Improving oral reading fluency in middle-school students: A comparison of repeated reading and listening passage preview

Oral reading fluency has been established in previous literature as a key component in becoming an effective reader. Repeated reading (RR) and listening passage preview (LPP) are both oral reading fluency interventions well-supported in the research literature, however, most of this study explores their use with elementary-aged children, with only a handful of studies over the last 20 years evaluating their use in middle-school children. The overall goal of the current study was to explore the effectiveness of both of these interventions independent and relative to one another. An alternating treatment design (A/ABC), including the use of baseline, was implemented to compare RR, LPP, and a control. Three middle school-aged struggling readers were randomly exposed to the conditions over time, with oral reading fluency acting as the primary dependent variable. Data were analyzed using visual analysis and effect size calculated using nonoverlap of all pairs (NAP). The results indicated primarily large effects for RR, with LPP effects ranging from small to large across participants. Limitations, implications, and future directions are also discussed.