The Effectiveness of Standardized versus Individualized I nterventions in Reading

1. The Effectiveness of Standardized versus Individualized Interventions in Reading Melissa Coolong-Chaffin, PhD, NCSP Michael Axelrod, PhD, LP, NCSP Kaitlin O’Shea, MSE KimberleeMaczko, MSE Karissa Danes, MSE University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

2. Disclosures • There are no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, associated with this presentation • Our program is currently funded by UWEC

3. Acknowledgements • Statistical analysis- Kelly O’Shea • Undergraduate student interventionists • School partners, staff, and students

4. Today’s Agenda • Intervention Selection within RtI • Academic Intervention Clinic at UWEC • Method • Great Leaps versus BEA • Results • Discussion • Implications for practice • Questions, comments

5. Problem Solving Within RtI Tier 3 INTENSIVE Tertiary Prevention: Further intensified and individualized Intervention ~5% ~15% Tier 1 CORE Primary Prevention: Schoolwide and classwide instruction Tier 2 SUPPLEMENTAL Secondary Prevention: Intensified, validated intervention ~80% of students

6. Assessment within a PS Model • Focuses on answering questions such as • What skills should we teach? • How should we teach the skills? • As opposed to • Does the student meet eligibility criteria? • Brief Experimental Analysis allows us to answer the first two questions, however resource intensive

7. Questions remain • How do we select interventions for at risk and high risk students? • Is a packaged intervention sufficient, or do at risk students benefit from an individualized approach? • Our study explored the following research question: • Do students who receive interventions indicated by a BEA make greater gains in oral reading fluency than students who receive an standardized approach?

8. Academic Intervention Clinic at UWEC • History • Objectives • Provide brief academic interventions to students • Train undergraduate students to: • Implement evidence-based interventions with fidelity • Accurately collect outcome data • Currently in 3 schools • Funded primary through the university’s undergraduate differential tuition program

9. Participants • Second grade students from two schools in small city in the upper Midwest • School One, 82% of students receive FRL • School Two, 46% of students receive FRL • Referred to an afterschool reading program by their teachers due to ORF performance below benchmark • BEA n= 15 • GL n= 19

10. Procedures • Students randomly assigned to receive modified Great Leaps or intervention identified through brief experimental analysis • Approximately equal numbers in each school • Three grade level passages from Formative Assessment System for Children (FAST) were administered to establish baseline • Great Leaps placement test or BEA • Intervention occurred in 25 minute sessions two times per week for 7 weeks

11. Procedures • Progress was monitored one time per week using grade level FAST passage (WRCM) • After 7 weeks of intervention, three passages were administered as a follow up

12. Great Leaps • Standard Treatment Intervention • Daily practice of reading skills • Phonological awareness • Phonics • Oral Reading Fluency • Includes modeling, multiple opportunities to practice, graphing and incentives for increased performance (Mercer & Campbell, 1998)

13. Empirical Support for Great Leaps • Effective for increasing oral reading fluency • Mercer, Cambell, Miller, Mercer, & Lane (2000) • Begeny, Schulte, & Johnson (2012)

14. Great Leaps in Our Study • Adapted for the study • More repetitions of the activities • Filled a 25-minute time period two times per week for sevenweeks • Three activities each session • Phonics • High Frequency Word Lists/Phrases • Stories

15. Great Leaps Procedure • Student reads probe (phonics, high-frequency words or stories) for one-minute. • Standard Error Correction Procedure • Correct errors as they are made • Review errors at the end of 1-min reading • Interventionist computes WRCM and tells student the score • Mark it on the graph. • Repeat process 3 times each session for each activity • Student can earn prize.

16. Brief Experimental Analysis (BEA) • Allows us to “test drive” interventions in order to find one that fits best for an individual student • Compare multiple interventions to one another • Helps us identify promising interventions to implement over time

17. General BEA Procedure • Student reads alone to establish baseline • E.g., CBM-R probe, early reading probe • Implement intervention using that probe • Administer probe again after the intervention • Look at increase over baseline • Replication • Extended Analysis

18. Empirical Support for BEA • Using BEA to select interventions is an effective approach to identifying successful interventions. • Meta-analysis of oral reading fluency - Burns & Wagner (2008) • Early Literacy Skills - Pettursdottiret al. (2009) • Math - Mong & Mong (2012) • Writing – Parker et al. (2012)

19. BEA in Our Study • “Test drive” three different interventions • Repeated Reading (RR) • Listening Passage Preview (LPP) • Incentive • Attempt to replicate intervention effects by comparing top two • Implement “winner” for 7 weeks WSPA Fall 2013

20. Repeated Reading with Error Correction • Allows us to see if student needs more practice • Student reads alone to establish baseline • Student practices reading probe 3 times • Errors are corrected after each reading • Student reads alone for one minute while interventionist records WRCM and errors

21. Listening Passage Preview • Allows us to see if the student needs more modeling at the passage level • Student reads passage to establish baseline • Interventionist reads passage to provide a model of fluent reading (proper pacing and expression) • Student reads alone for one minute while interventionist records WRCM and errors

22. Incentive • Allows us to see if student isn’t motivated • Student reads passage to establish baseline • Student is told she will earn a prize if she “beats her score” (usually 20% increase) • Student reads alone for one minute while interventionist records WRCM and errors • Count words read correct and errors, give prize if earned

25. Quality Indicators • Interobserver agreement- above 95% • Treatment fidelity- above 95%

26. Results • Descriptive Information • Both groups’ scores generally increased over time. • The BEA group had higher mean scores at every time point. • Independent Samples T-Test • Statistically significant difference in overall WRCM growth between groups. • BEA group had a higher overall WRCM growth than the GL group. • BEA Mean = 16.80 WRCM Growth • GL Mean = 4.26 WRCM Growth • Large effect size - Cohen’s d=.83.

27. WRCM Scores Over Time

28. Limitations • Small sample size • Between groups design • All of BEA interventions focused on passage reading fluency • Great Leaps intervention include fluency practice for words, phrases, passages • More research is needed

29. Implications • BEA-indicated interventions may be more effective than a modified version of the Great Leaps intervention • Ongoing progress monitoring is always best practice

30. Implications • Training • Time intensive • May take 45-90 minutes to complete BEA • Makes this appropriate for Tier 3 • Importance of demonstrating experimental control in applied settings • How many demonstrations of experimental effects are needed?

31. Questions? Comments?

32. Contact Information • Human Development Center Website: http://www.uwec.edu/HDC/resources.htm • Dr. Coolong-Chaffin • chaffimc@uwec.edu • 715-836-3925 • Dr. Axelrod • axelromi@uwec.edu • 715-836-5020

33. References Begeny, J.C., Schulte, A.C., Johnson, K. (2012). Enhancing instructional problem solving: An efficient system for assisting struggling learners. New York: The Guilford Press. Burns, M.K. & Wagner, D. (2008). Determining an effective intervention within a brief experimental analysis for reading: A meta-analytic review. School Psychology Review, 37(1), 126-136. Christ, T. J., Ardoin, S., Monaghen, B., Van Norman, E. & White, M. J. (2013). CBMReading: Technical Manual. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, Department of Educational Psychology. Mercer, C. D. & Campbell, K.U. (1998). Great Leaps Reading Kindergarten- Grade 2. Gainsville, FL: Diarmuid. Mercer, C.D., Campbell, K.U., Miller, W.D., Mercer, K.D., & Lane, H.B. (2000). Effects of a reading fluency intervention for middle schoolerswith specific learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 15(4), 179-189.