Study: 89568

Practice Guide

Review Details

Reviewed: December 2021

At least one finding shows promising evidence of effectiveness

At least one statistically significant positive finding

Meets WWC standards without reservations

For:

Practice Guide (findings for Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)))

Using:

Rating:

Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.

This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.

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

Findings

Reading Comprehension outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Period	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index	Evidence tier
Comprehension subtest of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test–4 (GRMT- 4)	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 108 students	91.93	90.80	Yes	10
WJ III Passage Comprehension	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	0 Days	Full sample; 108 students	89.57	89.06	No	--

Word and pseudoword reading outcomes—Statistically significant positive effect found for the domain
Outcome measure	Comparison	Sample	Intervention mean	Comparison mean	Significant?	Improvement index
Big Word Reading Test - Big Word List (Toste et al 2019)	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 108 students	80.09	66.89	Yes	32
Word Attack Subtest: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 108 students	97.47	92.97	Yes	16
Test of Word Reading Efficiency - 2nd Ed (TOWRE-2): Sight Word Efficiency subtest	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 108 students	92.05	89.08	No	--
Letter-Word Identification Subtest: Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 108 students	98.38	93.42	No	--
Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE)- Phonemic Decoding Efficiency subtest	Reading intervention (Toste et al. (2019)) vs. Business as usual	Full sample; 108 students	90.28	87.53	No	--

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

Sample Characteristics

Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.

26% English language learners
Female: 50%
Male: 50%
Urban
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South

Race
Black		6%
Other or unknown		90%
White		4%

Ethnicity
Hispanic		93%
Not Hispanic or Latino		7%

Study Details

Setting

The study examined three elementary schools from a school district in the southeastern United States.

Study sample

The students in the study sample were in 4th and 5th grade. The sample was 6.4% Black students, 3.6% White students, and 93% Hispanic students. The sample was evenly split between male and female students. Twenty-six percent of the sample were English learners, and 92% were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Intervention Group

The study examined the effectiveness of a reading intervention for students struggling with reading. For this review, the intervention group includes students randomly assigned to the multisyllabic word reading (MWR) or the multisyllabic word reading with a motivational beliefs component (MWR + MB) intervention. For all students in the intervention group, 40-minute sessions occurred 4 times a week in small groups of three or four students. The intervention lasted about 10 weeks and included 40 lessons. All lessons were scripted for standardization across the intervention. Each lesson had 7 instructional components: Warm-up, affix bank, wordplay, beat the clock, write a word, speedy read, and text reading. Below is a description of each component: (1) Warm-Up: For three minutes, students were taught target vowel patterns, vowel digraphs, and r-controlled vowels and then practiced the pattern with nonsense words. (2) Affix bank: For three minutes, tutors taught high-frequency affixes. (3) Wordplay: For five minutes, students assembled or blended word parts using games. (4) Beat the clock: Students practiced breaking or segmenting multisyllabic words. (5) Write a word: Students worked on encoding skills for five to eight minutes. (6) Speedy read: Students were timed for accuracy on word-list reading for five minutes. (7) Text reading: Sentences were read that used the multisyllabic words that were focused on previously in the lesson. Students in the MWR + MB intervention additionally received instruction on motivation (but the reading instruction was identical across the MWR and MWR + MB groups).

Comparison Group

Students in the control group received computer-based programming, guided reading, sustained silent reading, and preparation sessions for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness while those in the intervention group received the multisyllabic word reading intervention.

Support for implementation

Eight tutors were hired by the research team to provide the intervention. Tutors received 8 hours of training over two sessions. They were paid for preparation time to read scripted lessons and prepare materials and practice delivering instruction. All tutors completed a mock lesson and needed to achieve 90% fidelity before working with students in the study. Tutors were observed in a combination of live and audio recordings. Fidelity was checked throughout the intervention period.

Replication of an Experimental Study Investigating the Efficacy of a Multisyllabic Word Reading Intervention with and without Motivational Beliefs Training for Struggling Readers [Multisyllabic word reading intervention (with or without motivation) vs. business as usual]