Journal of Learning Disabilities45(2) 151 –169© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2012Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0022219410371678http://journaloflearningdisabilities .sagepub.com

Evaluating the Efficacy of Remediation for Struggling Readers in High School

Maureen W. Lovett1,2, Léa Lacerenza1,3, Maria De Palma1, and Jan C. Frijters4

Abstract

Preliminary efficacy data are reported for a research-based reading intervention designed for struggling readers in high school. PHAST PACES teaches (a) word identification strategies, (b) knowledge of text structures, and (c) reading comprehension strategies. In a quasi-experimental design, 268 intervention and 83 waiting list control students meeting criteria for read-ing disability were assessed before and after their semester. After 60 to 70 hours of PHAST PACES instruction, struggling readers demonstrated significant gains on standardized tests of word attack, word reading, and passage comprehension and on experimental measures of letter–sound knowledge and multisyllabic word identification relative to control students. An average effect size of .68 was revealed across these outcome measures. One year follow-up data on 197 PHAST PACES students revealed an average trend to decelerated growth after the intervention, except for passage comprehension out-comes that demonstrated continued growth over follow-up.

Keywords

reading disabilities, adolescence, reading remediation

There is widespread consensus regarding the importance of programming initiatives to promote reading development in the early grades (Foorman & Moats, 2004; National Reading Panel [NRP], Report of the Subgroups, 2000; C. E. Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), and there is ample evidence of the costly results of delaying intervention efforts (Torgesen, 2005). Yet recent data from the National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress (NAEP; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003, 2007) estimate that less than one third of middle and high school students in the United States meet the standard of reading “profi-ciently” for their grade level. In typical high-poverty, urban schools, approximately half of all new ninth grade students were found to read at a sixth or seventh grade level, and, on average, African American and Hispanic twelfth grade stu-dents read at the same level as White eighth grade students (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). The 2007 NAEP results revealed no gains for lower income eighth grade stu-dents over the past few years. This revelation is particularly troubling given results from a recent study of high school students identified with reading disabilities; Individualized Education Program (IEP) data revealed that there existed no plans to address the basic reading skill deficits of these stu-dents at the high school level (Catone & Brady, 2005).

In the United States, reading underachievement among school-age children has been a focus of major political and public interest, resulting in legislative reform and a change in how many states approach reading instruction in the early

grades. In the US, it has been reported that 25% of adults read below the fourth grade level nationally, with illiteracy rates rising to 37% in high poverty areas such as Washington, D.C. (Moats, 2001). In Canada, functional illiteracy in adulthood was estimated at 24% two decades ago (Calamai, 1987; Sta-tistics Canada, 1990). Approximately 44% of adults in the most populated and most prosperous province of Canada (Ontario) fell into the two lowest levels of literacy skill (Statistics Canada, 1995). Canadians with the lowest levels of literacy had the highest rates of unemployment (26%), in comparison to a 4% unemployment rate among those Cana-dians at the highest literacy levels (Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network [CLLRnet], 2003-2004).

There is clear evidence of widespread literacy problems among teenagers in North American high schools: Some 25% of high school students in Ontario typically fail one or both components of the provincial literacy test, threatening their opportunity to achieve a secondary school diploma (Education

1The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada2University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada3Toronto Catholic District School Board, Toronto, ON, Canada4Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

Corresponding Author:Maureen W. Lovett, University of Toronto, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, CanadaEmail: mwl@sickkids.ca

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Quality Accountability Office, 2001-2002). These figures include 15% of those in an academic program (students headed for postsecondary education) and 55% of students in an applied program (CLLRnet, 2003-2004). In the United States, the U.S. Department of Education has established and evalu-ated two supplementary literacy programs in ninth grade, an attempt to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling readers in the first year of high school (Corrin, Somers, Kemple, Nelson, & Sepanik, 2008; Kemple et al., 2008; Somers, Corrin, Sepanik, Salinger, Levin, & Zmach, 2010).

It has long been recognized that children and adolescents do not grow out of reading problems. Data from the Con-necticut Longitudinal Study revealed that 74% of children defined as reading disabled in third grade still met criteria for reading disability in ninth grade (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1994). Research on adolescent and adult outcomes of children with developmental reading dis-orders (RD) indicates that the core learning deficits of RD clearly persist into adulthood, even in cases with good literacy outcomes (Bruck, 1992, 1998; Scarborough, 1984; Shaywitz et al., 1999). Problems persist with spelling accuracy, word recognition speed, and reading rate, particularly in the reading of more technical expository text. Beitchman, Wilson, Douglas, Young, and Adlaf (2001) conducted a long-term prospective study of young children with speech and language disorders and concluded that persistent learning disorders in adoles-cence (at ages 12 and 19; including reading, spelling and/or math disorders) were associated with an elevated risk for adverse outcomes in young adulthood, including lower fam-ily socioeconomic status, lower IQ scores, and lower educa-tional and occupational attainments at age 19.

The NRP (2000) emphasized the need for reading instruc-tion that encompasses multiple dimensions of proficient read-ing skill: phonemic awareness, phonics and decoding, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary develop-ment. As Fletcher, Denton, Fuchs, and Vaughn (2005) suggest, multiple reports now support the conclusion that teachers must integrate instruction involving multiple domains of read-ing skills (decoding, word recognition, fluency, and text com-prehension) for their students to become truly proficient readers (C. E. Snow et al., 1998). Few studies have been reported, however, that provide a controlled evaluation of multiple component reading remediation programs with these specific instructional emphases.

The problem is particularly acute when the instructional needs of older students with RD are considered; there is a need for comprehensive effective remedial reading programs for adolescents with RD (Fisher, Schumaker, & Deshler, 2002). Meta-analyses of prior research on improving the reading and reading comprehension skills of students with RD have confirmed the superiority of remediation programs that combine direct instruction and strategy-based instruction (Swanson, Hoskyn, & Lee, 1999). In the following section,

we review what is known about how to address the remedial needs of struggling readers in their middle and high school years.

What Is Needed to Improve Reading and Text Comprehension in Older Disabled Readers?

Struggling readers in high school frequently exhibit sizeable gaps in their decoding abilities and letter–sound knowledge. Persistent deficits in basic word identification skills require direct remediation of phonologically based reading skills, systematic and explicit instruction in letter–sound and letter cluster–sound mappings, and reinforcement of word identi-fication learning through ample text reading practice using controlled decodable reading vocabulary (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, & Seidenberg, 2001).

Converging evidence has demonstrated that significant improvement on measures of basic reading skill can be achieved for both elementary-school-age disabled readers and young children at risk for reading disability (Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998; Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, et al., 2000; Lovett, Steinbach, & Frijters, 2000; Olson, Wise, Ring, & Johnson, 1997; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997; Vellutino et al., 1996; Wise, Ring, Sessions, & Olson, 1997). Less evidence exists, however, on the effec-tive treatment of reading problems in adolescence. Favorable results from our earlier research demonstrate that reading gains from remedial programs can be achieved in older ele-mentary-school-aged children (Lovett & Steinbach, 1997) and in struggling readers in seventh and eighth grades (Lovett et al., 1996). These data suggest that intensive remedial train-ing can lead to positive outcomes for adolescents.

Research is required to specifically demonstrate whether systematic remedial interventions at the high school level can be effective. An evidence base, including more randomized controlled trial (RCT) results, is needed to guide the develop-ment, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive effec-tive remedial reading programs for disabled readers in the high school environment. The first large-scale RCT study of this type has been undertaken in the United States—the Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study (ERO) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education (Corrin et al., 2008; Kemple et al., 2008). The sample for this study included cohorts of ninth grade students with reading comprehension test scores 2 to 5 years behind grade level. The ERO evaluation randomly assigned eligible high schools to one of two supplemental literacy programs and eligible students within these schools to the literacy intervention or to a control condition (participa-tion in a regular ninth grade elective course). The two inter-ventions were Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy Course, developed by WestEd, and Xtreme Reading, devel-oped by the University of Kansas Center for Research on

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Learning, the former far less scripted and directed than the latter. The proximal outcome of interest was performance on the GRADE (Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation; Williams, 2001), and rigorous fidelity and imple-mentation data were being collected in this research. Overall findings revealed modest improvement in students' reading comprehension scores and academic grades over the ninth grade year (effect sizes of 0.09 and 0.07), but no continued benefit after the ERO programs ended (Somers et al., 2010). More well-designed RCTs of this type are needed to address literacy learning issues in the high school population. One of the positive features of the ERO study is the attempt to provide a meaningful period of intervention; although not all ERO schools were ready to start the program at the beginning of the school year, the intent was to provide these supplemental lit-eracy programs for almost a full school year.

