Summary of Findings:
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a supplementary, guided, silent reading intervention with 80 struggling third-grade readers who were retained at grade level as a result of poor performance on the reading portion of a criterion referenced state assessment. The students were distributed in 11 elementary schools in a large, urban school district in the state of Florida. A matched, quasi-experimental design was constructed using propensity scores for this study.
Students in the guided, silent reading intervention, Reading Plus, evidenced higher, statistically significant mean scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) criterion assessment measure of reading at posttest. The effect size, favoring the guided, silent reading intervention group was large, one full standard deviation, when comparing the two comparison groups’ mean posttest scores. As such, this study indicates a large advantage for providing struggling third-grade readers guided silent reading fluency practice in a computer-based practice environment.
“Students in the guided, silent reading intervention, Reading Plus, evidenced higher, statistically significant mean scores on the criterion assessment measure of reading at posttest.”
