Effects of a reading intervention for kindergarten students at risk for emotional disturbance and reading deficits

Although students with or at risk for emotional disturbance present significant academic challenges, few researchers have studied the outcomes of interventions designed to improve the reading skills of this population. In this study we assessed the outcomes of a supplemental daily Direct Instruction reading curriculum, Reading Mastery I, and fluency building program, Great Leaps, on the reading skills of students at risk for emotional disturbance and reading deficits. Over a period of 7 months, 6 students received a supplementary reading intervention and 12 students (6 control at-risk and 6 norm-referencing students without disabilities) received their regular classroom instruction. Curriculum-based measures assessing early phonemic awareness and basic reading skills (i.e., letter sounds, blends, and high-frequency sight words) were collected biweekly to assess student performance. The results of this study revealed that at-risk students receiving the Direct Instruction curriculum intervention met or outperformed their control at-risk and norm-referencing peers in all three reading measures. Implications of these findings and areas of future research are discussed.