Higher-Order Comprehension Processes in Struggling Readers: A Perspective for Research and Intervention

Many children struggle to learn to read, and these difficulties can persist well into adulthood. To address this problem, researchers have investigated the processes that underlie reading. An informative body of work has thus identified basic skills (e.g., decoding, vocabulary knowledge) as necessary for successful reading. Researchers also have begun to examine comprehension skills and their contributions to the reading process. In this article we describe research from the cognitive sciences on the processes that underlie higher-order, coherence-oriented comprehension to provide an empirically and theoretically driven perspective for investigating struggling readers' difficulties. We show that this perspective is particularly beneficial in the development and assessment of instructional approaches by relating it to existing, effective interventions. Finally, we demonstrate how our own research activities have derived from this perspective and how preliminary findings extend our understanding of readers' difficulties. This work seeks to address existing challenges in the field of reading comprehension while also suggesting new ways of investigating the plight of struggling readers.     

Making Connections: Linking Cognitive Psychology and Intervention Research to Improve Comprehension of Struggling Readers

Many studies have demonstrated the efficacy of reading comprehension interventions for struggling readers, including students with learning disabilities. Yet, some readers continue to struggle with comprehension despite receiving these interventions. In this article, we argue that an explicit link between cognitive psychology and intervention research contributes to knowledge regarding for whom and under what conditions reading comprehension interventions are most likely to be beneficial. First, we provide a brief overview of a cognitive perspective on reading comprehension. Next, we illustrate an application of this perspective by describing a collaborative project in which we examined interactions among reader characteristics, text properties, and instructional contexts. Last, we highlight directions for future research and implications for practice.     

An Examination of a Small‐Group Decoding Intervention for Struggling Readers: Comparing Accuracy and Automaticity Criteria

In this study, we compared methods to improve the decoding and reading fluency of struggling readers. Second‐grade poor readers were randomly assigned to one of the two practice conditions within a repeated reading intervention. Both interventions were in small groups, were 20–28 min long, took place 2–4 days per week, and consisted of phonemic awareness training, letter sound practice, and practice in word families. Students in the accuracy condition (n= 27) practiced each page until they reached 98 percent accuracy while students in the accuracy + automaticity condition (n= 29) practiced until they reached rate (30–90 cwpm) and accuracy criteria. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed no differences between practice conditions in decoding accuracy, reading comprehension, and grade‐level text reading fluency. Significant differences favoring the accuracy + automaticity group were found in measures of decoding automaticity.     

A Diagnostic Teaching Intervention for Classroom Teachers: Helping Struggling Readers in Early Elementary School

With the advent of “Response to Intervention” there has been emphasis on preventing reading disabilities. This study examined the effectiveness of a classroom teacher Tier II intervention for struggling readers in kindergarten and first grade called the Targeted Reading Intervention. Three rural schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions, with 8 experimental and 12 control classrooms. Five struggling and five non‐struggling readers were randomly selected from each classroom. With the support of biweekly coaching, experimental teachers instructed struggling readers in one‐on‐one sessions in the classroom. Intent‐to‐treat analyses revealed significant kindergarten gains for initial word identification but no significant gains in first grade. Discussion focuses on the use of classroom teachers to prevent reading disabilities.     

Formative Assessment: A Meta‐Analysis and a Call for Research

An effect size of about .70 (or .40–.70) is often claimed for the efficacy of formative assessment, but is not supported by the existing research base. More than 300 studies that appeared to address the efficacy of formative assessment in grades K‐12 were reviewed. Many of the studies had severely flawed research designs yielding uninterpretable results. Only 13 of the studies provided sufficient information to calculate relevant effect sizes. A total of 42 independent effect sizes were available. The median observed effect size was .25. Using a random effects model, a weighted mean effect size of .20 was calculated. Moderator analyses suggested that formative assessment might be more effective in English language arts (ELA) than in mathematics or science, with estimated effect sizes of .32, .17, and .09, respectively. Two types of implementation of formative assessment, one based on professional development and the other on the use of computer‐based formative systems, appeared to be more effective than other approaches, yielding mean effect size of .30 and .28, respectively. Given the wide use and potential efficacy of good formative assessment practices, the paucity of the current research base is problematic. A call for more high‐quality studies is issued.     

