Background
Some children in areas of social deprivation in Scotland have lower reading attainment than neighbouring children in less deprived areas, and some of these also have lower spoken language comprehension skills than expected by assessment norms. There is a need to develop effective reading comprehension interventions that fit easily into the school curriculum and can benefit all pupils. A feasibility study of reading comprehension strategies with existing evidence of efficacy was undertaken in three mainstream primary schools within an area of social deprivation in west central Scotland, to decide whether further investigation of this intervention was warranted.
Methods & Procedures
A pre- and post-intervention cohort design was used. Reading comprehension strategies were introduced to staff in participating schools and used throughout the school year as part of on-going reading instruction. Spoken language comprehension was measured by TROG-2 at T1, and reading progress by score changes from T1 to T2 on the WIAT-IIUK-T reading comprehension scale.
Conclusions
The outcomes suggest the reading intervention may be effective for children with and without spoken language comprehension difficulties, and warrants further investigation in larger, controlled, studies.