An Evaluation of the Just Words Intervention for High School Students Reading Below Grade Level: Do Selected Brain Targeted Teaching Strategies Make a Difference?
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Date
2015-04-27
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
Many high school students read below grade level. There are few evidence-based reading interventions for this population. This dissertation compared two groups of high school students who read at the elementary school level enrolled in a Reading class using Wilson’s Just Words (2009) as the curriculum; one group, the control, received Just Words alone and the treatment group received Just Words + Brain Targeted Teaching Strategies (BTTS). It was a pretest-post-test lag panel group design with 9 and 7 subjects in each group. Pre-test and post-test quantitative measures included Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF), and the Word Identification Spelling Test (WIST). The WIST subtests (Word Identification and Spelling) and total score (Fundamental Literacy Ability Index) were analyzed as separate scores. These standardized reading achievement assessment scores were analyzed by comparing the average individual slope differences for the semester the students were enrolled in Reading. Few significant results were found. The treatment group silently read single words more rapidly than the control group. The control group spelled significantly better than the treatment group at the end of the semester of instruction. Other results included some student preferences and some Just Words strategies generalized to other settings following enrollment in the Just Words group and the Just Words + BTTS group. A primary principle of BTTS, setting a positive emotional classroom climate, was not maintained for the treatment group. The inability to maintain a positive emotional climate may have interfered with the overall learning for the group.
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reading intervention, adolescents, Just Words, Brain Targeted Teaching Strategies