Much research has been conducted regarding the acquisi-tion of basic decoding and oral reading skills in younger students with RD, but much remains to be learned about remediation of the accompanying fluency and reading com-prehension problems. Disabled readers are known to struggle with text structure and the complex comprehension demands of reading in context. High school disabled readers are par-ticularly challenged by the level and type of comprehension processing required for reading in different courses (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2004): High school texts are typically far more abstract, dense, and complicated than the types of text encountered in the elementary and middle grades (Apthorp & Clark, 2007). Printed text provides none of the prosodic and nonverbal cues that facilitate oral language comprehen-sion, and many students need explicit instruction on written cues and signals to meaning in text (Carlisle & Rice, 2002). Many disabled readers are handicapped by a deficient or poorly organized knowledge base with respect to text struc-ture and text conventions (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1987; Lovett et al., 1996) and appear to have difficulty in their selection and use of specific reading strategies (Brown & Campione, 1984; R. E. Snow & Lohman, 1984) and in their ability to monitor strategy implementation (Carlisle & Rice, 2002; Chan, Cole, & Barfett, 1987).

Comprehension strategy instruction has been identified as one of the most effective interventions to improve the com-prehension of students with RD (Forness, Kavale, Blum, & Lloyd, 1997; Kamil, 2004; NRP, 2000) and is considered most effective when it focuses on the use of metacognition (Malone & Mastropieri, 1992) and attributional retraining (Borkowski, Weyhing, & Carr, 1988; Schunk & Rice, 1992) and includes ample opportunities for practice and generalization (Pressley, Goodchild, Fleet, Zajchowski, & Evans, 1989; Pressley, Johnson, Symons, McGoldrick, & Kurita, 1989; Pressley & Wharton-McDonald, 1997). Effective strategy implementa-tion requires understanding of the strategies, including when and why to use them in comprehending text (Mason, 2004; Sinatra, Brown, & Reynolds, 2002; Vaughn et al., 2000).

Yet relatively little evidence exists evaluating the efficacy of strategy instruction for high school students who are strug-gling with reading comprehension. Apthorp and Clark (2007) undertook an extensive review of the literature seeking well-designed studies that evaluated strategy instruction as a means of helping struggling high school students improve their reading comprehension. Only a single study could be identi-fied as relevant and sufficiently rigorous to report. A study by Fuchs, Fuchs, and Kazdan (1999) evaluated the impact of peer-assisted learning strategies on the reading comprehen-sion skills of struggling high school students. Peer-assisted learning strategies were associated with a positive change of 13 percentile points on average on an experimental reading measure, an effect that failed to reach significance in the study but which Apthorp and Clark (2007) considered “sub-stantively important and positive” based on the standards of the What Works Clearinghouse. A more recent meta-analysis by Edmonds and colleagues (Edmonds, Vaughn, Wexler, Reutebuch, Cable, Tackett, & Schnakenberg, 2009) found that explicit instruction in comprehension practices and strate-gies was associated with improved reading comprehension by older struggling readers. This meta-analysis included studies of participants from middle school and high school. Another meta-analysis report, however, has suggested that effect sizes are larger overall on studies with middle school struggling readers than on those with high school participants (Scammacca, Roberts, Vaughn, Edmonds, Wexler, Reute-buch, & Torgesen, 2007).

In the present study, the efficacy of short-term reading remediation for high school students with reading disabilities is examined. A sample of struggling readers in high school, referred by school staff, were assessed to determine their reading disability status. Students meeting low achievement criteria for reading disability were assigned to a semester of reading remediation using a research-based intervention or to a waiting list control condition. The reading program offered a combination of strategy instruction in word iden-tification and text comprehension processes and phonologi-cally based remediation of decoding skills. In the second semester, control students participated in the reading inter-vention. All participants were assessed on reading and read-ing-related skills at the beginning and end of the semester. Intervention participants were assessed also at a 1-year follow-up. This quasi-experimental study was designed to assess whether meaningful gains could be demonstrated fol-lowing a short-term remediation program for disabled ado-lescent readers. It was asked whether phonologically based decoding skills were still amenable to intervention in ado-lescence or whether reading rate and reading comprehension performance were more likely to be affected. Finally, if reme-diation was associated with improved reading skill, it was asked whether benefits would differ for students who varied in phonological processing skill, receptive vocabulary, or primary language status at entry.

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MethodParticipantsThese data were collected in 19 high schools from a large multicultural and linguistically diverse urban school district in Canada, the Toronto Catholic District School Board. Par-ticipating schools were selected by school district administra-tors to allow equal geographical representation across the city, with first priority given to schools with the greatest academic need. The schools represented a cross-section of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds as confirmed by school district demographic data.

Students were referred to the study by teachers concerned about their reading achievement. Many of the study partici-pants received intervention in their first year of high school; referral of these students was made by their eighth grade teachers and school administrators.

After receiving written consent from a parent or legal guardian and verbal assent from the student, a brief screening assessment of the student’s word identification, word attack, passage comprehension, and receptive vocabulary skills was conducted by research psychometrists from the Learning Dis-abilities Research Program (LDRP) of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. To qualify for participation, students had to score 1 standard deviation or more below age norm expectations (standard score [SS] ≤ 85) on the averaged standard score obtained from three of four reading achieve-ment tests (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised [WRMT-R] Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension subtests [Woodcock, 1987]; Wide Range Achievement Test, 3rd ed. Reading subtest, Blue Form [Wilkinson, 1993]). Across the four screening measures, 74.6% of qualifying participants had standard scores less than 90 on all four measures, and 91.5% of qualifying participants had standard scores less than 90 on three out of four measures. Of the 8.5% of participants with standard scores less than 90 on fewer than three measures, significant delays were observed on one or two measures (M = 78.2, SD = 7.7). Analyses reported below were conducted both with and without these participants, and model results were substantively equivalent. English language learner (ELL) students who had been in Canada for less than 2 years were not included in the sample. Students were classified as ELL if the primary language spo-ken at home with their parents when they were first learning to speak was a language other than English. This classification is similar to that used in a large Canadian longitudinal study of first- and second-language learners (Lipka & Siegel, 2007).

A total of 351 students meeting criteria for reading dis-ability participated in this research. Overall, participants were 14.7 years of age at entry (SD = 0.8). Within the full sample, students in their ninth grade year composed 197 students in the intervention group and 71 students in the control group. The sample included 164 females and 187 males. A total of 191 students were coded as English as a first language (EFL; 54.4%), and 160 students were coded as ELL (45.6%).

The sample included a group of adolescent struggling readers who replicated substantial achievement deficits on the standardized reading measures. Overall, their average reading performance was between 1.5 and 2 standard devia-tions below age expectations at program entry (WRMT-R Word Attack M SS = 74.3, SD = 12.4; WRMT-R Word Iden-tification M SS = 71.5, SD = 12.5; WRMT-R Passage Com-prehension M SS = 73.1, SD = 12.5). Their receptive vocabulary skills were on average a full standard deviation below age norm expectations (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test [PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997] M SS = 84.2, SD = 13.7). Their phonological blending skills, assessed at pretest, were similarly below age expectations (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes [CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999] Blending Words M scaled score = 7.3, SD = 2.9). Performance means and standard deviations for these descriptive measures are summarized in Table 1 according to intervention condition (PHAST PACES, control).

Research DesignThe study was quasi-experimental in that randomization of participants to the treatment or control condition was con-taminated. The control group consisted of students scheduled to receive the PHAST PACES program in the second semester of the school year. Because students received a course credit for participation in the PHAST PACES program, assignment to the intervention classes was ultimately under the control of secondary school personnel responsible for arranging stu-dent courses in the first and second semester and generating individual timetables for each student. There was a bias by high school staff to get as many struggling readers as possible into the intervention program in the first semester of the school year.

Table 1. Characteristics of Participants at Program Entry

PHAST PACES Control Group Group (n = 268) (n = 83)

Measure M SD M SD

Child’s age in years 14.69 0.78 14.34 0.55WRMT-R Word 71.53 12.48 72.58 11.20 Identification SSWRMT-R Word Attack SS 74.29 12.40 75.92 12.11WRMT-R Passage 73.11 12.46 74.45 10.79 Comprehension SSPPVT-III SS 84.16 13.72 85.60 11.50CTOPP Blending Words SS 7.33 2.89 7.98 2.28Sound Combinations 16.13 4.39 16.09 4.58Challenge Words 57.03 19.47 55.99 19.33

Note: WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised; SS = standard score; PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes.

