An Experimental Evaluation of a Direct Instruction Programme (Corrective Reading) with Remedial Readers in a Comprehensive School

A Direct Instruction approach to remedial reading (Corrective Reading Programme) was evaluated in an urban Comprehensive school over two school years. First year remedial readers were randomly allocated to one experimental and two control groups. Groups were matched for sex. A similar procedure was followed in the second study carried out with the following group of first year remedial readers.

In the first three months of the first study all groups were monitored while receiving the school's usual remedial reading programme. They made comparable gains during this baseline period. Covariance analysis indicated that in the first study the experimental group and control group I (a ‘novelty’ programme) made significantly greater gains, in accuracy and comprehension, than control group 2 (the usual remedial reading programme). Findings from the second study confirmed the suggestion that gains for the experimental group in the first study were partly due to ‘novelty’ effects. Both experimental groups developed better strategies for tackling oral reading tasks (as assessed by miscue analysis) than control groups, however.