Examining the Efficacy of an Intervention to Improve Fluency and Reading Comprehension in Spanish Children with Reading Disabilities

Abstract

The main goal of the present study was to examine the efficacy of a multi‐component programme to improve reading fluency and text comprehension in Spanish children with reading disabilities (RD). Special needs teachers were trained in the application of the programme, which included repeated reading plus phonological awareness training and grapheme–phoneme decoding training. Instruction was delivered one to one. Participants were 22 students with RD, aged 10–13, distributed in two groups: one with 12 children who received the intervention (experimental group), and the other with 10 children who received no intervention (comparison group). The effects of the training programme were evaluated using gains in scores on word and pseudo‐word reading and text reading fluency, as well as on a text comprehension test. Results of analyses of covariance comparing the two groups with age as a covariate showed that children who participated in the intervention obtained statistically significant gains on the reading measures used, with the exception of text comprehension. Results are discussed with regard to effective interventions for students with reading disabilities. Reflections on the study's limitations provide a basis for recommending future lines of research.

Keywords:

• intervention
• multi‐component training
• phonological awareness training
• reading comprehension
• reading disabilities
• reading fluency
• repeated reading
• transparent orthography

Acknowledgements

The findings reported here are based on research conducted as part of the project, “Efficacy of a Multicomponent Programme for the Treatment of Developmental Dyslexia. Variables that Predict Treatment Response” under Grant No. EDU2009‐08082 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and no restrictions have been imposed on free access to, or publication of, the research data. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organisations imply endorsement by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Opinions reflect those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agency(ies). The author(s) had no financial or other conflicts of interest.