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Despite that fact, there were no significant differences between the PHAST PACES and the control samples in level of reading underachievement at entry. The only differences revealed from t tests on entry descriptive statistics involved the proportion of EFL and ELL students assigned to treat-ment versus the waiting list control condition: More EFL than ELL students were assigned to the waiting list, χ2(1) = 4.97, p < .03. In addition, students who qualified for the study beyond ninth grade were more likely to be assigned to the intervention condition than to the waiting list condi-tion, χ2(1) = 5.08, p < .02.

PHAST PACES students were instructed in small classes of 5 to 10 students, all of whom met the inclusion criteria described above. The program was taught as a regular course (usually an Essentials or Locally Developed English course), and students received a credit for its successful completion. Although the complete PHAST PACES program is approxi-mately 80 hours, the students in this study completed only 60 to 70 hours of instruction. The PHAST PACES instructors were English or Special Education resource teachers in the participating high schools specially trained and mentored to deliver the program.

Teacher TrainingAll teachers were trained to implement the program through professional development training that was spread over two semesters (September to June). On-site visits to the teacher’s class were an essential component of the training model. Senior teachers from the LDRP served as mentor teachers under the direction of the second author. The men-tor teachers are experienced in teaching the intervention and have trained and mentored teachers in our previous research. Mentor teachers conducted the 8 to 10 days of in-service training, typically in workshop format, and

visited each teacher’s PHAST PACES class regularly to observe program implementation, provide constructive feedback, model new program content, and offer ongoing support. Regular on-site visits by the mentor teachers were considered an essential component of the professional development model as studies have demonstrated that the attrition of skills following in-service training is significant and has been reported to be as high as 85% within 3 weeks of training (Fox, 1989).

The training model for PHAST PACES teachers has been described in detail in a separate report (Lovett, Lacerenza, et al., 2008).

The Reading Intervention Program: PHAST PACESThe PHAST PACES program integrates word identification and text comprehension strategy instruction. The program offers a decoding track (the PHAST Track) and two integrated com-prehension tracks, the Text Knowledge and Comprehension Strategy Tracks. These two instructional comprehension tracks can be taught in parallel with the PHAST Decoding Program or independently, according to the needs of the instructional group. The three tracks are summarized in Figure 1.

The Phonological and Orthographic Knowledge (or Decod-ing) Track (Track 1) teaches students five specific word iden-tification strategies along with a metacognitive organizational plan that supports flexible strategy application. The word identification strategies are Sounding Out, Rhyming, Peeling Off, Vowel Alert, and Spy. The Text Knowledge Track focuses on understanding the structure of narrative, expository, and graphical texts at both micro and macro levels of written language structure. Students learn to recognize specific text features and signaling devices that authors use and learn how to use these signals to increase their understanding of what they are reading. Lessons include work on signaling devices, sources of confusion, elements of plot, organizational text

Figure 1. Graphic summary of the three instructional tracks in the PHAST PACES intervention

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structures, text mapping, and text coherence. The skills taught and practiced in the Text Knowledge Track serve as spring-boards to the comprehension strategies taught in the Com-prehension Strategy Track. The two tracks are sequentially integrated to allow prerequisite training and smooth transition among the strategies taught. The Comprehension Strategy Track introduces five specific text comprehension strategies (Predicting, Activating Prior Knowledge, Clarifying, Evaluat-ing Through Questioning, and Summarizing [PACES]) and is taught with ongoing instruction in strategy monitoring and evaluation.

Instructional features to promote learning and transfer of learning are inherent to the three tracks. Lessons combine direct instruction and dialogue-based metacognitive training, present material in a sequential and structured manner, and teach all prerequisite skills to mastery. The metacognitive instruction is scaffolded and teaches explicit self-monitoring and evaluation skills. Each lesson includes guided and inde-pendent practice and offers diverse lessonware and text materi-als. Secondary school curricular materials and texts appropriate for adolescents and young adults are used in the program. In the greater Toronto area, efforts were made to meet the ninth grade Ministry of Education expectations for literacy in the province of Ontario.

In the PHAST PACES program, there is an attempt to include all of the instructional, implementation, metacogni-tive, and contextual features identified to be important from previous efficacy studies with older struggling readers. PHAST PACES provides explicit instruction on multiple aspects and dimensions of text structure and explicit instruc-tion on the best validated text comprehension strategies and how to apply them and monitor their success. As with the PHAST word identification strategy instruction (Lovett, Lacerenza, & Borden, 2000), preskills are taught to facilitate effective strategy learning, strategy application, and strategy monitoring. Some of these preskills include specific teaching about text structures and detailed vocabulary instruction and elaborations. Comprehension strategies are directly explained and modeled through a scaffolding and mentorship model adapted from reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Small instructional groups allow the inclusion of cooperative learning experiences. Finally, metacognitive training on com-prehension monitoring and attributional retraining compo-nents are woven into the dialogue structures used in strategy acquisition and application.

Track 1: The Phonological and Orthographic Knowledge (or PHAST Decoding) Track. In an earlier report, we have described a research-based intervention, PHAST Reading (Lovett, Lacerenza, & Borden, 2000), designed to remediate the pho-nological and decoding deficits of struggling readers and to teach a set of word identification strategies that allow them to become independent successful decoders. Intended for small groups of struggling readers from first grade to eighth grade, the PHAST program was designed based on findings

from our previous research that better outcomes and faster learning resulted when disabled readers received both pho-nologically based and strategy-based instruction (Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, et al., 2000). The program has been dem-onstrated to be effective for children of different IQ levels and socioeconomic backgrounds (Morris et al., 2010) and for children for whom English is a second language (Lovett, De Palma, et al., 2008). Track 1 of the PHAST PACES pro-gram was developed as a more senior level of PHAST, based on speculation that the same programming principles may be relevant to struggling readers in high school who have gaps in letter–sound knowledge and for whom decoding is still a challenge.

To encourage generalization of the skills and strategies taught, content-related word analysis and identification activi-ties offer challenging vocabulary that students may encounter in their high school courses. Challenge words are drawn from ninth and tenth grade textbooks in biology, chemistry, math-ematics, photography, technology, auto mechanics, geography, and accounting.

The Comprehension Tracks. Tracks 2 and 3 of the PHAST PACES program focus on teaching students explicit text com-prehension strategies for both narrative and expository texts. These two tracks are closely integrated and are taught together. The Text Knowledge Track teaches the skills required for successful application of the five comprehension strategies introduced in the Comprehension Strategy Track. Comprehen-sion instruction (PACES) can run in parallel with the decoding lessons (PHAST) by giving each equal time within the pro-gram lesson hour or can be added at a later time or run sepa-rately. The goal of the PACES lessons is to help students become purposeful and active readers by applying specific comprehension strategies on a variety of text materials and with different types of text formats.

Track 2: The Text Knowledge Track. The Text Knowledge Track lessons are designed to help the students understand the author’s plan for a text—why the author selects particular words, sentences, and paragraphs and how this facilitates understanding of the information presented.

Students are taught the various signaling devices used by authors and how these signals can help the reader to make predictions, set reading goals, activate prior knowledge, iden-tify organizational plans, and focus on important information. Lessons in Track 2 introduce structural text analysis at the micro (signaling devices, sources of confusion, and question-ing skills) and macro (narrative and expository organizational text structures, text unity and coherence) levels. Students are exposed to a variety of texts and learn that they must bring a separate set of skills to narrative, expository, and other text genres. All of the skills taught in Track 2 are necessary for successful application of the five comprehension strategies, and the scaffolded nature of the program ensures that these prerequisite skills are in place before each strategy is intro-duced in the Comprehension Strategy Track.

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Track 3: The Comprehension Strategy Track. As the skills from the Text Knowledge Track are acquired, the five com-prehension strategies together with self-monitoring and evaluative skills are taught in parallel. The strategies, Pre-dicting, Activating Prior Knowledge, Clarifying, Evaluating Through Questioning, and Summarizing (PACES), have been designed to reflect the processes used by skilled readers to access a text’s meaning. A metacognitive PACES Plan prompts the use of all the strategies, and guides and supports students through the application of each comprehension strategy with specific dialogue or scripts. The goal of the PACES Plan is to have students become independent, active, and self-regulated readers as they work with confidence on a variety of text materials.

