect size for spelling was 0.60.
Cohen’s average d effect size was 0.84 (SE = 0.07), supporting the importance of helping
struggling readers with encoding instruction to benefit the alphabetic principle.
Encoding instruction shows benefits for phonemic awareness with an average Cohen’s d
effect size of 0.87 (SE = 0.08). Results from the various studies showed encoding and
decoding instruction together increased reading skills of real and non-words (mean
Cohen’s d = 0.70).

For a more general and reliable measure of improvements, the researchers

transformed scores in two standardized values (Gustafson et al., 2014). Combined
training showed significantly higher improvements in reading skills than the ordinary
and typical groups (p < .05). The interventions were of moderate intensity and the
characteristics of the participants affect the intervention outcome.

The School-wide Enrichment Model-Reading appeared to affect fluency

differently across the United States in five diverse elementary schools. Thirty-seven
second to fifth grade classrooms used the intervention and 33 second to fifth grade
classrooms were used as control. A correlation between fluency and Iowa Test of Basic
Skills post-test of .74 was found in the researchers’ analysis of the data (Reis, McCoach,
Little Muller, & Kaniskan, 2014). Significant differences were found between the control
and treatment groups. Comprehension, as measured by the ITBS, was analyzed through
an unconditional random effects ANOVA model. An ICC of .491 showed a 49.1% variance
in reading comprehension between classrooms.

Although the results suggest a positive treatment effect in one urban school, no
significant effect was shown in the other four schools (Reis et al., 2014). The SEM-R
outperformed the control in reading fluency in one suburban school and showed some
benefit at an urban school in reading comprehension. The attitude of the teachers did
not appear to have significance. The SEM-R groups are believed to be greater engaged
and have more enjoyable reading experiences. No detriment was found to students
using SEM-R, so the researchers concluded that SEM-R works as well as or better than
traditional approaches to reading instruction. However, the study did have limitations in
fidelity, which are hard to quantify, random assignment, and an uncertainty in which
activities worked. Also, no measurement is found for engagement and the researchers
had a lack of SES data that could affect results.

How can the same strategies be used to teach reading to all students?

The reading intervention strategies that were researched seem to provide little
to significant positive effects on all students. The many types of readers and reading
difficulties may contribute to the lack of significant positive effects on all students. A
landmark theory by Gibson and Levin (1975) focused on the psychology of reading and
the variety of readers and types of reading. Some intervention strategies seem to work
better with certain types of students, but no detriment to students has been found. The
studies by Kim, Caposto, Harty, and Fitzgerald (2014) as well as Gustafson et al. (2014)
are two studies that show positive effects on students that have no reading difficulties.

A longitudinal study resulted in the comparison groups of ordinary special

education instruction and typical readers showing improvements on the post-tests
(Gustafson et al., 2014). Activities in ordinary special instruction included reading aloud
and/or silently, discussions, spelling, phonological awareness instruction, and memory
work. It was less systematic and less focused than the other interventions. The ordinary
special education instruction led to a large effect on sight word reading, a moderate to
large effect on reading and passage comprehension, and small to moderate effect on
pseudoword reading. Typical readers showed a moderate effect on reading
comprehension, moderate to large effect on word decoding and sight word reading, and
a moderate to small effect on passage comprehension and pseudoword reading. The
intervention seemed to work on all types of students involved in the study.