It was almost winter break, and Ms. Salvador, the reading specialist at Awbrey Park Elementary School, was reviewing the fifth-grade progress-monitoring reading data for students receiving intensive small-group reading interventions. She noticed that several students were not making the reading gains that they had expected. Ms. Salvador and her team also realized that during reading instruction, many of these students displayed problem behaviors, such as having difficulty remaining on task and disrupting other students. After reading as much as she could on the topic, Ms. Salvador found that incorporating self-regulation strategies into reading interventions could lead to improvements in reading and an increase in appropriate behaviors that students display during reading instruction. Knowing how interrelated reading and behavior can be, Ms. Salvador decided to collaborate with Mr. Tanner, the behavior specialist, in developing self-regulation interventions for their students at Awbrey Park Elementary. However, before they could begin to create these self-regulation interventions, Ms. Salvador and Mr. Tanner needed to identify more research on what self-regulation strategies were available and how self-regulation strategies could be used to support students with both reading and behavioral difficulties during small-group reading interventions.

This experimental study examined the effectiveness of a text-based reading and vocabulary intervention with self-regulatory supports for 4th graders with low reading comprehension. Students with standard scores on the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test between 1.0 standard deviation (SD) and 0.5 SD below the normative sample were included (N=44) and randomly assigned to treatment condition (n=25) or no treatment comparison condition (n=19). Researchers provided the intervention to students in groups of approximately 2-3 students for eight 30 minute sessions. Students in the treatment condition made statistically significant gains on a researcher-developed measure of reading and vocabulary compared with students in the comparison condition.

Research findings have suggested that reading deficits and problem behaviors are positively related. This synthesis investigated how reading interventions impact behavioral/social skill outcomes by reviewing studies that included (a) a reading intervention without behavioral/social skill components, (b) behavioral/social skill dependent variables, and (c) students in Grades K-12. Fifteen articles were evaluated by the type of reading intervention, associations between positive reading effects and behavioral/social skill outcomes, and The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) determinants of study ratings. Findings suggested that reading interventions tended to have positive reading outcomes, while behavioral/social skill outcomes were small or negative. Research did not suggest an association between improved reading and behavioral performance, regardless of the WWC study determinants rating. Implications include reading instruction may not be sufficient to improve behavioral and social skill outcomes. Additional research is warranted to investigate the long-term impact of reading on behavioral and social skill outcomes.

We examined the effectiveness of a researcher-provided reading intervention with 484 fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. Students were randomly assigned to one year of intervention, two years of intervention, or a business-as-usual comparison condition (BAU). Students assigned to two years of intervention demonstrated significantly greater gains in reading fluency compared to students who received one year of intervention and the BAU group. Students in both the one- and two-year groups demonstrated similar and significantly larger gains in word reading in comparison to the BAU group. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups on standardized measures of reading comprehension. We discuss these results in the context of research with late elementary and secondary students targeting reading comprehension.