Research Review: The Efficacy of Repeated Reading Instruction In Elementary School
Introduction
Repeated Reading is the most commonly recommended and implemented procedure for improving reading rates of students with disabilities. In addition, it is noted for its relative ease of implantation. (O'Conner, R.E. , White, A.N. , & Swanson , H.L. 2007) The concept of Repeated Reading is not a new one; it was developed in the 1970s and its efficacy was studied substantially in the 1980s. However, this review will focus on research that studied the efficacy of Repeated Reading that where conducted in the last two years in order to ascertain what the latest research has to say about the practice of Repeated Reading. Since any instructional practice like Repeated Reading takes up instructional time that could be used on other instructional practices, this review will look at research compares Repeated Reading’s effectiveness compared to other widely used instructional practices like Question Generating and Continuous Reading. Furthermore, the review will focus on the efficacy of Repeated Reading on improving fluency and to a lesser extent two of the other 5 pillars of reading comprehension and vocabulary. After looking at the efficacy of the practice of Repeated Reading, the review will look at the usefulness a specific widely used Repeated Reading program created by Pearson Education called QuickReads.
Theoretical Background Of Repeated Reading
Fluency is the ability to read with accuracy, speed, and proper expression (or Prosody). Many theorists believe that the more attention needed to decode a word results in less attention available for comprehension and thus improving fluency would subsequently improve comprehension. (Musti-Rao, S , Hawkins, RO, & Barkley, E.A. 2009). Repeated Reading instruction is designed to more than anything else improve fluency. The instruction practice of Repeated Reading is at as essence as simple as its name; it involves reading a short passage out loud several times usually after an instructor models the reading. The Repeated Readings can be done in a variety of way such as one on one with a teacher or tutor who models reading of a passage or in dyads of students who take turns reading different passages out loud and correcting each others mistakes. (Vadasy, P.F. , & Sanders , E.A. . 2008) In its ideal form, Repeated Reading involves reading texts that are at the children’s reading level that feature many high frequency words which may help in transferring fluency gains made for a specific passage to other previously unread passages in the future.
Review Of Research
It seems obvious that Repeated Reading of a specific passage would result in improved fluency especially in the realm of Correct Words Per Minute (CWPM). If that is all Repeated Reading accomplished, it would most likely not be worth the time it takes to implement. Thus, we must look to find if fluency gains by Repeated Reading instruction can be generalized in unfamiliar texts. That is the main question of the study conducted by Musti-Rao, Hawkins, and Barkley. Their other question was what is the degree of integrity can classroom teachers implement Repeated Reading instruction in the classroom. They conducted their study at an urban charter school in the mid-west with 12 students ranging in age from 9 to 12 (all in the 4th grade) who where recommended for the intervention by their teacher and met at risk markers on the Dynamic Indicators of basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) instrument which was given as a pre-test. The teacher was a 57 year old white women with over 35 years of teaching experience that volunteered to be part of the study. The teacher was given training in the program by the researchers to follow and a scripts for both specific instruction to be given to the students and steps to be taken in order to adhere to the program. The repeated reading interventions where done 3 times a week for a half an hour each day in dyads where the students took turns reading a text to each other. The students where also trained by the researchers in the process of Repeated Reading before the program began. Both students and teacher where observed and measured against a checklist to determine their respective levels of procedural integrity. (Musti-Rao, S , Hawkins, RO, & Barkley, E.A. 2009).
The results of the intervention showed that there was a 93% compliance by students and a 98% fulfillment of the procedures of the intervention by the teacher. Furthermore, the teacher and all the students stated that they enjoyed the program in a survey taken at the complication. All students showed improvements in fluency rates measured at the end of the study. The average median change in CWPM when the children read texts that they had not previously encountered was +38%. Despite these improvements, none of the children met the target CWPM rate of 118 CWPM and 60% of the students would be considered “at risk” at the end of the intervention. (Musti-Rao, S , Hawkins, RO, & Barkley, E.A. 2009).
There are some apparent limitations of what can be taken away from this study. The small number of student and the lack of a control group make the results of the study seem less substantial compared to other studies that involve larger groups of students and control groups. Regarding the high fidelity to the program by both the teachers and the students, there is a risk that the Hawthorne Effect may have been in play and that if they where not being observed, the students and or teacher may not have implemented the program with the amount of specification that they did while being observed by researchers. Another constraint on the usefulness of the study in practice is that there where no comparisons made to other possible intervention strategies that could have been implemented instead of Repeated Reading. The next two studies this review will look at both compared Repeated Reading to another instructional strategy.
