Read Naturally
Study: Tucker & Jones (2010)

Describe how students were selected to participate in the study:

Students were selected to participate if they received a score of 70 or below on the 4th grade oral reading fluency probe (placing them within the at-risk category on DIBELs probes). Students who participated did not receive special education services and did not receive prior supplemental reading instruction outside of the general education curriculum.

Describe how students were identified as being at risk for academic failure (AI) or as having emotional or behavioral difficulties (BI):

Students were identified as at risk for reading failure based on their performance on DIBELS oral reading fluency probes, scoring 70 or below on a grade level probe.

ACADEMIC INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• below the 30th percentile on local or national norm, or
• identified disability related to the focus of the intervention?

%

BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION: What percentage of participants were at risk, as measured by one or more of the following criteria:

• emotional disability label,
• placed in an alternative school/classroom,
• non-responsive to Tiers 1 and 2, or
• designation of severe problem behaviors on a validated scale or through observation?

%

Specify which condition is the submitted intervention:

Read Naturally is the submitted program.

Specify which condition is the control condition:

If you have a third, competing condition, in addition to your control and intervention condition, identify what the competing condition is (data from this competing condition will not be used):

Using the tables that follow, provide data demonstrating comparability of the program group and control group in terms of demographics.

Grade Level

Race–Ethnicity

Socioeconomic Status

Disability Status

ELL Status

Gender

What method was used to determine students' placement in treatment/control groups?

Systematic

Please describe the assignment method or the process for defining treatment/comparison groups.

This study took place in an elementary school in a large urban district in the northeastern region of the United States. This study used a convenience sample to identify potential participants. A convenience sample was used because the researcher needed to identify participants based on current data, more specifically, the most current fourth-grade DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency scores. The sample consisted of fourth-grade students who placed in the at risk category based on their most recent DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency scores.

What was the unit of assignment?

Students

If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit of assignment:

What unit(s) were used for primary data analysis?

Schools
Teachers
Students
Classes
Other
If other, please specify:

Please describe the unit(s) used for primary data analysis:

How was the program delivered?

Individually
Small Group
Classroom

What were the background, experience, training, and ongoing support of the instructors or interventionists?

The investigator/instructor was a speech-language pathologist employed at the school. She was completing her dissertation study to complete her Ed.D degree. The investigator/instructor attended a “Read Naturally” Seminar in 2009 to receive a certificate of completion. She had access to the training manual prior to program implementation. The manual was used throughout the study as necessary.

Describe when and how fidelity of treatment information was obtained.

N/A

What were the results on the fidelity-of-treatment implementation measure?

N/A

Was the fidelity measure also used in control classrooms?

N/A

For any substantively (e.g., effect size ≥ 0.25 for pretest or demographic differences) or statistically significant (e.g., p < 0.05) pretest differences, please describe the extent to which these differences are related to the impact of the treatment. For example, if analyses were conducted to determine that outcomes from this study are due to the intervention and not pretest characteristics, please describe the results of those analyses here.

Please explain any missing data or instances of measures with incomplete pre- or post-test data.

If you have excluded a variable or data that are reported in the study being submitted, explain the rationale for exclusion:

Describe the analyses used to determine whether the intervention produced changes in student outcomes:

An independent samples t-test was used to determine differences between groups after the intervention ended. Assumptions of homogeneity of variance were satisfied. See page 35 of the journal article for results.