Reading Fluency Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Failure

The important role of reading fluency in the comprehension and motivation of readers is well documented. Two reading rate intervention programs were compared in a cluster-randomized clinical trial of students who were considered at-risk for reading failure. One program focused instruction at the word level; the second program focused instruction at the level of continuous text. Results of this study suggest focused instruction on reading rate at the word level shows similar transfer to text-level reading fluency as text-level reading rate practice. An expected effect of word-level training on word reading efficiency was not found in this study; however, the word-level training did result in stronger absolute gains in word reading accuracy when reading connected text. The observed results also replicate a common finding in the reading intervention literature response to treatment was stronger in the younger students. Results are discussed in context of implications for practice.