This is a 10-year follow-up of a well-controlled reading remediation study using a randomized design with second and third graders. Despite extensive evidence to support the benefits of evidence-based remediation for reading disabled (RD) students, studies rarely follow children for more than one to three years. There are no well-controlled reading remediation studies using randomized designs where researchers have investigated whether the effects of the intervention are evident a decade later when students are transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. This study has clear public heath significance. Specifically, despite substantial evidence that negative economic and emotional consequences often follow poor readers into adulthood, without long-term follow-up studies, we don't know if early remediation can mitigate these negative consequences. In the original study, Blachman et al. (2004) randomly assigned 69 second and third grade RD children to 8 months of explicit reading tutoring or to treatment as usual and followed the children for one year after the treatment ended. The treatment children significantly outperformed the control children on word recognition, reading rate, spelling, and passage reading, with respective effect sizes at the end of the treatment year of 1.69, .96, 1.13, and .78 and effect sizes one year later of .97, .81, .81, and .57. In the proposed 10-year follow-up, participants will be seen twice and complete measures of nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, word reading, reading comprehension, math, health literacy, and self-report measures of adaptive functioning assessing self-efficacy, self-directedness, resilience, peer relationships, family support, and health behavior. We will gather information from participants regarding high school graduation, postsecondary education, current reading and computer habits, employment history, and future aspirations, as well as data from school records documenting years of remedial reading and special education, grade retentions, and standardized tests at 4th, 8th, and 11th grade. There are three specific aims.
Aim 1 addresses whether differences between groups in reading and spelling found at posttest and at one-year follow-up are still evident a decade later and whether there are differences between groups on 4th, 8th, and 11th grade state tests, years of remedial reading or special education, grade retentions, and the academic nature of the high school curriculum.
Aim 2 explores factors, above and beyond participation in the 8-month reading treatment, that predict outcomes at 10-year follow-up, including (a) family variables assessed in the original study (i.e., home literacy background, socioeconomic status) and (b) child variables assessed in the original study (i.e., IQ and vocabulary measured at pretest, and phonological processing, literacy, attention, and behavior measured at one-year follow-up).
Aim 3 explores the relationship between reading outcomes at one-year follow-up and adaptive functioning 10 years later.
This study has clear public heath significance based on evidence that 1) reading difficulties identified in childhood are one of the best predictors of failure to complete high school and 2) a host of negative economic, health, and emotional consequences accompany these students as they transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Fifty-one percent of the lowest scoring readers on the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy were unemployed. The proposed 10-year follow-up of students who participated in a well-controlled reading remediation study in Grades 2 and 3 will investigate whether early remediation can mitigate these negative consequences.
| Blachman, Benita A; Schatschneider, Christopher; Fletcher, Jack M et al. (2014) Intensive Reading Remediation in Grade 2 or 3: Are There Effects a Decade Later? J Educ Psychol 106:46-57 |
