Evaluating Components of the Active View of Reading as Intervention Targets: Implications for Social Justice

Inequality in reading outcomes is perhaps the single greatest social justice issue faced by school psychologists, and school psychologists need a better understanding of reading theory and its application to intervention to better combat the important issue. The present study examined the active view of reading (AVR; Duke & Cartwright, 2021), by computing effect sizes from 333 studies that were reported in 26 meta-analyses. Interventions that targeted word recognition (effect size = 0.44) and language comprehension (effect size = 0.62) had statistically significant effects for striving readers, and interventions that targeted active self-regulation (effect size = 0.46) and bridging processes (effect size = 0.70) had medium-to-large median effects on reading. We found (a) large effects of interventions for striving readers focused on text structure, verbal reasoning, and vocabulary; (b) moderate effects for fluency, language structure, motivation, and phonics; and (c) limited research included in meta-analyses for several components of the AVR, including cultural and other content knowledge. The components unique to the AVR added significant variance in reading. Analyses suggest there are many intervention targets available to school psychologists as they work toward social justice in reading outcomes.