Instruction in the PHAST PACES program employs both direct explanation and a strategy instruction model, wherein dialogue and scaffolded student-teacher interaction are key instructional features (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). The students first experience the comprehension strategies when an expert reader, the teacher, models the strategies, thinking aloud as he or she reads. The teacher’s self-talk serves as a script that students acquire to guide their application of the strategies. Strategy instruction is highly scaffolded; the teacher instructs one strategy at a time, models and reviews strategy dialogue daily, provides individual instruction and ongoing support, reinforces successful strategy use and provides corrective feedback, and adjusts and fades prompts gradually over time. Providing strategy dialogue and scaffolded, contextual instruc-tion encourages students to apply the strategies independently and to generalize strategy use to other texts and settings.

Text reading follows a general format. Teacher and stu-dents, one at a time, read sections of the text and model appli-cation of the strategies as required. If a reader has difficulty with execution of a particular strategy, then the teacher, as a coach, prompts and supports the student. Students use their PACES Plan to guide themselves through predicting, activat-ing prior knowledge, clarifying, evaluating through question-ing, and summarizing. Narrative and expository reading selections of varying length are drawn from the ninth and tenth grade curriculum and other sources; novels are integrated once students reach a level of strategic proficiency. More details about the program are provided in the Appendix.

Test MeasuresAll PHAST PACES students were individually assessed before and after their program on a battery of experimental and stan-dardized measures; control students were assessed at com-parable time points. The WRMT-R reading subtests were administered as pre- and posttest measures, as were the Blend-ing Words subtest of the CTOPP, the Sound Combinations subtest of the Sound-Symbol Test (Lovett et al., 1994; Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, et al., 2000), and the Challenge Words Test (Lovett et al., 1994; Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, et al., 2000). The experimental measures have been used in previous

intervention studies conducted by our group, have been revealed to be sensitive measures of change in reading-related processes, and have been established to demonstrate sound psychometric properties (Cirino et al., 2002). The Sound Combinations task requires students to provide pronunciations for a set of 30 letter cluster sounds (prompting for alternate pronunciations when appropriate) including vowel digraphs (ee, oa, ai, igh), diphthongs (oo, oy, oi, ou), and vowel-con-trolled consonants (ge, gi, ce, ci). The Challenge Words are difficult multisyllabic words that are not introduced in the PHAST PACES classes (e.g., disenfranchised, unpretentious, uninhabitable). The remedial outcome battery was composed of standardized measures of reading achievement and experi-mental measures of remedial response and generalization of learning.

Fidelity of ImplementationFidelity of program implementation was monitored in several ways. All PHAST PACES teachers were trained by senior research teachers who followed training guidelines that speci-fied methods for delivery of instructional content and a time-line for introducing particular skills. Teacher fidelity was checked a minimum of four times during the 70 hours of programming for every instructional group. In addition, PHAST PACES teachers completed a lesson diary on a daily basis. In the diary, teachers recorded the content and strategies introduced and practiced each day, the activities completed, and the student responses. Diaries were reviewed for fidelity checks and to allow determination of the number of lessons completed, number of comprehension strategies introduced, time spent on narrative and expository texts, and so on.

ResultsThe results are described in two sections below. Treatment and control group comparisons were evaluated through a set of hierarchical linear models comparing outcomes and growth for students in the two conditions; these analyses included 268 PHAST PACES and 83 control participants. The long-term impact of the intervention was assessed in a second set of models, including in these hierarchical models only those 197 PHAST PACES participants who contributed pretest, midpoint, posttest, and 1-year follow-up data. Follow-up data were not available on the control participants who crossed over into the intervention condition following posttesting at 70 hours. The outcomes of interest in this design included the three standardized WRMT-R reading subtests and the two experi-mental measures (Sound Combinations, Challenge Words).

The design of the present intervention models included three hierarchically nested levels: (a) repeated measurement of reading outcomes, (b) individual students, and (c) instruc-tional groups, acknowledging that potential variability in final outcomes and rate of growth might vary by individual student and/or by instructional group. In cases of repeated

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measurement involving more than two time points, growth curve modeling provides more robust estimates of change over time than either ANCOVA models or difference score calculations (Rogosa, Brandt, & Zimowski, 1982). The present design, like many intervention designs, also involves hierarchi-cal nesting with instructional group. In the presence of any significant intraclass correlation at higher levels of nesting, analyses using posttest–pretest difference scores cannot account for the effect of this nesting (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1987). Based on both considerations, the present analysis uti-lizes multilevel growth curve models. In the case of both inter-vention and follow-up outcomes, model specification followed the heuristic guidelines found in Snijders and Bosker (1999) and Singer and Willet (2003). Random effects were evaluated first, followed by the inclusion of a set of fixed effect predic-tors, with additional model specification to optimize fit.

Assessing the Efficacy of PHAST PACES: Intervention and Control ComparisonsA common set of predictors was established to evaluate individual differences in treatment outcomes in the models: These included intervention condition (PHAST PACES or waiting list control), age, sex, receptive vocabulary (raw scores on the PPVT-III), and phonological blending (raw scores on the CTOPP Blending Words subtest). Because the model explicitly included age as a predictor, other predictors

were incorporated as raw scores rather than age-normed standardized scores. Including both predictors allowed the model to evaluate an overall developmental effect, along with the effect of absolute vocabulary and phonological awareness skill levels. Table 1 includes the preintervention means and standard deviations of each predictor with the exception of sex (53.3% male). Each of these predictors represents scores obtained prior to the start of intervention, and each predictor was grand-mean centered prior to inclu-sion in the models. During model fitting, predictors of final status were retained for every model, but only significant predictors of change in reading skills over time were retained to ensure the most parsimonious model of skill growth. Results from the most parsimonious models for each outcome measure are summarized below and detailed in Table 2.

Overall, significant intrastudent variation in final status at posttest was observed across all outcome measures (all σ2

0 at p < .001), indicating that students varied systematically in final reading ability. For the two experimental outcome mea-sures related to program content or strategies, Sound Combina-tions and Challenge Words, significant variation was observed in both final status (Sound Combinations σ2

1 = 6.40, p < .001; Challenge Words σ2

1 = 79.20, p < .001) and rate of growth (Sound Combinations σ2

2 = 0.61, p < .01; Challenge Words σ2

2 = 2.34, p < .01), indicating meaningful group-to-group variation in both final reading ability and rate of growth.

Table 2. Growth Curve Final Model Results for Pre- to Posttest Period

Sound Challenge WRMT-R WRMT-R WRMT-R Fixed Effects Par. Symbol Test WA SS WI SS PC SS

Final status Intercept γ00 22.92*** 73.25*** 82.94*** 76.33*** 83.50*** Intervention γ01 7.35*** 15.18*** 6.45*** 4.03*** 4.32*** vs. control Age γ02 –0.65 –0.13 –1.39t –4.69*** –1.97** Sex γ03 –3.32 –1.27 0.63 –0.46 –3.97*** PPVT-III γ04 0.27 0.12* 0.02 0.12*** 0.32*** CTOPP γ05 0.15*** 0.75** 1.05*** 0.57** 0.42** Blending rawRate of change Intercept γ10 3.07*** 6.96*** 3.96*** 2.01*** 3.86*** Intervention γ11 2.96*** 3.31*** 2.93*** 1.45*** 2.24*** vs. control PPVT-III γ12 0.02** CTOPP γ13 –0.07* –0.16* Blending rawVariance components

Level 1 Within person σ2ε 5.51*** 29.11*** 27.29*** 15.98*** 34.45***

Level 2 In final status σ20 7.49*** 211.80*** 114.11*** 128.88*** 71.11***

Level 3 In final status σ21 6.40*** 79.20***

In growth rate σ22 0.61** 2.34**

Note: WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised; WA = Word Attack; SS = standard score; WI = Word Identification; PC = Passage Comprehension; PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes.tp < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

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Results from the models of Word Attack standard scores as the outcome measure revealed significant fixed effects for intervention condition, γ01 = 6.45, t(345) = –4.23, linear growth, γ10 = 3.96, t(617) = 17.56, and the interaction of these effects, γ11 = 2.93, t(617) = –6.32, all ps < .0001. The PHAST PACES students on average grew at a rate of 4 standard scores per testing point and at the end of the semester were approxi-mately 6.5 standard scores ahead of the control participants. Of the control variables, only CTOPP Blending Words revealed a significant fixed effect, γ05 = 1.05, t(345) = 5.84, p < .0001; higher Blending scores at pretest were associated with better Word Attack outcomes, but there was no interaction of Blend-ing with intervention condition or with growth.