Therrien and Hughes studies Repeated Reading vs. Question Generating in regards to students fluency and comprehension. The study was done with 32 students (16 in Repeated Reading group and 16 in Question Generating group) in a central Pennsylvania school district that was in a community with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. All the students in the study read at a level at least two grades below their actual grade. The study was done over the course of two weeks. (Therrien, W.J. , & Hughes, C.H. 2008)
In the Repeated Reading group, the students where told to read as fast as they could while paying attention because they would be asked questions at the end of the reading. They then kept rereading the passage until they reached a targeted increase in CWPM with a minimum of two rereading and a maximum of four. Students where given corrective feedback after each reading from the instructors. On the other hand, students in the Question Generating intervention where given a cue card at the start of each reading with generic story structure questions. If the students could not provide the answers after the reading, the instructor told them to relook in the text to find it. If the inability to answer the question persisted the instructor would show the sentence that contained the answer to the question and eventually give the actual answer if the student could not come up with one with help. Both interventions where conducted by specifically trained tutors who where given cue cards to follow during the intervention and tutors fidelity was measured by the treatment integrity checklist.
The reliability that the tutors conducted the programs was at 95% for repeated reading and 94% for Question Generating. The Repeated Reading group showed significantly higher gains in fluency measures that the Question Generating group on the actual passages read, but the Repeated Reading groups fluency measures where nearly equal to the Question Generating group when new passages where read which suggest the greater gains did not transfer. Students in the Repeated Reading group did better on factual questions after the reading but not as well as inferential questions compared to the Question Generating group. (Therrien, W.J. , & Hughes, C.H. 2008) The biggest inadequacy in this study was the short time of the intervention who leads us to question if the results would have be different in a longer intervention and whether or not gains made would last in the long term after the intervention was over.
Continuous is a popular instructional program. O’Connor, White, and Swanson sought to determine if Continuous Reading was more or less effective in terms of Fluency and Comprehension compared to Repeated Reading. The students in the study where either in 2nd or 4th grade; 24 were in each respective grade. Each group of 24 students was divided into 3 subgroups that would act as the control group, Repeated Reading group, and Continuous Reading group respectively. The students where given a battery of pre and post test including the GORT4 and Woodcock Reading Mastery Test. The interventions were conducted by tutors that where trained by the instructors for 15 minutes, 3 days a week, over the course of 13 weeks. The results of the study showcased significant gains in measures of fluency and comprehension for both the Repeated Reading and Continuous Reading groups compared to the control group, but little to know differences when the 2 intervention groups where compared with each other. In should be noted that students who had the highest increases in CWPM had the highest gains in sentence and passage comprehension. (O'Conner, R.E. , White, A.N. , & Swanson , H.L. 2007). A potential issue with the study is that lower grade level texts where used in the study which may reduce exposure to new vocabulary and lower long term transfer effects to other passages.
This review will now focus on a commercially available Repeating Reading program developed by Pearson Education called Quick Reads. The program is designed for students in grades 2-6 and uses non-fiction passages about science and social studies topics that are said to be topics that go along with what children usually learn about at that grade level. Additionally, the passages have 98% of their words are drawn from the list of most frequent words or feature regular phonics and syllable patterns and the other 2% content specific vocabulary. (http://quickreads.org/ 2009)
Are the claims made by QuickReads creators about its effectiveness credible? This review will now look at 2 studies done by Vadasy and Sanders about the effectiveness of the QuickReads program. Both studies where similar in the manner that they where conducted with the exception that one focused on the use of QuickReads with low achieving 4th and 5th graders and the other studying the QuickReads program being used with low achieving 2nd and 3rd graders. The essential question for both studies was whether or not QuickReads was an effective intervention for struggling readers when it came to fluency, vocabulary, word comprehension, and passage comprehension. It should be noted in both studies, the QuickReads programs was conducted by para-educators who received training on how to implement the program. In the 4/5th graders study, the QuickReads intervention was carried out 30 minutes a day for, 4 days a week, for 18 weeks. The 2/3rd grade study was the same time frame for the intervention with the only exception that it only lasted for 15 weeks.
