Insuring that all children learn to read is a national priority. Students must acquire reading competence to succeed academically and to become responsible citizens. Linnea C. Ehri, Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and Speech and Hearing Sciences at The Graduate Center, is doing research on how to help struggling readers in 3rd-4th grades improve their ability to read and comprehend text. Two experiments assess whether standard and enriched forms of oral text re-reading instruction enhance students' ability to read text accurately and fluently and to comprehend meaning. Enrichment involves improving students' alphabetic knowledge and sight word memory skills. The method involves pre-testing, random assignment of students to one of two alternative treatments or a control condition, and post-testing outcomes. The treatments involve tutoring 112 students for 10 weeks in standard or enriched versions of the text re-reading method. It is expected that students taught to use alphabetic knowledge to fully analyze spelling-sound matches in words will exhibit superior sight word learning and text reading. Positive results will suggest how reading instruction can be improved in today's schools. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
* Adapted from 2002 Research Foundation Report