Effects of a Reading Intervention and a Mentoring Intervention for Ninth-Grade English Learners with Reading Difficulties

Abstract

This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents (RIA) and a mentoring intervention (MI) implemented for 1 year with ninth-grade English learners (ELs) with reading difficulties. Eligible students enrolled at three urban high schools were randomly assigned to the RIA (n = 142), MI (n = 163), RIA and MI (n = 164), or business-as-usual comparison condition (n = 154). The RIA lessons focused on advanced word study, fluency, academic vocabulary, and collaborative comprehension strategies with content area texts. The MI assigned each student a mentor who helped them access and participate in school activities with the expectation that this condition would be associated with improved self-perceptions toward school engagement. RIA (RIA and RIA + MI) had significant, positive effects on sentence-level fluency and comprehension (g = 0.17) and vocabulary learning (g = 0.30), but not on measures of word reading, vocabulary, or reading comprehension (g range: −0.1 to 0.05). The MI intervention did not yield discernable effects on students’ self-reported engagement questionnaire, absences, course failures, or disciplinary referrals. We present considerations for how to address systemic changes for meeting the needs of ELs with persistent reading difficulties in high school.

Keywords:

• English learners
• ninth grade
• reading difficulties
• reading intervention
• mentoring intervention

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

Data Availability Statement

Data for one of the two cohorts in this article was presented in a poster session at the 25th annual Pacific Coast Research Conference (Martinez et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was financially supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant [R305A150058] to The University of Texas at Austin.