WWC review of this study

Effects of a fluency-building program on the reading performance of low-achieving second and third grade students.

Martens, B., Eckert, T., Begeny, J., Lewandowski, L., Digennaro, F., Montarello, S., . . . Fiese, B. (2007). Journal of Behavioral Education, 16(1), 38–53. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ757777

  • Randomized Controlled Trial
     examining 
    30
     Students
    , grades
    2-3

Reviewed: February 2023

No statistically significant positive
findings
Meets WWC standards without reservations
Oral reading fluency outcomes—Indeterminate effect found for the domain
Outcome
measure
Comparison Period Sample Intervention
mean
Comparison
mean
Significant? Improvement
    index
Evidence
tier

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): second grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Aggregated Sample;
30 students

51.62

47.97

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): third grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Aggregated Sample;
30 students

38.96

40.27

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): fourth grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Aggregated sample;
30 students

45.40

46.87

No

--
Show Supplemental Findings

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): second grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 2;
10 students

40.72

36.20

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): second grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 3;
20 students

57.39

53.85

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): fourth grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 3;
20 students

48.43

48.00

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): third grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 2;
10 students

27.40

29.30

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): third grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 3;
20 students

44.46

45.75

No

--

Words read correctly per minute (WRCM): fourth grade level

Fluency-based reading program—Martens et al. (2007) vs. Business as usual

2 Weeks

Grade: 2;
10 students

39.17

44.62

No

--


Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.


  • Female: 66%

  • Urban
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    Northeast

Setting

Training sessions were conducted individually or in small groups during the school's after school program.

Intervention Group

"At the beginning of each training session, students were asked to read a passage. If the student was not able to read at or above 100 WRCM (words ready correctly per minute), the experimenter conducted a training (individually or in small groups) that consisted of phase drill error correction (PD), listening passage preview (LPP), and repeated readings (RR). After the training was conducted, the child was asked to read the same passage as they did at the start of the session. If the student was able to read at or above 100 WRCM (words ready correctly per minute) on the first passage, they were given a more difficult passage until they were not able to reach 100 WRCM. At that point, the training was conducted on the passage that the student scored less than 100 WRCM on. The study was conducted over a 7 week period for the second grade students and an 8 week period for the third grade students. The fluency-based training program was conducted over a 5 week period for second grade students and a 6 week period for the third grade students. Pre and posttesting accounted for the remaining 2 weeks of the study. For both second and third grade students, one training session lasting 30 minutes was conducted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week at about the same time. The sessions involved the pretraining assessment, training of the passage on which 100 WRCM was not achieved on the pretraining assessment, and post training assessment as described above. Training sessions were conducted individually or in small groups during the school's after school program. "

Comparison Group

Students in the control group participated in the regular after-school program which consisted of worksheet activities in language arts and a snack while students in the intervention group participated in the fluency-based training.

Support for implementation

Trainers were 5 school psychology graduate students and 11 undergraduate students majoring in psychology. A minimum of four trainers were required to conduct each training session. The trainers received training and practice in the intervention and assessment procedures prior to the start of the study. They also received feedback on their performance.

 

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