Similar results were obtained from the models of Word Identification standard scores as outcomes. Intervention condition, γ01 = 4.03, t(345) = –2.6, growth, γ10 = 2.01, t(617) = 11.65, and their interaction, γ11 = 1.45, t(617) = –4.09, all ps < .001, produced significant fixed effects. PHAST PACES students gained on average 4 standard scores per testing point and ended the program significantly ahead of the control students. Age, γ02 = –4.69, t(345) = –5.5, p < .0001, produced a significant fixed effect, with younger participants having an advantage on Word Identification posttest outcomes. Receptive vocabulary, PPVT γ04 = 0.12, t(345) = 3.63, p < .001, and CTOPP Blending Words, γ05 = 0.57, t(345) = 3.04, p < .003, produced significant fixed effects in the model, but the magnitude of their coefficients was small.

Models for Passage Comprehension standard scores revealed fixed effects for intervention condition, γ01 = –4.32, t(344) = –3.98, growth, γ10 = 3.86, t(614) = 12.45, and their interaction, γ11 = 2.24, t(614) = –4.09, all ps < .001. PHAST PACES students gained on average almost 4.5 standard scores per testing point and finished the program significantly ahead of the control group students. Sex, γ03 = –3.97, t(344) = –4.00, and receptive vocabulary, γ04 = 0.32, t(344) = 11.19, both ps < .001, produced significant fixed effects, with female students at an advantage on posttest Passage Comprehension scores and children with better receptive vocabulary at pretest also at an advantage. Similarly, age, γ02 = –1.97, t(344) = 2.94, and CTOPP Blending, γ05 = 0.42, t(344) = 2.82, both ps < .01, produced significant fixed effects, with younger children and children with better blending scores achieving superior post-test scores.

The two experimental outcome measures, Sound Combina-tions and Challenge Words, assessed change on treatment-related dimensions of sound–symbol learning and multisyllabic word identification. Both measures demonstrated robust fixed effects for intervention condition, γ01 = 7.35 and 15.18, t(10) = –8.86 and –5.27, ps < .001, growth, γ10 = 3.07 and 6.96, t(733) = 18.84 and 22.35, ps < .001, and their interaction, γ11 = 2.96 and 3.31, t(733) = –8.67 and –5.21, ps < .01. PHAST PACES students acquired sound symbol correspondences at a rate of 3 more per testing point and finished the program almost 7.5 items ahead of the control students. Similarly

PHAST PACES students were able to correctly identify 7 more multisyllabic Challenge Words every testing point and finished the program more than 15 words ahead of the con-trols. CTOPP sound blending produced significant fixed effects on both measures, γ05 = 0.15 and 0.75, t(733) = 3.35 and 2.81, ps < .01. Children with better sound blending skills at pretest enjoyed a posttest advantage on both experimental measures. CTOPP sound blending also interacted with rate of growth over time (γ13 = –0.07 and -0.16, ps < .05), but the pattern of the effect was different. Children with poorer sound blending skills demonstrated relatively greater growth on these measures although the size of the coefficients was small. Receptive vocabulary produced a fixed effect for Challenge Words at posttest, β = .12, t(803) = 2.54, p = .01; higher PPVT scores were associated with better Challenge Words scores at posttest, although again the effect was a modest one.

To summarize this set of models, for every outcome, PHAST PACES students achieved higher posttest scores than control students (all ps < .001, with parameters ranging from a 4.03 WRMT-R Word Identification standard score advantage to a 15.18 Challenge Words advantage). Age was associated with posttest status as well: Younger students finished the intervention with higher standard scores on WRMT-R Word Identification and Passage Comprehension. Better developed receptive vocabulary and phonological blending skills at entry were also associated with higher final status across three and five reading outcomes, respectively. Participation in the PHAST PACES intervention was associated with a greater rate of increase in reading skill across all five outcome mea-sures, and these were robust effects. The intervention advan-tage in per time point skill growth ranged from 1.45 (γ11, WRMT-R Word Identification SS) to 3.31 (γ11 Challenge Words). On the two program-related outcomes (Sound Com-binations and Challenge Word reading), lower initial phono-logical blending ability was associated with greater rates of skill growth. Table 3 includes model-derived estimates for pretest, midtest, and posttest scores for both intervention and control participants on the five reading outcome measures reported. Figure 2 depicts change on these model-derived performance estimates over the intervention period by inter-vention and control groups on the WRMT-R Word Attack and Passage Comprehension subtests.

Effect Sizes for Intervention OutcomesEffect sizes (Cohen’s d) for the difference in mean outcomes for PHAST PACES versus control students were calculated using the model-predicted post-intervention values for each outcome measure. The average effect size was 0.68 across all measures. The effects ranged from large effects for inter-vention-related outcomes (Sound Combinations d = 1.91) to medium effects for complex multisyllabic word reading (Challenge Test d = 0.57) and nonword reading (WRMT-R Word Attack SS d = 0.45). Smaller effects were observed for

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single-word identification (WRMT-R Word Identification SS d = 0.15) and comprehension outcomes (WRMT-R Pas-sage Comprehension SS d = 0.34). Because there is not consensus on the calculation of effect sizes in multilevel models, especially for fixed effect predictors (Roberts & Monaco, 2006), effect sizes were also calculated for the PHAST PACES–control difference in growth rates through the intervention period. Effect sizes were calculated via the t-statistic for the Growth × Group fixed effect parameter. The sizes of these effects were similar (M d = 0.66) to those observed when using postintervention means as the basis for effect size (Sound Combinations d = 1.01, Challenge Test d = 0.61, WRMT-R Word Attack d = 0.74, WRMT-R Word Identification d = 0.48, WRMT-R Passage Compre-hension d = 0.48).

Long-Term Efficacy: Intervention Follow-Up Findings

The second set of hierarchical models included only those 197 PHAST PACES participants who contributed pretest, midpoint, posttest, and 1-year follow-up data. The additional time point provided by the follow-up assessment afforded greater complexity in the random effects portion of the mod-els, allowing for the incorporation of group-level random effects and associated group-level fixed effects. The same student-level predictors that were used in the intervention outcome models (age, sex, receptive vocabulary, and pho-nological blending) were also incorporated into the follow-up models. In addition, two instructional group-level predictors were included: (a) instructional group size and (b) whether the teacher of that instructional group had previous experi-ence teaching the PHAST PACES program. Follow-up data were collected on four of the five reading outcomes assessed above, the three WRMT-R subtests and the experimental Challenge Words measure. Results from analyses of these four follow-up measures are summarized in Table 4.

Similar to the models for posttest outcomes, substantial student-to-student variability in follow-up outcomes was observed across all measures in the follow-up models (all σ2

0 p < .001). Significant variability in growth rates remained unaccounted for on both WRMT-R Word Identification (σ2

1 = 3.64, p < .01) and Passage Comprehension scores (σ2

1 = 8.79, p < .01) after individual difference predictors were incorporated into the model. Similar as well to the pre- to posttest models (σ2

2 = 2.34, p < .01), significant variation among instructional groups was observed for Challenge Words outcomes (σ2

2 = 7.70, p < .05). Figure 3 depicts model-derived performance estimates on the three WRMT-R subtests for the 197 PHAST PACES participants who completed the follow-up assessment.

Table 3. Model-Derived Point Estimates for Full Sample Throughout Intervention Period

Pretest Midpoint Posttest

Measure Group M SD M SD M SD

Sound Combinations Control 16.09 3.31 16.07 3.13 16.05 3.02 Intervention 16.48 3.40 19.55 3.43 22.61 3.56Challenge Test Control 55.99 18.23 59.07 17.91 62.15 17.62 Intervention 57.91 18.03 64.98 17.61 72.05 17.27WRMT-R Word Attack Control 75.92 10.90 76.95 10.90 77.98 10.90 Intervention 74.99 11.02 78.95 11.02 82.91 11.02WRMT-R Word Identification Control 72.58 11.06 73.14 11.06 73.7 11.06 Intervention 71.55 12.49 73.56 12.49 75.58 12.49WRMT-R Passage Comprehension Control 74.45 8.91 76.08 9.18 77.71 9.45 Intervention 73.47 10.19 77.33 10.48 81.19 10.79

Note: WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised.

