An examination of group-based treatment packages for increasing elementary-aged students' reading fluency

Reading fluency has been described as one of the essential ingredients for ensuring that students become successful readers. Unfortunately, a large number of elementary-aged students in this country do not fluently read age-appropriate material. Because of this, small-group interventions are practical and more time efficient than individualized intervention programs, but very few small-group interventions have been developed to target students' reading fluency of connected text. The primary purpose of this study was to examine four group-based treatment packages containing two or more of the following reading interventions: repeated reading, listening passage preview, and practicing difficult words in isolation. Effects of each treatment package were evaluated with 4 third graders using an alternating-treatments design, and effects were evaluated for both immediate and retained reading-fluency gains. Findings indicated that the combination of all three intervention components was most effective. Results also suggested some inconsistent relationships between immediate and retained reading gains for 3 of the 4 students. Implications of these findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 183–195, 2006.