Language‐Focused Interventions on Math Performance for English Learners: A Selective Meta‐Analysis of the Literature

This meta‐analysis synthesized research on math performance outcomes for English learners (EL) as a function of language‐focused (math vocabulary) interventions. We included group and single‐subject design studies with children from kindergarten to 8th grade (3,766 students for group, 30 for single‐subject). Group studies yielded a mean Hedges’ g of 0.26 in favor of the interventions relative to the control conditions, whereas single‐subject studies yielded a mean Percentage of Non‐Overlapping Data of 81.01% and Phi coefficient of .66 relative to baseline. Although group studies yielded small effect sizes (ESs), we found significant moderators for grade level, intervention focus, and length of intervention. Single‐subject studies yielded higher ESs than group studies, and were considered generally effective, with a high ES. This finding was attributed to a direct focus on children with math difficulties and one‐to‐one instruction. The implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

A Meta‐Analysis of Research on the Read Aloud Accommodation

Read aloud is a testing accommodation that has been studied by many researchers, and its use on K‐12 assessments continues to be debated because of its potential to change the measured construct or unfairly increase test scores. This study is a summary of quantitative research on the read aloud accommodation. Previous studies contributed information to compute average effect sizes for students with disabilities, students without disabilities, and the difference between groups for reading and mathematics using a random effects meta‐analytic approach. Results suggest that (1) effect sizes are larger for reading than for math for both student groups, (2) the read aloud accommodation increases reading test scores for both groups, but more so for students with disabilities, and (3) mathematics scores gains due to the read aloud accommodation are small for both students with and without disabilities, on average. There was some evidence to suggest larger effects in elementary school relative to middle and high school and possible mode effects, but more studies are needed within levels of the moderator variables to conduct statistical tests.     

Meta‐Analysis of Mathematic Basic‐Fact Fluency Interventions: A Component Analysis

Mathematics fluency is a critical component of mathematics learning yet few attempts have been made to synthesize this research base. Seventeen single‐case design studies with 55 participants were reviewed using meta‐analytic procedures. A component analysis of practice elements was conducted and treatment intensity and feasibility were examined. Findings suggest that drill and practice with modeling produced the largest effect sizes. Treatments with more than 3 components yielded higher effect sizes than those with fewer than 3, and a combination of treatment agents lead to better outcomes than a single agent. Other findings pertaining to prebaseline assessment, treatment time, experimental design employed, and treatment setting are also discussed.     

A Rhythmic Musical Intervention for Poor Readers: A Comparison of Efficacy With a Letter‐Based Intervention

There is growing evidence that children with reading difficulties show impaired auditory rhythm perception and impairments in musical beat perception tasks. Rhythmic musical interventions with poorer readers may thus improve rhythmic entrainment and consequently improve reading and phonological skills. Here we compare the effects of a musical intervention for poor readers with a software intervention of known efficacy based on rhyme training and phoneme‐grapheme learning. The research question was whether the musical intervention would produce gains of comparable effect sizes to the phoneme‐grapheme intervention for children who were falling behind in reading development. Broadly, the two interventions had similar benefits for literacy, with large effect sizes.     

A Meta‐Analysis of Empirical Research on Teaching Students with Mathematics Learning Difficulties

This article quantitatively summarizes experimental and quasi‐experimental studies on teaching students with mathematics difficulties (MD) published between 2000 and 2014, research that was available following earlier syntheses. It reports the analysis of effect sizes of 25 intervention studies on participant characteristics, intervention parameters, domains of mathematics interventions, and instructional approaches and components. Results indicate that several participant characteristics (e.g., grade level and level of mathematics difficulties) and intervention parameters (e.g., methodological soundness, intervention agent, and grouping) mediated the treatment effects. In addition, different types of instructional approaches and several instructional components contributed to the improvements in mathematics performance in students with MD.     