Figure 2. Model-derived means for two subtests (Word Attack [WA], Passage Comprehension [PC]) of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests across the intervention period for control and intervention participants

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As illustrated in Figure 3, the 1-year follow-up period, from posttest to follow-up testing, was characterized by an average trend to deceleration. On three of the four outcomes,

the intervention gains observed from pre- to posttest flattened out in the year from posttest to follow-up assessments; this observation is confirmed in the deceleration coefficients γ20 recorded in Table 4. One follow-up measure did not demon-strate deceleration effects, however: No overall deceleration occurred for scores on the Passage Comprehension outcome, and no fixed effects for quadratic change were revealed in the follow-up models for Passage Comprehension. On Word Attack, Word Identification, and Challenge Words outcomes, fixed effects were revealed for the deceleration coefficients, γ20 = –8.89, t(583) = 6.54, –4.32, t(584) = 4.02, and –15.80, t(716) = 10.53, respectively, all ps < .001.

Patterns similar to the pre- to posttest outcome models were observed for predictors of follow-up status at follow-up. Age was a negative predictor of final status, with younger students having higher standard scores on WRMT-R Word Identification, γ02 = –2.56, t(190) = 2.06, p < .05, and Passage Comprehension, γ02 = –2.45, t(191) = 2.74, p < .01, at the time of follow-up assessment. Across all outcome measures except WRMT-R Word Attack, higher initial receptive vocab-ulary was associated with superior reading skills at follow-up, ranging from WRMT-R Word Identification, γ04 = 0.08, t(190) = 2.20, p < .05, to WRMT-R Passage Comprehension

Table 4. Growth Curve Final Model Results for Follow-Up Sample

Fixed Effects Par. Challenge Test WRMT-R WA SS WRMT-R WI SS WRMT-R PC SS

Final status Intercept γ00 74.86*** 82.77*** 76.09*** 84.09*** Age γ02 0.52 0.61 –2.56* –2.45** Sex γ03 –1.37 –0.01 0.08 –2.30t

PPVT-III γ04 0.11* 0.02 0.08* 0.27** CTOPP Blending raw γ05 1.23*** 1.13*** 0.73** 0.54** First/subsequent γ06 –0.29 –1.31 0.37 0.32 Group size γ07 –1.10t Rate of change linear Intercept γ10 –12.26*** –8.55*** 5.87*** –5.39** Age γ11 –3.66t –2.17 1.43** PPVT-III γ12 0.14* CTOPP Blending raw γ13 0.93* First/subsequent γ14 –5.96* –4.32 –2.77 –6.34* Group size γ15 –1.89** Acceleration quadratic Intercept γ20 –15.80*** –8.89*** –4.32*** Age γ21 –4.00* –3.59* PPVT-III γ22 0.11* CTOPP Blending raw γ23 0.78* First/subsequent γ24 –6.53** –4.49* –3.08* –5.81* Group size γ25 –1.24* Variance components

Level 1 Within person σ2ε 29.66*** 28.95*** 15.65*** 31.72***

Level 2 In final status σ20 187.91*** 106.72*** 133.58*** 77.39***

In rate of change σ21 3.65t 0.11 3.64** 8.79**

Level 3 In final status σ22 7.70*

Note: WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised; WA = Word Attack; SS = standard score; WI = Word Identification; PC = Passage Comprehension; PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes.tp < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Figure 3. Model-derived means across three subscales of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests across intervention and 1-year follow-up

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162 Journal of Learning Disabilities 45(2)

SS, γ04 = 0.27, t(191) = 8.63, p < .01. Similarly, across all outcome measures higher phonological blending skills were associated with greater follow-up skills, ranging from WRMT-R Passage Comprehension, γ05 = 0.54, t(191) = 2.91, p < .01, to Challenge Words Test, γ05 = 1.23, t(716) = 3.94, p < .001. Stronger phonological blending skills prior to inter-vention were associated with greater growth rates on the Challenge Test, γ13 = 0.93, t(716) = 2.30, p < .05; likewise, greater receptive vocabulary was associated with greater growth rates on WRMT-R Word Attack standard scores over the whole pretest to follow-up period, γ13 = 0.14, t(583) = 2.12, p < .05.

The greater complexity of the follow-up hierarchical mod-els permitted an initial examination of implementation vari-ables that may influence outcomes. In general, a somewhat complex set of associations between teachers’ experience with the intervention (first vs. subsequent PHAST PACES group taught) and instructional group size was observed within the follow-up models. An overall trend was observed for subsequent-taught groups to have a faster growth rate (see γ14 coefficients for each outcome measure in Table 4), with a significant deceleration through the end of intervention and through to the follow-up assessment (see γ24 coefficients). Larger instructional group size appeared associated with slower growth rates and a more severe deceleration in skill growth, but these effects occurred only for WRMT-R Word Identification outcomes, rate of growth γ15 = –1.89, t(584) = –2.83, p < .01; deceleration γ15 = –1.24, t(584) = –2.49, p < .02. Table 5 summarizes model-derived performance means for the follow-up sample at each testing point across the four follow-up outcomes.

DiscussionRecent demographic data from Canada and the United States indicate the prevalence and persistence of literacy learning problems among teens and young adults. Yet little evidence exists as to the amenability of reading problems to later inter-vention and the essential components of effective intervention for this group.

In the present article, we describe a remedial reading pro-gram specifically designed to address the decoding, word

identification, fluency, and reading comprehension needs of struggling readers who enter high school still lacking basic reading skills. The program is composed of three overarching instructional tracks working on (a) gaps in letter–sound knowl-edge, strategic word identification, and word identification speed (the Decoding Track); (b) knowledge of text conven-tions at many different levels of written language structure, from signaling words and anaphoric reference to narrative and expository text structures (the Text Knowledge Track); and (c) acquisition of a set of effective reading comprehension strategies appropriate to a variety of text genres (the Com-prehension Strategy Track). Students acquire explicit strate-gies to guide their responses when faced with unfamiliar decoding or comprehension challenges and a plan for evaluat-ing the success of strategy implementation and what needs to be pursued next to facilitate reading with full and fluent comprehension. The PHAST PACES program is an extension of our earlier research on the components of effective reme-diation for school-aged children with severe reading disabili-ties and capitalizes on everything we have learned to date about systematic multiple component intervention for strug-gling readers of any age (Lovett, De Palma, et al., 2008; Lovett et al., 2005; Lovett, Lacerenza, & Borden, 2000; Lovett, Lacerenza, Borden, et al., 2000; Morris et al., 2010).

Results from the present evaluation revealed that students who received the PHAST PACES intervention achieved higher posttest scores on all reading outcomes relative to students in the waiting list control group. After 60 to 70 hours of small group intervention, these struggling readers achieved signifi-cant and meaningful gains on several indices of reading skill, including standardized measures of word attack, word iden-tification, and passage comprehension. An average effect size of 0.68 was revealed across all measures. Small to medium effect sizes were found on standardized measures of word attack (d = 0.45), word reading (d = 0.15), and passage com-prehension (d = 0.34). Larger effect sizes were revealed for experimental measures of letter cluster–sound knowledge (d = 1.91) and multisyllabic word identification (d = 0.57). Methodologically, larger effect sizes are generally found on “treatment-inherent” measures that assess intervention-specific content and skills in contrast to independent measures that by definition assess uninstructed content (Slavin &

Table 5. Model-Derived Point Estimates for Follow-Up Subsample

Pretest Midpoint Posttest Follow-Up

Measure M SD M SD M SD M SD

Challenge Test 59.90 17.33 67.22 16.17 71.90 15.54 73.89 14.55WRMT-R Word Attack 76.09 11.32 79.90 10.84 82.27 10.78 81.90 10.88WRMT-R Word Identification 72.91 11.28 74.97 11.46 76.19 11.68 76.12 12.17WRMT-R Passage Comprehension 74.17 10.33 78.54 10.34 81.38 10.42 82.99 10.60

Note: WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests–Revised.

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Madden, 2008). Better developed receptive vocabulary and phonological blending skills at entry were associated with higher final status on a majority of reading outcomes. Lower phonological blending skills at entry were associated with greater growth on the experimental measures.

It should be noted that the battery included only one measure of reading comprehension—the Passage Comprehension sub-test of the WRMT-R, a cloze measure, which does not measure application of the reading comprehension strategies or the text analysis skills taught in PHAST PACES. Measurement of reading comprehension ability for this population of older readers remains a substantial challenge (Keenan & Betjemann, 2006; Keenan, Betjemann, & Olson, 2008). As noted in a recent meta-analysis by Edmonds and colleagues (2009), inter-vention effects demonstrated on training and near-transfer measures with older struggling readers typically do not gen-eralize to more general comprehension measures.

