Evidence-Based Studies

Treatment Group/Control Group

Two studies of Tier II literacy development: Throwing sixth graders a lifeline

Graves, A. W., Duesbery, L., Pyle, N. B., Brandon, R. R., & McIntosh, A. S. (2011)

A study led by Anne Graves of San Diego State University demonstrated that students who received a combined intervention package of Read Naturally, Corrective Reading or Rewards, and Daybrook made statistically significant gains in oral reading fluency and passage comprehension as compared to the control group.

The study by Graves, Duesbery, Pyle, Brandon and McIntosh was published by The University of Chicago Press in The Elementary School Journal (Vol. 111, No. 4, June 2011) under the title, "Two Studies of Tier II Literacy Development: Throwing Sixth Graders a Lifeline."

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of Tier I and Tier II instruction on sixth-grade struggling readers. In Study 2 (originally N=60; after attrition N=50), all sixth grade student participants were designated “far below basic” or “below basic” based on the California Language Arts Standards Test at the end of fifth grade. In one-hour time frames over ten weeks, the intervention group received 20 minutes of fluency development and passage comprehension practice (Read Naturally), 20 minutes of word analysis (Corrective Reading or Rewards) and 20 minutes of comprehension and vocabulary development (Daybrook).

Oral Reading Fluency Growth

The authors of the study noted that in their pilot study, Read Naturally produced a significant gain in fluency for sixth graders. Consequently, they implemented Read Naturally again in Studies 1 and 2 as part of the intervention package studied in this report.

In Study 1, the growth in mean ORF scores within the treatment group was 18.1 words per minute (wpm) gain over the ten weeks compared to a gain of 1.1 wpm for the control group.

In Study 2, the treatment group gained 21.6 wpm over the intervention period compared to the control group .2 wpm gain. This represented a significant effect size of .66. Since Read Naturally was the fluency building part of the intervention package, it likely played a significant part in the oral reading fluency gains of the treatment group.

The following table summarizes the average gains in oral reading fluency for students in the two groups in Study 2.

Oral Reading Fluency Growth

	No. of Students	Pre-Test		Post-Test		Change	Effect Size
		Mean	Standard Deviation	Mean	Standard Deviation
Treatment	30	88.3	31.2	109.9	33.8	21.6	.66
Control	20	103.2	27.9	103.4	28.2	.2	.01

Gains in Comprehension

In addition, on the passage comprehension of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests—Revised revealed a significant difference with the intervention group. Since Read Naturally was a key part of the passage comprehension practice, it likely played a key part in the comprehension gains of the intervention group.

The following table summarizes the average gains in passage comprehension in the two groups, based on results from the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests—Revised:

Passage Comprehension Growth (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests—Revised)

	No. of Students	Pre-Test		Post-Test		Change	Effect Size
		Mean	Standard Deviation	Mean	Standard Deviation
Treatment	30	24.3	8.2	26.6	6.4	2.3	.31
Control	20	30.0	8.2	29.1	6.1	.9	.12

For More Information

 Read the complete results of this study