The Effects of Individualized Literacy Interventions on Eighth-Grade Students’ Perceived Self-Efficacy in Content Reading and Reading Achievement

Abstract

Many middle school students struggle to reach proficiency in reading. The implications of their struggle for success in high school and beyond are far-reaching. Literacy interventions at the middle school level are vital to addressing skill deficiencies and related challenges facing adolescents in the United States. Using individualized literacy interventions featuring fluency, guided reading, word study, and academic vocabulary this study examined grade equivalencies of 41 eighth-grade students over a four-month period. Twenty of the 41 students were randomly selected and randomly assigned to one of two groups: (a) weekly one-to-one self-efficacy debriefing sessions (experimental, n=9) and (b) no debriefing sessions (control, n=10). (One student left the school district during the study.) The Self-Efficacy Formative Questionnaire was administered on a pre-test/post-test basis to the 19 randomly selected students. Results were analyzed using an independent sample t-test to determine the effectiveness of the conferencing interventions and indicated a clear, yet non-significant pattern of a sense of literacy-related selfefficacy on the part of the 9 students who received the weekly self-efficacy debriefing sessions.