Abstract
Reading difficulties that are not addressed at the primary level continue to exist at the secondary level with serious consequences. Thus, it is important to provide struggling students with specific reading support. In particular, many students with learning disabilities (LD) and emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) demonstrate reading obstacles and are at risk for motivation loss. A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of a motivational reading racetrack as peer-tutoring on the word reading skills of secondary students with LD with and without EBD. The intervention was conducted through 4–5 baseline and 16–18 reading units three times a week for 15 min over 8 weeks. The results showed positive effects indicating a highly effective treatment. In addition, follow-up results were also promising. Our findings indicate that this multicomponent intervention has a positive effect on the word fluidity of low-achieving students in secondary education with LD and/or EBD.
Highlights
The Importance of Reading at the Secondary LevelDifficulties in reading at the secondary level are considered more serious than reading challenges at the primary level (Guerin and Murphy, 2015)
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of a peertutorial reading racetrack intervention on the word fluency of secondary students with learning disabilities (LD) and those with a co-morbidity of LD and emotional behavioral disorders (EBD)
In line with other research (e.g., Hyde et al, 2009; Green et al, 2010; Erbey et al, 2011; Hopewell et al, 2011; Grünke, 2019), our results indicate that the reading racetrack intervention described in this paper was very effective in improving students’ ability to automate the reading of trained words
Summary
The Importance of Reading at the Secondary LevelDifficulties in reading at the secondary level are considered more serious than reading challenges at the primary level (Guerin and Murphy, 2015). The Importance of Reading at the Secondary Level. The promotion of reading at secondary level is often neglected (Edmonds et al, 2009). Students with reading difficulties move further and further away from their typically performing peers, with the result that many fail to meet the requirements for each grade level. A recent edition of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) revealed that compared to the PISA survey in 2015, the reading performance of German youth had worsened (European Commission, 2018). 21% performed below level 2 in reading which can be seen as high. The survey showed that struggling German 15-year-olds did not enjoy reading as much as youth in other countries [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (ECD), 2019].
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