International and national data continue to identify poor literacy standards among secondary school students. The researchers, in collaboration with a metropolitan secondary school in Perth, Western Australia, elected to use the Direct Instruction Reading Mastery program to improve students' reading skills. Data on reading performance was…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a supplemental repeated reading intervention delivered through a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program on the oral reading fluency (ORF) and generalization of second-grade students who were at risk for reading failure. Four African American students and one multiracial student in…

The current article examines what factors explained the success of a reading program delivered by older adult volunteers to at-risk early readers. The article also examines the direction of the relationship over time (both direct and mediated) between reading achievement, frequency of reading at home, and academic self-beliefs. Two hundred and…

The important role of reading fluency in the comprehension and motivation of readers is well documented. Two reading rate intervention programs were compared in a cluster-randomized clinical trial of students who were considered at-risk for reading failure. One program focused instruction at the word level; the second program focused instruction…

This research investigated the immediate and long-term effects of a Tier 2 intervention for beginning readers identified as having a high probability of reading failure using a randomized control trial. First-grade participants (n = 123) were randomly assigned either to a 25-session intervention targeting key reading components, including…

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a…

Many educators are reluctant to use scripted instruction, reporting that scripts are mechanical in nature and only appropriate for low-level skills. This study sought to investigate the impact of a supplemental program's script on the rate of on-task and off-task instructional opportunities offered by the instructor for students to practice the…

This research examined the effectiveness of an emergent literacy intervention for prekindergarten children at risk for reading failure, to replicate and improve on significant findings from Year 1 of the study. Data are reported for 266 children in 72 child care and preschool sites in Year 2 of the study and for 374 children at 102 sites in Year…

A randomized field trial involving 883 students at 23 schools in three urban cities assessed the effectiveness of Experience Corps[R] (EC), a program that places older adult volunteers in elementary schools to tutor students who are poor readers. Students were assessed at the beginning and end of the academic year with standardized reading…

This study examined the effects of online reading instruction for at-risk fourth-grade students in Philadelphia. The authors used a multiple baseline design to assess the extent to which the students increased their oral reading rate given systematic supplemental online reading instruction. Tutoring consisted of 4 sessions per week with 50-min…

This preliminary investigation examined the effects of a computerized supplemental reading program on the oral reading fluency, reading growth rates, and comprehension of 8 African American first graders. Participants were selected for this study according to scores within risk categories on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills…

This study examined the effects of instructional intensity on the acquisition of storybook vocabulary in first graders who were at risk of early reading failure. It also measured whether the intervention was effective for closing the vocabulary knowledge gap between students who were at risk and their average-achieving peers. A total of 66…

Schools face many decisions on how to maximize instructional time and provide support for students who are at risk for failure in reading. Instructional grouping plays an important role. The authors used a true group experimental design to compare 2 grouping conditions--1:1 (1 tutor to 1 student) and 1:3 (1 tutor to 3 students)--on the reading…

This article describes the implementation of small-group reading instruction as secondary- and tertiary-level components of a three-tier model of prevention and intervention. The study consisted of 83 students who were targeted in the winter of kindergarten as being at high risk for reading failure. Intervention consisted of evidence-based…

The article presents a model of an effectively implemented visual phonics intervention program for kindergarten children at high risk for reading failure in a general education classroom. There is a growing body of professional literature documenting the effectiveness of visual phonics for children who are hard-of-hearing or deaf. There is little…