Initial and Over-Time Effects of Fluency Interventions for Students With or At Risk for Disabilities

Abstract

The authors sought to (a) identify interventions that immediately increased the oral reading fluency of students with or at risk for disabilities, (b) estimate to what extent these gains maintained over time, and (c) evaluate whether particular characteristics of students (e.g., gender, disability status) predicted their response to fluency interventions. We used multilevel modeling to meta-analyze results from 44 single-participant studies involving 290 students. Results indicated that goal setting immediately increased fluency, and this gain continued over time. Word-level training was largely ineffective. Students with some types of disabilities (i.e., those with behavioral disorders or autism) responded significantly less well to interventions targeting fluency than did students with other types of disabilities (i.e., those with learning disabilities or visual impairments) and so may require more intensive and individualized fluency interventions.