Effects of Tier 3 Intervention for Students With Persistent Reading Difficulties and Characteristics of Inadequate Responders

• Published in: Journal of educational psychology 2013-08, Vol.105 (3), p.633-648
• Main Authors: Denton, Carolyn A., Tolar, Tammy D., Fletcher, Jack M., Barth, Amy E., Vaughn, Sharon, Francis, David J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Achievement Gains; Biological and medical sciences; Child clinical studies; Classrooms; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Ability; Control Groups; Developmental disorders; Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS); Educational psychology; Effect Size; Elementary School Students; Experimental Groups; Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests; Grade 1; Grade 2; Human; Individualized Instruction; Instructional Effectiveness; Intervention; Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test; Learning disorders; Medical sciences; Multivariate Analysis; Outcome Measures; Phonemics; Predictor Variables; Pretests Posttests; Program Effectiveness; Program Evaluation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reading; Reading Ability; Reading Comprehension; Reading Difficulties; Reading Education; Reading Fluency; Reading Instruction; Response to Intervention; Student Characteristics; Teaching; United States (Southwest); Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement; Word Recognition
• ISSN: 0022-0663; 1939-2176
• DOI: 10.1037/a0032581

This article describes a randomized controlled trial conducted to evaluate the effects of an intensive, individualized, Tier 3 reading intervention for second grade students who had previously experienced inadequate response to quality first grade classroom reading instruction (Tier 1) and supplemental small-group intervention (Tier 2). Also evaluated were cognitive characteristics of students with inadequate response to intensive Tier 3 intervention. Students were randomized to receive the research intervention (N = 47) or the instruction and intervention typically provided in their schools (N = 25). Results indicated that students who received the research intervention made significantly better growth than those who received typical school instruction on measures of word identification, phonemic decoding, and word reading fluency and on a measure of sentence- and paragraph-level reading comprehension. Treatment effects were smaller and not statistically significant on phonemic decoding efficiency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension in extended text. Effect sizes for all outcomes except oral reading fluency met criteria for substantive importance; however, many of the students in the intervention continued to struggle. An evaluation of cognitive profiles of adequate and inadequate responders was consistent with a continuum of severity (as opposed to qualitative differences), showing greater language and reading impairment prior to the intervention in students who were inadequate responders.