The purpose of this study was to determine if an individualized reading program, Accelerated Reader combined with the core reading program, Reading Mastery would produce a greater increase in oral reading fluency and grade level performance, than relying solely on the core reading program to accomplish this. Furthermore, this study sought to determine whether students with learning disabilities who were provided reading instruction through the Reading Mastery program and the Accelerated Reader program would demonstrate comparable growth in oral reading fluency and grade level performance on selected reading assessments (DIBELS and STAR Reading). This study looked at the differences in student performance between those who had been using Accelerated Reader since August 2014 versus those who began in January 2015. In this longitudinal study, 85 first grade students in a rural, southeastern state were assessed with the DIBELS (oral reading fluency) and STAR Reading (grade level equivalency) assessment during the fall, winter, and spring screenings. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance determined if there was a statistically significant difference between the fall and spring screenings of the STAR Reading assessment and the winter and spring screenings of the DIBELS assessment. Additionally, it determined if the oral reading fluency and grade level performance was statistically significantly different for students depending on whether they received special education services. The findings of this study revealed that when the Accelerated Reader program, is used with the Reading Mastery program, students statistically increase their oral reading fluency and grade level performance scores when instructed for 17 weeks and 34 weeks. However, the scores of the students who received 34 weeks improved more than the scores of students who only received it for 17 weeks. Additionally, scores of the students who did not receive special education services improved more than the scores of students who received special education services. Although the students who received special education services did not make the same increase in reading fluency and grade level performance, statistically significant within-person gains were still made for this student population, which increased their reading fluency and grade level performance.

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published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (Specialist in Ed.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Psychology, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], v, 62 p. : ill. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-45).

Thesis (Ed. S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Psychology, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-39).

xi, 111 p. / Matching reading deficits to appropriate intervention programs is a challenge given the number of treatment options available to educators. The Fast ForWord (FFW) computerized intervention series has been marketed as a way to treat underlying causes of poor reading skill; i.e., substandard levels of basic language skill, phonemic awareness, and/or phonics application. If the programs work as claimed, then completion of Fast ForWord should improve the next reading subskill developed after phonics, oral reading fluency. Part 1 of this study involves a treatment ( n = 72) versus comparison ( n = 84) group two by two ANOVA to evaluate that hypothesis. No effect for FFW is found ( p = .84). Application of decision rules from Response to Intervention (RTI) models classifies positive changes in risk category at a greater rate for the comparison group ( n = 31) than for the FFW group ( n = 20) ( X 2 = 3.81, (1), p = .05). Pre-intervention language scores for the FFW group are compared to assist with intervention placement decisions. Differences in mean language scores are not significant ( p = .85) between the two groups [positive response ( n = 19) versus low response ( n = 57)]. In a binary logistic regression of quartile membership for language scores, no score ranges predict membership ( X 2 = 4.75, (8), p > .05). Measuring treatment effect with ORF is not recommended. The use of pre-intervention language and ORF scores below the 25th percentile as indicators of a positive change in oral reading fluency following FFW treatment also is not recommended. However, future research that considers language scores along with other curriculum-based measures of prereading skill either as pre-intervention indicators or outcome measures is recommended. / Committee in charge: Dr. Paul Yovanoff, Chair; Dr. Keith Hollenbeck, Member; Dr. Joseph Stevens, Member; Dr. Jeffery Sprague, Outside Member

The main purpose of this investigation was to analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively reader's oral reading miscues and the retellings of Venezuelan fourth graders in five Venezuelan dialect regions. The major question to be answered was: In what ways do Venezuelan children who speak variations of Spanish use their syntactic, semantic, graphophonic and pragmatic systems and their reading strategies (sampling, predicting, confirming, and correcting) in their process of meaning construction during oral reading? The answer to the major research question reveals that informants from the highlands: Merida and Trujillo are more proficient readers in their meaning construction. In the group of informants from the lowlands the percentages show that at least half of the subjects are similar to the most proficient readers from the highlands. The findings are supportive of a definition of reading as meaning construction. They were able to retell the events in an ordered sequence and to name and develop most of the characters in the story. There were no major dialect features differences between the five Venezuelan regions' informants. Most of the dialect features that children displayed in the oral reading were also present in reader's oral retellings. Among these groups of informants, their dialect can be considered as an unrelated factor to their reading proficiency.

The Review of the Five Year Education Plan (1976-1980) carried out by the Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research (IASER,1979) presented thoroughly researched, factual information regarding the standard of education in Papua New Guinea. The Review stated that there had been a decline in standards of education. It claimed that "there [was] the greatest need for a more highly skilled and dedicated professional group of teachers" (IASER,1979:61) and that considerable dissatisfaction had been noted at community level because of the "reported evidence that many Grade 6 leavers [were] illiterate" (IASER,1979:24). Since English is the nationally prescribed language of instruction at all levels of education, the standard achieved in English is particularly important. It has been shown that the skills students have in the use of English "stand out as contributing most in overall academic prediction" (Ord,1971:8). It is also claimed that a psycholinguistic analysis of oral reading miscues following the taxonomy of Goodman (1968,1971,1977) enables the researcher to examine the subject's total language competence and that such an analysis can reveal the degree of bilingualism achieved by second language learners (Allen,1976). The purpose of this study was therefore, to examine the oral reading of a large sample of first-year students at Teachers' College in Papua New Guinea. It was hypothesised that a pattern of strengths and weaknesses would emerge from the study of oral reading miscues (Goodman and Burke,1971). It was further hypothesised that an examination of the actual problems that were revealed by an analysis of the miscues would provide evidence to be used as the basis for recommendations to be formulated regarding the teaching of Reading in the Community Schools of Papua New Guinea and also regarding remedial and developmental emphases that might prove beneficial to students in the Teachers' Colleges. On the basis of this research it would appear that students at College level do have "serious reading problems" (Price,1973: 15) and that they are unable to read text judged to be College level with understanding. Students seemed to have achieved a certain degree of oral fluency in reading which could be the result of their skill in using the grapho-phonic and syntactic cueing systems. However, this fluency was found to cloak a lack of understanding of content. There was evidence that students achieved a relatively low level of comprehension when the readings contained concepts that were familiar; however, when the concepts contained in the passage were unfamiliar, the scores for Comprehension were significantly lower. During the retelling of passages read orally, students gave evidence of a relatively low level of facility in English expression. It was judged to be doubtful that in the period of their training those students could acquire the command of oral English considered indispensible for their profession in an education system where the English language is the medium of instruction. The students tested were the products of the present national policy of education through English from Grade One. While changes regarding the optimum academic level of students to be accepted into Teachers' Colleges, necessary inservicing of College Staff, appropriate Courses in Educational Psychology and English Language Method have been recommended, these can only be seen as remedial. In order to effect the desired change at the Teachers' College Level it would seem necessary to introduce change at the level of the Community Schools in the language of initial literacy.