Science Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Although science has received much attention as a political and educational initiative, students with learning disabilities (LD) perform significantly lower than their nondisabled peers. This meta‐analysis evaluates the effectiveness of instructional strategies in science for students with LD. Twelve studies were examined, summarized, and grouped according to the type of strategy implemented. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for each study. Across all studies, a mean ES of .78 was obtained, indicating a moderate positive effect on students with LD science achievement. Findings also align with past reviews of inquiry‐based instruction for students with special needs, indicating that students with LD need structure within an inquiry science approach in order to be successful. Additionally, results suggest that mnemonic instruction is highly effective at increasing learning disabled students' acquisition and retention of science facts.     

Implicit Theories of Personality and Attributions of Hostile Intent: A Meta‐Analysis,an Experiment,and a Longitudinal Intervention

Past research has shown that hostile schemas and adverse experiences predict the hostile attributional bias. This research proposes that seemingly nonhostile beliefs (implicit theories about the malleability of personality) may also play a role in shaping it. Study 1 meta‐analytically summarized 11 original tests of this hypothesis (N = 1,659), and showed that among diverse adolescents aged 13–16 a fixed or entity theory about personality traits predicted greater hostile attributional biases, which mediated an effect on aggressive desires. Study 2 experimentally changed adolescents' implicit theories toward a malleable or incremental view and showed a reduction in hostile intent attributions. Study 3 delivered an incremental theory intervention that reduced hostile intent attributions and aggressive desires over an 8‐month period.     

Meta‐analysis and mega‐analysis: A simple introduction

Statistical methods are increasingly being used to integrate findings from the ever‐expanding universe of empirical research. Meta‐analysis encompasses various techniques for synthesizing summary statistics, and mega‐analysis pools raw data across studies. This paper offers an introduction to meta‐analysis and mega‐analysis that complements the study of analysis of variance (ANOVA). After a brief conceptual discussion, we provide simple numerical examples.     

Writing Characteristics of Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder: A Meta‐Analysis

Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) frequently experience significant difficulty mastering basic academic skills. This meta‐analysis focuses on one specific potential area of learning difficulties for these students: namely, writing. To identify the extent and depth of the potential writing challenges faced by students with ADHD, we conducted a meta‐analysis comparing the writing performance of grade 1 to 12 students with ADHD to their normally achieving peers. We located 44 papers, yielding 45 studies with 87 effect sizes. The average weighted effect sizes showed that students with ADHD obtained lower scores than their normally achieving peers for writing quality (–0.78), output (–0.64), number of genre elements (–0.69), vocabulary (–0.76), spelling (–0.80), and handwriting (–0.62). Contrary to expectations, moderator analyses found that neither study quality nor the source from which ADHD students were drawn (i.e., school/community vs. clinic/hospital) accounted for variability above sampling error alone.     

The Effects of One versus Two Years of Intensive Reading Intervention Implemented with Late Elementary Struggling Readers

We examined the effectiveness of a researcher‐provided reading intervention with 484 fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. Students were randomly assigned to one year of intervention, two years of intervention, or a business‐as‐usual comparison condition (BAU). Students assigned to two years of intervention demonstrated significantly greater gains in reading fluency compared to students who received one year of intervention and the BAU group. Students in both the one‐ and two‐year groups demonstrated similar and significantly larger gains in word reading in comparison to the BAU group. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups on standardized measures of reading comprehension. We discuss these results in the context of research with late elementary and secondary students targeting reading comprehension.     

Family Correlates of False Belief Understanding in Early Childhood: A Meta‐Analysis

This meta‐analysis seeks to integrate findings from 25 years of research on family correlates of young children's false belief understanding (FBU). Using data from 93 studies of 3‐ to 7‐year‐old children, we examined the correlations between FBU and four of the most widely studied family factors: parental socioeconomic status, number of siblings, parental mental‐state talk, and mind‐mindedness. FBU exhibited modest associations with each family variable and these associations held even when individual differences in verbal ability were taken into account. Moderator analyses revealed key child‐related factors (e.g., age, gender) as well as methodological factors that amplified or attenuated the relations between FBU and each family variable. Crucially, available longitudinal data highlight the importance of family factors in the development of FBU.     

