Examining the Effects of Afterschool Reading Interventions for Upper Elementary Struggling Readers

Abstract

We examined the efficacy of an afterschool multicomponent reading intervention for third- through fifth-grade students with reading difficulties. A total of 419 students were identified for participation based on a 90 standard score or below on a screening measure of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension. Participating students were randomly assigned to a business as usual comparison condition or one of two reading treatments. All treatment students received 30 min of computer-based instruction plus 30 min of small-group tutoring for four to five times per week. No statistically significant reading comprehension posttest group differences were identified (p > .05). The limitations of this study included high attrition and absenteeism. These findings extend those from a small sample of experimental studies examining afterschool reading interventions and provide initial evidence that more instruction, after school, may not yield the desired outcome of improved comprehension.

Fluency Interventions for Elementary Students with Reading Difficulties: A Synthesis of Research from 2000–2019

“…For example, Martens et al examined an after-school intervention program which included modeling through listening passage preview and phrase drill error correction [53]. While negligible effects were found for students oral reading fluency, it is unclear if absenteeism and attrition impacted the results as these issues have plagued other after school intervention studies [91]. This suggests the need for future research to examine the context in which these modeling strategies are most effective.…”

Structure Altering Effects of a Multicomponent Reading Intervention: An Application of the Direct and Inferential Mediation (DIME) Model of Reading Comprehension in Upper Elementary Grades

“…This study utilizes data from a large, randomized trial evaluating the efficacy of two after-school reading comprehension interventions implemented with students enrolled in Grades 3 to 5 (Roberts et al, 2018). These grades may represent a key inflection point in students' reading trajectory; studies of component reading skills are necessary and informative, particularly in the context of intensive reading interventions with strong experimental controls.…”

“…The intent-to-treat randomized sample included 419 students who participated in a larger RCT of an after-school reading program (Roberts et al, 2018). Students were sampled from seven participating elementary schools distributed across two school districts in two distinct urban regions in the southwestern United States.…”

From Non-symbolic to Symbolic Proportions and Back: A Cuisenaire Rod Proportional Reasoning Intervention Enhances Continuous Proportional Reasoning Skills

“…Noting the irregular attendance of the intervention (1-24 sessions), we instead adopted a doseresponse framework and performed retrospective analyses (Voils et al, 2014) on the effect of the number of sessions attended on changes in children's performance. Similar approaches have been employed to analyze results of educational interventions with incomplete attendance (Roberts et al, 2018), finding that when attrition rates are high and attendance is irregular, intervention effects might be better characterized by the mediator effects of the number of completed sessions. Specifically, we computed linear mixed effects models using attendance as one of the between-participant fixed factors.…”