The Effectiveness of a 2‐year Supplementary Tutor‐assisted Computerized Intervention on the Reading Development of Beginning Readers at Risk for Reading Difficulties: A Randomized Controlled Trial. (17th October 2013) - Regtvoort, Anne
Abstract Children with low (pre‐)literacy skills may benefit from individual tutoring during the early phases of learning to read. Dutch at‐risk students from 13 schools received in first and second grade a computerized reading intervention, delivered by non‐professional tutors at school. Digital logs indicated that treatment integrity was lower than intended; therefore, the intervention group was subdivided using a completion criterion. Third grade assessments revealed that the subgroup that had finished the program successfully (IF, N = 40) was able to read as fluent as the average reader, outperforming the subgroup that had not completely finished the program (InF, N = 31) as well as the group that had not worked with the program (controls, N = 66) on all reading measures. This study demonstrates that a well‐implemented tutoring model can serve as a (cost‐)effective complement to the classroom practice for beginning readers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.