The Effects of Read‐Aloud Accommodations for Students With and Without Disabilities: A Meta‐Analysis

Read‐aloud accommodations have been proposed as a way to help remove barriers faced by students with disabilities in reading comprehension. Many empirical studies have examined the effects of read‐aloud accommodations; however, the results are mixed. With a variance‐known hierarchical linear modeling approach, based on 114 effect sizes from 23 studies, a meta‐analysis was conducted to examine the effects of read‐aloud accommodations for students with and without disabilities. In general, both students with disabilities and students without disabilities benefited from the read‐aloud accommodations, and the accommodation effect size for students with disabilities was significantly larger than the effect size for students without disabilities. Further, this meta‐analysis reveals important factors that influence the effects of read‐aloud accommodations. For instance, the accommodation effect was significantly stronger when the subject area was reading than when the subject area was math. The effect of read‐aloud accommodations was also significantly stronger when the test was read by human proctors than when it was read by video/audio players or computers. Finally, the implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Integrating Scenario‐Based and Component Reading Skill Measures to Understand the Reading Behavior of Struggling Readers

In recent years, researchers, educators, and policy makers have called for a new generation of reading comprehension assessments (e.g., Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008). Advocates of this movement argue for a deeper type of reading assessment, one that captures students’ ability to not only understand single texts in isolation but also to engage in purposeful, multisource integration of sources. While this shift in how we define and measure reading comprehension is laudable, assessments must also measure the fundamental reading skills that may impede higher‐level comprehension processes. This article presents data from two assessments that were designed to work in tandem to provide a more complete picture of reading comprehension. Middle school students were given a component skills battery which measured core reading skills such as word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, and morphology, as well a second assessment designed to measure reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was measured using a scenario‐based assessment approach, which required students to read a range of sources to fulfill a particular reading goal. The results indicate that students, including struggling readers, were able to read, understand, and problem solve in complex learning environments, but students’ ability to do so was often tempered by their basic reading skills. We argue that including a measure of component skills alongside a measure of higher‐level comprehension is beneficial in interpreting student performance. Accordingly, we present the results on the scenario‐based measure as a function of reading component skills and argue for the value of using this approach for struggling readers.     

Mean Effects of Test Accommodations for ELLs and Non‐ELLs: A Meta‐Analysis of Experimental Studies

The objective was to examine the impact of different types of accommodations on performance in content tests such as mathematics. The meta‐analysis included 14 U.S. studies that randomly assigned school‐aged English language learners (ELLs) to test accommodation versus control conditions or used repeated measures in counter‐balanced order. Individual effect sizes (Glass's d) were calculated for 50 groups of ELLs and 32 groups of non‐ELLs. Individual effect sizes for English language and native language accommodations were classified into groups according to type of accommodation and timing conditions. Means and standard errors were calculated for each category. The findings suggest that accommodations that require extra printed materials need generous time limits for both the accommodated and unaccommodated groups to ensure that they are effective, equivalent in scale to the original test, and therefore more valid owing to reduced construct‐irrelevant variance. Computer‐administered glossaries were effective even when time limits were restricted. Although the Plain English accommodation had very small average effect sizes, inspection of individual effect sizes suggests that it may be much more effective for ELLs at intermediate levels of English language proficiency. For Spanish‐speaking students with low proficiency in English, the Spanish test version had the highest individual effect size (+1.45).     

The Relation of Moral Emotion Attributions to Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior: A Meta‐Analysis

This meta‐analytic review of 42 studies covering 8,009 participants (ages 4–20) examines the relation of moral emotion attributions to prosocial and antisocial behavior. A significant association is found between moral emotion attributions and prosocial and antisocial behaviors (d = .26, 95% CI [.15, .38]; d = .39, 95% CI [.29, .49]). Effect sizes differ considerably across studies and this heterogeneity is attributed to moderator variables. Specifically, effect sizes for predicted antisocial behavior are larger for self‐attributed moral emotions than for emotions attributed to hypothetical story characters. Effect sizes for prosocial and antisocial behaviors are associated with several other study characteristics. Results are discussed with respect to the potential significance of moral emotion attributions for the social behavior of children and adolescents.