Rapp, van den Broek, and colleagues (2007) argue that the products of comprehension may reveal what a readers knows and understands after a reading activity, but it is the processes of comprehension, “those cognitive activities by which a reader arrives at those products” (p. 291), that are equally if not more informative to comprehension assessment. Comprehension assessment and instruction, however, focus almost exclusively on product-oriented measures (e.g., story recall, answering text-based questions). Much remains to be developed regarding reading comprehension assessment in children and adolescents; future studies with more sensitive measures of reading comprehension performance clearly are needed so that the comprehension components of PHAST PACES can be properly evaluated.

The fact that substantial change was demonstrated on mea-sures tapping phonological reading processes is important because it demonstrates the continued amenability of phono-logical processing deficits to focused intervention into ado-lescence. It has been an unfortunate assumption that if students enter high school still lacking basic decoding and literacy skills, other skill areas are more appropriate to target during their secondary school years. In this study, we have demon-strated, however, that even with relatively short-term inter-vention, high school students can improve phonological processing skills, acquire letter–sound knowledge, and gain half a standard deviation on a standardized measure of decod-ing skill. PHAST PACES students achieved an average gain of 7.9 standard scores on the Word Attack subtest relative to control gains of 2.1 standard scores. This result confirms that the PHAST PACES students made gains sufficient to achieve some modest narrowing of the gap with their normally achiev-ing peers. Their gains on a measure of letter–sound knowledge revealed that these students were able to fill in gaps in letter–sound knowledge with directed remediation: PHAST PACES students gained an average of 6.1 scores in their ability to provide correct pronunciations and alternate pronunciations

for vowel digraphs (ee, oa, ai, igh), diphthongs (oo, oy, oi, ou), and vowel-controlled consonants (ge, gi, ce, ci), whereas control students demonstrated no change on this measure. The extent of gains on the Challenge Words test affirms that these students can apply their newly acquired skills and word identification strategies to difficult multisyllabic words, many that probably exceed the difficulty level of vocabulary they will encounter in curricular texts (disconcertingly, recupera-tive, unpretentious). These results support the conclusion of Joseph and Schisler (2009) that teaching word reading skills to adolescents can produce positive outcomes on reading achievement.

The greatest average gains in standard scores were observed on Word Attack and Passage Comprehension subtests of the WRMT-R. PHAST PACES participants gained on average 5.86 standard scores more than the control group on Word Attack, 2.91 more on Word Identification, and 4.46 more on Passage Comprehension. To focus on reading comprehension scores, the intervention group gained on average 7.72 standard scores and the control 3.26 standard scores over a one semester period (e.g., September–January or February–June).

The PHAST PACES program as described here offers only one semester of instruction and clearly does not provide suf-ficient remediation to “close the gap” for adolescent readers functioning many years below grade level. The adolescents participating in this study met low achievement criteria for reading disability and were globally deficient on virtually every dimension of reading skill measured. For these students, subsequent semesters of PHAST PACES remediation would be recommended. A second semester PHAST PACES program has been developed and is being piloted in seven Toronto secondary schools. The second semester program works to consolidate the word identification and comprehension gains of the first semester and to extend the PHAST PACES com-prehension instruction both to more complex forms of litera-ture and into the writing domain. Students read informational texts and news reports, study mythology, poetry, and drama, and complete a novel study. Students are taught a metacogni-tive writing plan, and work through a variety of assigned activities including writing a myth, a journal, a bio-poem, a talk show interview, and a formal essay. The second semester also includes a formal written evaluation component; students keep a metacognitive journal and learn how to prepare and answer exam-type questions and to write for formal written evaluations.

Results to date confirm that it is not too late to address basic reading skill deficits in older struggling readers. An instructional framework must be sufficiently comprehensive, intensive, and linguistically informed, however, to remediate the extensive gaps in letter–sound, vocabulary, and text knowl-edge, the decoding and reading strategy impairments, and the maladaptive reading habits that have accumulated for these students. In addition, it is critical that age-appropriate and

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engaging text materials be used regardless of the limited decoding skills of the group. Working on basic reading skills is an unappealing task for struggling readers of any age, but particularly for adolescents. Student engagement will depend on many factors—positive instructional group dynamics, affiliation with the teacher, the inclusion of enjoyable texts and activities, and, critically, the students’ perceptions of their own improvement. As one Grade 10 student told us, after PHAST PACES, he could read a chapter book on his own—for the first time.

It is easier to address reading disabilities in the primary grades, but it is important not to abandon the hundreds of thousands of adolescents and young adults who are reading impaired and who will still commit to reading instruction. These young people deserve the opportunities that improved levels of literacy functioning will afford them and the best instruction that can be offered based on cur-rent research.

AppendixDescription of the PHAST PACES Progra

Track 1: Phonological and Orthographic Knowledge (or Decoding) Track. The PHAST Decoding Track focuses on teaching students effective word identification strategies and integrates phonological and strategy-based reading instruc-tion in a series of 70 half-hour lessons. This instructional track is designed for students with poor or insufficient word attack skills, facilitating their development into flexible stra-tegic readers with the skills and strategies necessary for independent decoding with good reading comprehension.

Five carefully sequenced decoding strategies are taught: a phonological letter–sound decoding strategy (Sounding Out), a word identification-by-analogy strategy (Rhyming; see Note 1), a strategy for identifying affixes in multisyllabic words (Peeling Off), a strategy for attempting variable vowel pronunciations (Vowel Alert), and a strategy for seeking familiar parts of unfamiliar words (Spy). Each strategy builds and depends upon the mastery of the previously taught skills and strategies. The rate at which the teacher and students move through the PHAST strategies depends on the prior knowledge that students bring to the program and how quickly they acquire what is presented in the daily lessons. The teacher can adjust his or her lesson plans at any time during the program to meet the learning needs of the group. The goal is to advance the students as far as possible while maintaining a high mastery criterion of the component skills being taught.

I. Sounding Out Strategy: To successfully apply the Sound-ing Out Strategy, students must know (a) all the phonemes and how they are represented in the English language, and (b) how to blend these sounds together to form words.

Through explicit direct instruction, these sounds are system-atically presented, practiced, and continually reviewed. Daily lessons focus on filling in any gaps that may exist in the students' knowledge and encompass a review of known sounds, correction of poorly articulated sounds, and/or train-ing of unknown sounds. Controlled vocabulary and texts that are read aloud form part of each lesson. Portions of the Cor-rective Reading Program (Engelmann et al., 1988; Engel-mann, Carnine, & Johnson, 1988; Engelmann, Meyer, Johnson, & Carnine, 1988) are used in the Sounding Out section of the program.

II. Rhyming. For successful application of the Rhyming strategy, students require a number of prerequisite skills including a complete understanding of concepts such as rhyming (words that share the same spelling pattern), spelling pattern (the vowel and what comes after it), keywords (words that represent 120 of the most common spelling patterns in English), and word identification by analogy (“if I know x, then I know y”). To ensure successful strategy application, students are taught a structured dialogue. As skills and key-words are acquired, students work on progressively more difficult words and text materials.

III. Peeling Off. The Peeling Off strategy can be applied to most multisyllabic words with Latin or Greek bases. Students learn to identify, segment, and pronounce affixes at the begin-ning (e.g., un-, re-, mis-, con-) and end of a word or word part (e.g., -ing, -ment, -tion, -ual), thereby reducing the unknown word to a smaller root. If the student cannot read the root, one of the other PHAST strategies is used until all word parts are identified accurately and can be blended together. As many as 110 affixes may be introduced during the program, at a general rate of 2 new affixes per lesson. Peeling Off Work-sheets present lists of multisyllabic words and provide the students with the opportunity to locate and circle affixes and identify them using the strategy dialogue, “I peel off [affix] at the beginning (or end) of the word. The root is ____. The word is _______.” Each worksheet offers many challenging words such as unobtainable, transfiguration, misconception, and advantageous, facilitating the use and consolidation of the different strategies as they are acquired.

