The Effect of Early Reading Intervention on Reading Scores of At Risk Kindergarten Students
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2013-05
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Masters of Education
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the Early Reading Intervention (ERI) program for enhancing at risk kindergarten students’ reading scores. The participants in this study attended a suburban school located in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. All participants received small and whole group instruction from the Treasures Language Arts curriculum published by Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. The treatment group also received the Early Reading Intervention (ERI) for 30 minutes a day, beginning in October, 2011 and ending in May, 2012. February and May DIBELS scores for the treatment group were compared to those of a group of On-level and below level students who did not receive ERI. Main analyses compared the groups’ mean scores on May (post-intervention) DIBELS and DIBELS gain scores to see if there were any significant differences across the groups. ANOVAs indicated that for the May DIBELS scores, the only significant differences (at the p<.05 level) were between the On-level and ERI groups on two DIBELS tests, Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF). On the LNF subtest, the On-level and ERI groups had mean scores of 58.5 and 38, respectively, and on the PSF subtest scores, the On-level and ERI groups had mean scores of 57.3 and 43.375, respectively. In terms of gain scores, all three groups demonstrated growth on each DIBELS subtest. T-test results indicated that the On-level group’s mean gains were significantly greater than zero (p<.05) on three DIBELS subtests: LNF (mean gain=7.5, p<.017), PSF (mean gain=9.3, p<.006), and the Whole Words Read (WWR) portion of Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) (mean gain= 4.9, p<.024). None of the gains for the Non-ERI group were significantly greater than zero, although on average, the Non-ERI group did improve on each subtest. (Non-ERI group mean gains ranged from 8.33 to 13 points). All of the gains for the ERI group were significantly greater than zero (p<.05), with mean gains ranging from 7.375 to 16.75 points on the DIBELS subtests. When compared across groups, however, the differences in gains made on DIBELS by each group were not significant. Therefore, it was not clear that ERI was the main cause of the ERI group’s growth. It is suggested that future studies include larger, more accurately matched samples and focus on the effectiveness of ERI over a longer period of time.