Bolstering Middle School Students' Component Reading Skills: An Evaluation of the Lexia® PowerUp Literacy® Blended Learning Program

Unfortunately, far too many American adolescents are unable to read proficiently. The science of reading suggests explicit instruction in both word identification and language processing skills should bolster reading proficiency, but most commercial reading interventions for secondary students focus...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computers in the schools 2022, Vol.39 (1), p.80-97
Main Authors: Hurwitz, Lisa B., Macaruso, Paul, Thang, Sarah, Studwell, Jamie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blended Learning
Computer Software Evaluation
Digital technology
Grade 6
Grammar
Intervention
Language Processing
Learning programs
Literacy
Literacy Education
Middle School Students
Natural language processing
Program Effectiveness
Reading Comprehension
Reading Instruction
reading intervention
Reading Skills
Skills
Students
syntactic processing
word identification
Word Recognition
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Summary:Unfortunately, far too many American adolescents are unable to read proficiently. The science of reading suggests explicit instruction in both word identification and language processing skills should bolster reading proficiency, but most commercial reading interventions for secondary students focus exclusively on the latter skill area. This study explored the effectiveness of the Lexia PowerUp Literacy program (PowerUp), a digital reading intervention that provides explicit instruction in word identification, grammar, and comprehension. There were 122 sixth-grade students attending low-SES schools who participated in this year-long study. Students who used PowerUp showed significantly greater gains on an assessment of word identification, syntactic processing, and basic reading comprehension skills compared to students using an alternative program that offered opportunities to apply comprehension strategies in the absence of explicit and skills-based instruction. Results demonstrate the value of instruction extending beyond comprehension strategies to incorporate the full complement of skills needed for reading proficiency.
ISSN:0738-0569
1528-7033
DOI:10.1080/07380569.2022.2037298