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Fluency instruction has had limited effects on reading comprehension relative to reading rate and prosodic reading (Dowhower, 1987; Herman, 1985; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000a). More specific components (i.e., error detection) of comprehension may yield larger effects through exposure to a wider range of materials than repeated readings (Kuhn, 2005b). Thirty-three students reading below college level were randomly assigned to a Repeated Readings (RR), a Wide Reading (WR), or a Vocabulary Study (VS) condition and received training in 9 sessions of 30 minutes in a Southeast community college. RR students read an instructional-level text consecutively four times before answering comprehension questions about it; WR students read four instructional-level texts each once and answered questions while the VS group studied and took a quiz on academic vocabulary. An additional 13 students reading at college level provided comparison data. At pretest, all participants completed the Nelson Denny Reading Test, Test of Word Reading Efficiency, Error Detection task (Albrecht & O'Brien, 1993), working memory test, Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI; Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002), a maze test, Author Recognition Test (ART), and reading survey. All pretest measures except for the ART and reading surveys were re-administered at posttest to training groups. Paired-samples t-test analyses revealed (a) significant gains for the WR condition in vocabulary (p = .043), silent reading rate (p < .05), maze (p < .05) and working memory (p < .05) (b) significant gains for the RR students in silent reading rate (p = .05) and maze (p = .006) and (c) significant increases on vocabulary (p < .05), maze (p = .005), and MARSI (p < .005) for the VS group at posttest. Unreliable patterns of error detection were observed for all groups at pretest and post-test. Results suggest that effects of fluency instruction be sought at the local level processes of reading using the maze test, which reliably detected reading improvements from fluency instruction (RR, WR) and vocabulary study (VS) in only 9 sessions. With significant gains on more reading measures, the WR condition appears superior to the RR condition as a fluency program for struggling college readers. Combining the WR condition with vocabulary study may augment students’ gains.

Reading is an essential skill for students with physical disabilities which opens up opportunities in many areas of an individual’s life including the acquisition of knowledge, the ability to read for enjoyment, and the chances of gaining employment. Students with physical disabilities often do not read fluently; however, there is a lack of research on instructional methods to address reading fluency with this population. Methodologies used with students who have physical disabilities are often borrowed from other populations (e.g., the use of repeated readings to increase fluency with students with learning disabilities). Additionally, advances in technology suggest the possible use of computers to model reading. This study employed a changing criterion design to examine the use of a treatment package consisting of repeated readings, computer modeling, error correction, and performance feedback on improving reading fluency with students with cerebral palsy. The areas of reading comprehension and accuracy were also examined. An analysis of the data demonstrated that all students were able to increase reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension from first to final readings within a session (positive nontransfer effects). Analysis of the percentage of nonoverlapping data revealed that three of the four students also showed slight increases in reading fluency on novel passages (positive transfer effects). Although the results of this study indicated that the treatment package was effective with students who have physical disabilities, more research is needed to examine individual components of the treatment package and to evaluate the use of such methods over a lengthier period of time.

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The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has mandated that all public school students will be reading at grade level by the 2013-2014 school year. Florida has embarked on an agenda to ensure that the kindergarten through high school student population is reading at or above grade level by 2014. Many of Florida's low-performing student population, including middle school students with high incidence disabilities, are reading below grade level. Using a multiple baseline across subjects design, this study examined the impact of computer-assisted repeated readings on the reading performance of three middle school students with mild intellectual disabilities over the course of 67 days. Results showed an improvement in reading fluency rate using instructional level text. The study was evaluated using quality indicators of single-subject research in special education. Future research is advocated to replicate this study across different grades and exceptionalities.

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