Effects of Reading Interventions on Students with LDs

Lynn M. May's Master's thesis entitiled Effects of Reading Interventions on Students with Learning Disabilities in Upper Elementary and Middle School (2012) from Northern Michigan University is a literature review. Unfortunately it is not well written and reviews only seven studies. There is little statistical analysis of the studies and the author relies on her personal interpretation to lend credence to her support of methodologies.

For general reading skills she recommends:

• Repeated Reading with Phrase drill error correction
• Taped preview, error correction and choral reading
• Reciprocal teaching

She suggested the following are effective for improving comprehension:

• Component Model of Reading, Aaron, Joshi, Gooden, and Bentum (2008)
• Peer Tutoring
• Reading Comprehension Strategy
• Standardized and individualized interventions targeting specific deficits

Although one of the studies, Berkley, Mastropieri and Scruggs (2011), demonstrated that Read Naturally was inferior to the Reading Comprehension Strategy, she comments that she uses it every day in her resource room without an explanation of why, discussion of her finding it effective, or stating any thoughts of discontinuing its use.

Perhaps the most valuable piece of this paper is the appendix which includes a detailed listing of the lessons included in the Reading Comprehension Strategy lifted directly from Berkley et al (2011), and a series of RTI procedures from Donna Gilbertson that can be used to target appropriate techniques to use in interventions.