The potential for at risk students to learn to read in groups contrasted under traditional and multisensory reading instruction

Reading achievement of at-risk first, second, and third grade students participating in a systematic, sequential, multi-sensory, synthetic, phonetically-based approach to the teaching of reading (Project Read) was compared with that of at-risk first, second, and third grade students instructed with a traditional, basal-driven whole-word reading method. The assumed comparability in this recurrent institutional cycle design was increased by establishing that the succeeding classes did not differ substantially in age or IQ. Stanford Achievement Test (1982) reading scores were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD procedures. At each grade level, data were analyzed, first, for the total population of at-risk students and, second, by controlling for the teacher variable. Significant differences (MANOVA, p =.0001) were demonstrated for the 1986-87 first grade samples. Significant differences (ANOVA, p =.0001) were also demonstrated for all reading subtests of the 1986-87 first grade samples. A significant difference (MANOVA, p =.038) was shown for the teacher controlled portion of the second grade study. Sub-test differences were as follows: word study skills, p =.08; word reading, p =.014; reading comprehension, p =.042; and total reading, p =.006. No significant differences were identified for the second grade sample in the full study or for the third grade sample in the full study and the teacher-controlled study. Total reading achievement test scores of Project Read students in both studies were compared to those reported in the literature on tutoring using effect size. Effect size of the 1986-87 Project Read first grade students in both the full (2.37) and teacher-controlled (1.55) studies fell well within the expected range. Effect sizes of the 1985-86 Project Reading first grade students and 1986-87 second and third grade Project Read students failed to fall within the range reported for tutoring instruction