Impacts of a Teacher-Delivered Reading Intervention on Word-Level Fluency for Early Elementary Students at Risk for Reading Difficulties

This study examined the impacts of a teacher-delivered reading intervention, Targeted Reading Instruction (TRI), in improving students' word-level fluency skills. TRI teachers received training and coaching to enhance their individualized instruction of lessons designed to accelerate reading growth for students not yet meeting grade level expectations to mitigate subsequent identification of a reading-related disability. In a sample of 548 kindergarten and first-grade students within 117 classrooms in 10 rural schools, we examined differences on timed word-level fluency outcomes between treatment students (n = 301 in 66 classrooms) and control students (n = 247 in 51 classrooms), controlling for non-timed word reading accuracy and moderating by rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills. Multilevel models showed that treatment students outperformed control students on measures of real word fluency (g = .17) and pseudoword fluency (g = .23). Interaction terms of treatment by RAN were not significant. Results suggest that teacher-delivered reading intervention can promote word-level fluency gains for young students reading below grade level, regardless of their RAN skills.