The QuickReads program calls for 3 readings to be done. Before the first reading, the teacher activates background knowledge and has students id 2 challenging words in the texts. In the second reading, the teacher reads aloud with the students and models good fluency. Finally in the third reading, students read as much as they can out loud in 1 minute, the total number of words is recorded, and the teacher and students review 2 comprehension questions together. In each study, an array of pre and post tests where conducted including GORT, DIBELS, Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, and RAN. (Vadasy, P.F. , & Sanders , E.A. 2008)
The results of both studies showed that tutors adhered to correct implantation of the program over 90% of the time. In the 2/3rd study, there were significant improvements in fluency measures and word reading accuracy in post tests, but not in comprehension. In the 4/5th grade study, there where significant gains in comprehension compared to control groups, but surprisingly there was only a small and insignificant increase in fluency. The researchers speculated that the lack of significant increase in fluency rate may have been due to the to the low word reading skills (accuracy and efficiency) of their sample on pre-tests. Neither study compared the QuickReads program to another Repeated Reading program or other intervention strategy so that limits stock someone should put in the study if they are determining if QuickReads is right for there school. (Vadasy, P.F. , & Sanders , E.A. 2008)
Conclusions From Research Review: (efficacy in specific populations)
Many consistent themes regarding Repeated Reading come when looking at all the research discussed so far in its entirety. In every single study, whether Repeated Reading was conducted by classroom teachers or para-educators, the instructor was able to achieve fidelity to the program’s components at a rate over 90%. This seems to suggest that Repeated Reading is a fairly easy intervention to implement and be done by educators with a wide range of experience.
The ease of use is a bright spot when it comes to professional development. In most of the studies, para-educators carried out the program after receiving a few hours of training and a thorough script. Many of these para-educators that were being used as tutors where described as only having some college or associate degrees. Not needed extensive education in order to implement the program increases the potential pool of people that can be drawn upon to pull off the program and consequently gives it a greater likelihood of being able perform the program at more schools, after school programs, or even other locations like libraries and community centers. Going along this line of reasoning, it seemingly more experienced classroom teachers would have little trouble performing the intervention. The only caveat is that Repeated Reading is more easily done one to one or with a small group. It is because of that fact that the dyad form of Repeated Reading which pairs 2 students of different reading ability levels has been created in order to make it more manageable for an entire classroom. (Morrow, L.M., Gambrell, L.B. & Pressley: p.208)
In nearly all the studies as well, there where significant gains made in fluency especially in the area of CWPM. Thus, if a teacher had a student or a population of students that where struggling when it came to fluency or CWPM, than Repeated Reading would be the instructional practice of choice for that body of students. On the other hand, students who had major deficits might not benefit from Repeated Reading. Vadasy and Sanders pointed out in their study that students who had lowest initial word reading accuracy before the intervention made the smallest gains after.
This review also looked at Repeated Reading as compared to other instruction strategies. Continuous Reading and Repeated Reading had fairly similar results on post tests. Hence, it would seem that until more studies are done delineating differences between those to strategies effectiveness in various aspects of reading development, which one a teacher or tutor chooses to use seems to be a matter of personal choice. Comparing Repeated Reading to Question Generating, it appears that the later intervention strategy is more effective if a teacher’s goal is to facilitate deeper inferential comprehension of a text.
It does not seem like Repeated Reading would be an effective instructional practice for students who where above average or gifted when it came to reading ability. For one, not one of the studies addressed students who where above average or gifted in abilities. What's more, nothing about the intervention suggests that it would make sense to be used with more advanced students. The focus of Repeated Reading is improving fluency and one would surmise that students who are above average do not have struggles with fluency. A possible road to travel down for further research may be if strong readers engaging in Repeated Readings of text that where above their grade level resulted in increases in fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Conclusions
Repeated reading in many studies has been shown to be an effective strategy to improve reading abilities especially when it comes to fluency for low achieving students. There is less evidence to support using it with higher achieving students or extremely low achieving students. One of its strongest attributes is that it can be implemented with relative ease by a variety of professionals.
Works Cited
Morrow, L.M., Gambrell, L.B. & Pressley, M. (Eds.) (2007). Best practices in literacy instruction. New York: Guilford Press
Musti-Rao, S , Hawkins, RO, & Barkley, E.A. . (2009). Effects of repeated readings on the oral reading fluency of urban fourth grade students: implications for practice. Preventing School Failure, 54(1),
O'Conner, R.E. , White, A.N. , & Swanson , H.L. . (2007). Repeated readings versus continuous reading: influences on reading fluency and comprehension . Exceptional Children , 74(1), 31-46. 12-23
Quick reads: a research based fluency program . (2009, November ). Retrieved from http://quickreads.org/
Therrien, W.J. , & Hughes, C.H. . (2008). Comparison of repeated reading and question generation on students; reading fluency and comprehension. Learning Disabilities: A contemporary Journal , 6(1), 1-16
Vadasy, P.F. , & Sanders , E.A. . (2008). Repeated reading intervention: outcomes and interactions with readers' skills and classroom instruction. American Psychological Association, 100(2), 272-290 .
Vadasy , P.F. , & Sanders, E.A. . (2008). Benefits of repeated reading intervention for low achieving fourth and fifth grade students. Remedial and Special Education
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