IV. Vowel Alert. Students quickly learn to appreciate the complexity of the vowels and to become “alert” to possible decoding difficulties. They learn to “stop” if unsure of a vowel sound, to “be flexible,” and to try alternate pronuncia-tions for the vowel or vowel combination. In decoding steady, students stop and try the three most prevalent pronunciations for ea (as in bead, head, and break) until the correct pronun-ciation is selected. Students learn and have flexible use of the variable sounds of single vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y), vowel digraphs (ea, oo, ow, ie), and l-controlled vowels (al, ol, ul). Students practice with consonant clusters, such as ck/ke, ch/tch, ge/dge, ch, ph, and gh, and are taught that the vowel sound can also signal the spelling of a preceding consonant

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sound. Regular oral rehearsal of the variable sounds of both single vowels and vowel combinations promotes fluency and flexible use of the Vowel Alert strategy.

V. Spy. The Spy strategy allows students to use their exist-ing word knowledge to recognize small known words or parts of longer, unknown words. Students learn that this strategy is most effective when confronted with compound words such as clockmaker, marketplace, and midday. Caution is taken to ensure that this strategy is not overgeneralized because the Spy strategy has the potential to sabotage or limit decoding efforts; spying the words red, is, and cover does not help students to successfully read rediscover.

Smooth transition among these five strategies is achieved by continually building on the skills and strategies previ-ously learned. A new strategy is introduced only when the prerequisite skills have been acquired. For example, students must master variable vowel pronunciations before the Vowel Alert strategy is taught. A metacognitive organizational structure called the Game Plan is introduced after students have learned the first three strategies to help them orches-trate the appropriate Selection, Application, Monitoring, and Evaluation (SAME) of the PHAST strategies. Using a sports analogy, students learn that like skilled athletes, good read-ers are strategic, attentive to details, purposeful, and flexible.

Track 2: The Text Knowledge Track. The Text Knowledge Track lessons are designed to help the student understand the author’s plan for a text—why the author selects particular words, sentences, and paragraphs and how this facilitates understanding of the information presented.

Students are taught the various signaling devices used by authors and how these signals can help the reader to make predictions, set reading goals, activate prior knowledge, identify organizational plans, and focus on important infor-mation. Lessons in Track 2 introduce structural text analysis at the micro (signaling devices, sources of confusion, and questioning skills) and macro (narrative and expository organizational text structures, text unity, and coherence) levels. Students are exposed to a variety of texts and learn that they must bring a separate set of skills to narrative, expository, and graphical texts. All of the skills taught in Track 2 are necessary for successful application of the five comprehension strategies, and the scaffolded nature of the program ensures that these prerequisite skills are in place before each strategy is introduced in the Comprehension Strategy Track.

Track 3: The Comprehension Strategy Track. As the skills from the Text Knowledge Track are acquired, the five com-prehension strategies together with self-monitoring and evalu-ative skills are taught in parallel. The strategies, Predicting,

Activating Prior Knowledge, Clarifying, Evaluating Through Questioning, and Summarizing (PACES), have been designed to reflect the processes used by skilled readers to access a text’s meaning. Explicit instructional lessons, text samples, and activity sheets have been designed to introduce each strategy dialogue, along with what, when, why, and how each strategy is used.

A metacognitive PACES Plan prompts the use of all the strategies and guides and supports students through the application of each comprehension strategy with specific dialogue or scripts. The students first experience the com-prehension strategies when an expert reader, the teacher, models the strategies, thinking aloud as he or she reads. The teacher’s self-talk serves as a script that students acquire to guide their application of the strategies. Strategy instruction is highly scaffolded; the teacher instructs one strategy at a time, models and reviews strategy dialogue daily, provides individual instruction and ongoing support, reinforces suc-cessful strategy use and provides corrective feedback, and adjusts and fades prompts gradually over time. Providing strategy dialogue and scaffolded, contextual instruction are essential if students are to apply the strategies independently and to generalize strategy use to other texts and settings.

I Predicting and II. Activating Prior Knowledge. Predicting and Activating Prior Knowledge are the first two strategies intro-duced in Track 3. In the Text Knowledge Track, students learned the various text signals that authors use (e.g., titles, topic statements, textual cues, pictures, signal words), on which good predictions can be based. Track 3 teaches students the importance of making good predictions along with a script or “strategy dialogue” that prompts predicting. Students ask themselves, “What do I predict I will read or learn about?”, “Based on the title, I predict that . . .”, and “Based on what I have already read, I predict that. . . .” Once com-fortable with the Predicting strategy, students are asked to reflect on what they are bringing to the reading process by asking themselves, “What do I already know about the subject or topic of the text?” Explicit instruction on how to activate existing knowledge helps students engage with text materials and also facilitates comprehension.

III. Clarifying. In Track 2, students were alerted to the types of words that could cause confusion. In worksheets, students practiced spotting and clearing up various sources of confu-sion, such as referents, omissions, difficult vocabulary, and vocabulary with multiple meanings. In the Comprehension Strategy Track, students are taught how to clarify these confu-sions while reading to restore comprehension. Students learn that Clarifying is a two-step process: First, the reader must recognize that comprehension has broken down and, second, know how to clear up what is confusing them.

IV Evaluating Through Questioning and V. Summarizing. The Evaluating Through Questioning strategy teaches why it is

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important to monitor comprehension as we read—to test our understanding of what we have read, to focus on information that is important, and to predict the kinds of questions we might be asked on a test or exam. Students learn how to moni-tor by asking themselves questions that evaluate both narrative and expository text structures. For narrative texts, students learned to use the “plot graph” together with the “4W+3W+2H evaluative questions” as they read through the beginning, middle, and end of a selection. These self-monitoring questions allow students to check their understanding while reading. If a student cannot answer the 4W questions at the beginning of a story, then he or she must go back and reread that section. Once the narrative lessons have been taught, teachers may choose to introduce a novel study. A novel or short story, grade appropriate and of interest to the group, can become part of the daily text reading requirement. The teacher and students would select vocabulary words, develop the plot graph, and apply both the decoding and comprehension strategies (PHAST PACES) as they read. As the PACES strategies are being con-solidated with narrative texts, lessons on expository texts are introduced.

Students learn a separate set of self-evaluative questions and five different text maps to guide their understanding of expository texts. They monitor comprehension by asking the “3W2 evaluative questions.” These questions require a focus on the important information in a text and supply the structure for a text summary. Students find this formulaic approach particularly useful when asked to write summaries of what they have read (narrative summary = 4W+3W+2H and exposi-tory summary = 3W2).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Financial Disclosure/Funding

The authors received partial financial support for the research reported in this article from the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

Note

1. The Rhyming strategy, Keyword Bank, sentence worksheets, and 2-minute brainteasers are based on and modeled after the Benchmark School Word Identification/Vocabulary Develop-ment Program by Gaskins el al. (1986).

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About the Authors

Maureen W. Lovett is a Senior Scientist in the Neurosciences and Mental Health Program at The Hospital for Sick Children and a Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. She is Founder and Director of the Hospital’s Learning Disabilities Research Program (LDRP), a clinical research unit that develops and evaluates interventions for developmental reading disabilities. Her research focuses on questions about the effective remediation of decoding, word identification, fluency, and reading comprehension deficits in struggling readers of elementary, middle, and high school age.

Léa Lacerenza is Teacher Coordinator of the LDRP at The Hospital for Sick Children. Dr. Lovett and Mrs. Lacerenza are co-authors of the EmpowerTM Reading Program and of its research precursors, the PHAST Reading programs (including PHAST Comprehension, PHAST Fluency, and PHAST PACES). Mrs. Lacerenza has worked with the LDRP for 23 years and has had 31 years teaching experi-ence with exceptional children and adolescents with the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

Maria De Palma is Systems Coordinator/Clinical Research Man-ager of the LDRP. She has worked with the program for 17 years. In her current position, she establishes and directs all aspects of the LDRP's work with secondary schools, and co-coordinates partner-ships with other school boards in Canada for both research initiatives and for the roll-out of EmpowerTM Reading. Ms. De Palma is also a teacher trainer and mentor for EmpowerTM Reading.

Jan C. Frijters is an Associate Professor at Brock University in the Departments of Child and Youth Studies and Psychology. His primary research areas are the evaluation of treatment outcomes, the role of motivation in reading disability and reading interventions, and the development of reading and motivation for reading through-out childhood and adolescence.

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http://ldx.sagepub.com/content/45/2/151The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/0022219410371678

2012 45: 151 originally published online 19 December 2011J Learn DisabilMaureen W. Lovett, Léa Lacerenza, Maria De Palma and Jan C. Frijters

Evaluating the Efficacy of Remediation for Struggling Readers in High School  

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  Hammill Institute on Disabilities

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