The moderating effect of baseline word reading skills on reading comprehension outcomes for upper elementary students with reading difficulties

Abstract

Students with reading difficulties in upper elementary grades comprise a heterogenous population of students with deficits in various areas of reading (i.e., word reading, vocabulary, reading fluency, &/or reading comprehension). To address the needs of this diverse group of students with reading difficulties, a majority of researchers over the last decade have designed and implemented multicomponent reading interventions (MCRIs) that provide instruction in multiple areas of reading. However, results from intervention studies implementing MCRIs for upper elementary grade students with reading difficulties have been mixed. While some studies have reported significant positive growth for treatment group students compared to controls, others have reported similar growth patterns for treatment and control group students. To gain a nuanced understanding of the effects of MCRIs, some researchers have used moderator analyses to determine if baseline student-level differences predict students’ responsiveness to intervention. The goal of the current study is to evaluate if students’ baseline word reading skills predict their response to a MCRI. Word reading, a fundamental skill that is a prerequisite to developing reading comprehension skills, has rarely been explored as a moderator for response to MCRIs. Only few studies (Vaughn et al., 2019a; Vaughn et al., 2019b; Wanzek et al., 2017) have explored how upper elementary students with reading difficulties’ baseline word reading skills moderate the effects of MCRIs and only one past study has used latent variables to evaluate intervention effectiveness for students with varying levels of baseline word reading proficiencies (Wanzek et al., 2017). The current proposed study is a conceptual replication of the Wanzek et al. (2017) study and proposes to use a latent variable approach to model the moderating effect of baseline word reading on end-of-year reading comprehension. Data from year-one of a randomized controlled trial for third and fourth grade students with reading difficulties will be analyzed to address the following research question: Does preintervention word reading status moderate the effect of a year-long multicomponent reading intervention on reading comprehension for students with reading difficulties in Grades 3 and 4? Results from the study show that baseline word reading was a significant predictor of students’ end-of-year reading comprehension performance. Treatment group students who had lower baseline scores performed significantly below on posttest reading comprehension compared to treatment students with comparatively higher baseline word reading scores. Findings denote the importance of word reading instruction for upper elementary students who are below-average word readers and also indicate the need for tailoring reading intervention to align with individual reader profile needs.