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The overall purposes of this research study were to examine the efficacy of Tier 2 first-grade tutoring as an approach to improve reading performance and preclude reading disability (RD), to assess RD prevalence and severity as a function of method with and without instruction, and to explore the pretreatment cognitive abilities associated with reading development.
Sixteen elementary schools within two school districts in the Nashville, Tenn., area participated in this study. Eight of the schools were Title I and eight were non-Title I. In the fall, students within 42 first-grade classes were screened using the Rapid Letter Naming (RLN) portion of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), Curriculum-Based-Measurement (CBM) Word Identification Fluency (WIF), and teacher judgment. Six students per class--those scoring the lowest on one or both measures and judged by the teacher to be low--were designated as "low study entry." They were then rank ordered and split into top and bottom strata. These low performers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions:
Students who were assigned to Fall Tutoring were immediately placed into Tier 2. Those assigned to Spring Tutoring remained in Tier 1 only during the fall semester. Their progress in general education during the first semester was monitored with CBM-WIF; only students whose progress was inadequate in general education then received tutoring in the spring semester. Specifically, weekly WIF data were collected for nine weeks to monitor the progress of the students assigned to the Spring Tutoring group. The dual discrepancy method (WIF slope and level) was used to identify those students who were unresponsive to Tier 1 general education instruction during the fall and proceeded to Tier 2 tutoring in the spring. The students assigned to Control remained in Tier 1 (general education) throughout the study.
A battery of standardized reading tests was administered to all students at the beginning of the year, mid-year, and end of first grade and again at the end of second, third, and fourth grades.
For Tier 2, Vanderbilt used a standardized, research-based preventive tutoring protocol that consists of the following elements:
The following research-based elements of instruction were used:
Students were placed in small groups of two to four and received instruction outside of the general education classroom four times per week for nine weeks. They completed a total of 36 sessions (64 lessons), which lasted 45 minutes each. Each tutor-led instruction session was broken down into the following:
Each lesson was scripted for the tutors with detailed steps, as well as exact wording of the instructions to be provided to the students. Steps for the sight word, letter sound, and decoding practice were the following:
Steps for the reading fluency practice were the following:
Each day, the students' mastery of the topic was assessed. If every student in the group achieved mastery of the sight words on the first day of that set, the group moved to the next set on the following day. Each student had two trials to master the sight words during the session. The group progressed to the next set regardless of the students' mastery status after two sessions on the same set. This ensured that the group would be able to cover more words and sounds.
During the initial training, tutors became accustomed to receiving feedback from the trainers regarding their implementation of the reading and math interventions. They received feedback on the accuracy with which they followed the steps for instruction and feedback that they provided to their students. Every session was audiotaped. These tapes were randomly sampled to systematically represent tutors and tutoring groups. Using checklists that delineated the steps and actions the tutor was supposed to be implementing, fidelity was quantified. Fidelity was documented as strong.
At the end of first grade, the effects of Tier 2 tutoring on students' reading performance was assessed, showing that tutoring improved outcomes on word identification, reading fluency, and comprehension. In addition, fewer students who had received Tier 2 tutoring were identified with a reading disability (RD), compared to students in the control group. In addition, results showed that the proportion of students who were identified as having an RD varied as a function of the procedure by which unresponsiveness to Tier 2 was determined, with some procedures functioning better than others. Important cognitive predictors of outcome included phonological awareness, teacher ratings of student behavior and attention, and language ability.
Funding for NRCLD is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special
Education Programs. Award No. H324U010004. Opinions expressed herein are those of the National
Research Center on Learning Disabilities and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S.
Department of Education.
© 2007 National Research Center on Learning Disabilities
Last Updated: November 19, 2007
Contact: nrcld@ku.edu