This study examined the effect of a parent-implemented reading intervention on children's reading fluency. Five elementary school students identified as at-risk for reading failure participated in the study with their mothers. Baseline data for each student was collected before parents were trained by the researcher in implementation of the intervention procedure. Parents implemented the intervention four times per week for five weeks, while the researcher continued to collect assessment data twice per week. Follow-up data were then collected for each student two weeks after the intervention ended. The effects of the intervention were evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design. Reading fluency was measured using Curriculum-Based Measurement of reading fluency (CBM-R) Results showed that three students had decreasing trends during baseline, but showed increases in reading fluency scores during the intervention and follow-up phases. A fourth student's scores during intervention and follow-up showed improvement over baseline scores, but with decreasing trends. The fifth student showed little change between baseline and intervention phases. Treatment integrity and social validity data also were collected. Integrity data indicated some variability in parents' implementation of the intervention, while social validity data revealed that parents and students liked the intervention program and found it helpful.

Six home-schooled students and one adult participant each initially practiced to accuracy two decks of five previously unknown multiplication facts. The decks were yoked for practice and reinforcement. Once accurate performance was achieved, overpractice was undertaken using custom computer software that allowed either fast (free-operant) or rate controlled responding. Rate-building practice, to an established fluency performance standard, was used with one deck while practice with the other deck was rate-controlled. The number of times a fact was practiced was the same for both methods. Response rate and accuracy was assessed after training to accuracy, at the end of overpractice and after 4 and 8-weeks of no practice. The assessment at the end of rate-building confirmed that rate building resulted in fast and accurate responding. It also confirmed that, for the rate controlled facts, response rates did not meet the fluency performance standard. However, the 4- and 8-week retention assessments showed no consistent differences in accuracy or response rate between the rate-controlled and rate built decks. After 8 weeks without practice, performance on the rate-built deck was not significantly different to that prior to rate building. These results suggest that practice to fluency does not lead to superior retention when compared to the same amount of rate-controlled practice. The results also indicate that when a skill is practiced to fluency, a period without practice leads to deterioration, to pre-rate-building levels, of accuracy and response rate. This study highlights the need for research examining the role of maintenance in the effectiveness of fluency based learning like Precision Teaching.

本研究旨在了解並比較重覆閱讀及非重覆閱讀對於國小四年級學童的口語閱讀流暢度的影響。本研究以台灣北部某國小四年級中的兩個班級為研究對象，共為59人。此閱讀能力相近的兩個班級經隨機分派指定為重覆閱讀組及非重覆閱讀組。在為期16週，每週一節的實驗教學中，重覆閱讀組以重覆閱讀法每週閱讀同一本英文讀本，而非重覆閱讀組以非重覆閱讀法每週閱讀兩本讀本。兩組皆於教學前及教學後接受口語閱讀測驗，以了解接受不同教學法的學童在口語閱讀速度及正確性是否有差異。測驗所得的資料以成對樣本t檢定及獨立樣本t檢定分析進行統計分析。 研究結果顯示重覆閱讀與非重覆閱讀皆能顯著提升研究對象的口語閱讀速度及正確性。此外，非重覆閱讀與重覆閱讀對於受試學童的口語閱讀流暢度顯示相似的成效。此研究結果盼能提供教學者彈性的運用此兩種閱讀教學法並更加重視口語閱讀流暢性的重要。 / The study aims to examine and compare the effect of assisted repeated reading (RR) and non-repeated reading (Non-RR) approaches on EFL young learners' oral reading rate and accuracy rate. Two classes with homogenous reading level consisting of 59 fourth graders were selected from one elementary school in northern Taiwan and were randomly assigned to two groups, the RR and Non-RR group. During the 16-week instruction, one period of class per week, the RR group practiced reading aloud on one reader with assisted repeated reading approach, whereas the Non-RR group practiced reading aloud on two readers with assisted non-repeated reading approach each class. The data collected from the pretest and posttest assessing the participants’ oral reading rate and accuracy rate were analyzed by paired samples t-tests and independent samples t-tests. The results revealed that the RR and Non-RR groups performed equivalent growth on their reading rate and accuracy rate with significant improvement. It is hoped that the findings provide a deeper understanding on the effect of assisted repeated reading and non-repeated reading on EFL young learners’ oral reading fluency and are applied in classrooms.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between comprehension and fluency during reading. The notion that oral reading fluency can facilitate reading comprehension is well established in the research literature on the development of reading comprehension. However, more recent models have questioned the unidirectionality of this relationship and have suggested that reading comprehension may increase fluency through reading rate. This hypothesis was examined via analyses of second grade students' oral reading of connected texts. Four previewing conditions which isolated lexical effects, comprehension effects, and prosody effects on oral reading fluency were manipulated in an experiment and the effects on students' passage reading times and prosody were evaluated. Students who were on-level readers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions consisting of word preview (lexical factor), listening preview (prosody and comprehension factor), summary preview (comprehension factor) and no preview. Following the preview, students were asked to read passages aloud. Analyses of Covariance were performed to test the effects of lexical priming, comprehension priming and prosodic modeling on oral reading fluency as measured in correct words per minute (CWPM) and prosodic reading, while controlling for students overall achievement in reading as measured by the STAR-R score. The results showed significant differences in CWPM favouring the listening preview and summary preview over the no-preview condition for students at lower levels of fluency performance. The results are discussed in relation to theories of reading that highlight the role of comprehension and fluency in the integration of information during reading.

