The Effects of Technology on Reading Fluency in a First Grade Summer School Classroom

The purpose of this action research project was to determine if the technology app EPIC! is more effective in helping first-grade students increase their oral reading fluency skills compared to a teacher-assisted, non-technological intervention. Before the interventions began, the students completed three oral timed reading passages at the first-grade level by FASTbridge. This score was used as a baseline for the data. The intervention lasted for two weeks. The experimental group completed stories on the application EPIC! for 15 minutes each session, while the control group completed research based educational games with the researcher. Both were done in addition to all students receiving regular classroom reading instruction. A post-test was then given to determine how all students’ fluency skills were affected by the intervention using three FASTbridge passages at the first-grade level. The data collected was used to determine how many words per minute a student read on the pre-test versus the post-test. The findings indicated that students in the teacher-assisted, non-technological intervention improved fluency scores by seven more words correct per minute compared to the experimental group using EPIC! only increased fluency by one more word correct per minute