Monitoring Academic Progress: Reading (MAP: R), a silent, group-administered screener was piloted as part of a comprehensive Response to Intervention program. MAP: R along with AIMSweb© Maze and STAR reading were administered to 1,688 students in Grades 1-3. Overall alternate-form reliabilities for MAP: R resulted in moderately high stability (Grade 1 = .79, Grade 2 = .78, and Grade 3 = .75). Test-retest reliability was .90 for Grade1, .84 for Grade 2, and .89 for Grade 3. Concurrent validity, correlations for MAP: R and AIMSweb© Maze ranged from .43 to .69, with correlations for MAP: R and STAR ranging from .48 to .67. Predictive validity was determined using end-of-the-year STAR reading scores as the criterion for MAP: R and AIMSweb© Maze. Results of a stepwise regression indicated that MAP: R scores predicted 37% of the variance in STAR scores and AIMSweb© Maze failed to add additional predictive variance. Data support the utility of MAP: R as a reading screener for progress monitoring within a Response to Intervention framework, though additional data are needed.

The recognition that YouTube, a free-access video sharing website, is being widely used as a source of public information has lead medical researchers to conduct studies on health-related videos. However, it appears that educational researchers have not explored YouTube videos about reading instruction, given that no published studies could be located on this topic. The current study conducted controlled searches related to the “big five” areas of early elementary reading instruction as identified by the National Reading Panel (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension). Search results were recorded and the top 40 “most relevant” videos on each topic were analyzed to determine information about viewership, format, content, and creators of the videos. Results indicated that while YouTube videos addressing all five areas of reading instruction were prolific and highly viewed, users would need to be critical, informed, and tech-savvy in order to find relevant videos from credible sources.

The recognition that YouTube, a free-access video sharing website, is being widely used as a source of public information has lead medical researchers to conduct studies on health-related videos. However, it appears that educational researchers have not explored YouTube videos about reading instruction, given that no published studies could be located on this topic. The current study conducted controlled searches related to the “big five” areas of early elementary reading instruction as identified by the National Reading Panel (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension). Search results were recorded and the top 40 “most relevant” videos on each topic were analyzed to determine information about viewership, format, content, and creators of the videos. Results indicated that while YouTube videos addressing all five areas of reading instruction were prolific and highly viewed, users would need to be critical, informed, and tech-savvy in order to find relevant videos from credible sources.

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.

Multiple domains of deficit have been proposed to account for the apparent reading failure of children with a reading disability. Deficits in both phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming are consistently linked with the development of a reading disability in young school age children. Less research, however, has sought to connect these two reading related processes to global theories of deficit, such as temporal processing deficits, in the explanation of reading fluency difficulties. This study sought to explore the relationship between aspects of temporal processing, as indexed through measures of motor fluency and control, and measures of reading related processes, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming, to word reading fluency. Using structural equation modeling, measures of patterned motor movement were found to be negatively and significantly related to measures of phonological awareness. Measures of oral and repetitive movement were found to be positively and significantly related to measures of patterned movement. Finally, phonological awareness was found to be a significant predictor of word reading fluency both independently and through rapid automatized naming. No direct relationship between measures of motor control and fluency and word reading fluency was found. These findings suggest that temporal processing, as indexed by measures of motor fluency and control, are moderately predictive of the facility with which a child with a reading disability can access, manipulate, and reproduce phonetically based information. Implications for the inclusion of motor based measures in the assessment of children with reading disabilities and future directions for research are discussed.

Specialundervisning och nivågruppering i matematik har inte så stor effekt (Bentley &amp; Bentley, 2011; Giota &amp; Emanuelsson, 2011) och vår skollag (2010:800) gör gällande att undervisningen ska ske inom klassens ram. Med detta som utgångspunkt designades denna studie. Studien genomfördes med 21 elever i år två under nitton lektioner. Syftet var att se om intensivundervisning med hjälp av strukturerad undervisning kan ge effekt på elevernas automatisering av additions och subtraktionstabellerna inom talområde 0-20. Studien genomfördes som en experimentell design med fältexperiment och metoderna i studien var deltagande observation, fältanteckningar och diagnoser.  Observationerna och fältanteckningarna visar ett exempel på hur strukturerad intensivundervisning kan planeras och diagnosernas resultat indikerar på att strukturerad intensivundervisning i aritmetik med ett inkluderande perspektiv har positiv effekt på elevernas automatisering. / Special education and abilitygrouping in mathematics have not shown a great effect (Bentley &amp; Bentley, 2011; Giota &amp; Emanuelsson, 2011) and our Education Act (2010:800) argues that students should be taught in the frame of the class. The study was based on this knowledge, which was conducted with 21 students in their second year for nineteen lessons. The aim was to see if intensive teaching has any effect on students´ procedural fluency of counting addition and subtraction within the numberrange 0-20. The study was conducted as an experimental design of fieldexperiments and the methods in the study were participant observation, fieldnotes and diagnoses. The observation and the fieldnotes show an example of how structured intensive teaching can be planned and the results of the diagnoses indicate that structured intensive teaching in aritmetic in an inclusive perspective has a positive effect on students´ procedural fluency.