The Impact of Repeated Reading as an Intervention for Middle Grades Sixth- and Seventh-Grade Students on Reading Fluency

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the effects of repeated reading on readers identified as below grade in sixth and seventh grade. The study was set in a rural middle school located in the foothills of North Carolina. Students selected for the study were identified utilizing Lexile levels to identify them as below grade level for sixth and seventh grade. Once students were identified, the teachers used Curriculum Based Measures (CBMs) to determine their current fluency levels. Oral reading fluency and MAZE CBMs were employed to measure speed, accuracy, rate, and comprehension. Classroom teachers also used a prosody rubric created by Zutell and Rasinski (1991) to determine the gain in prosody as a result of the intervention. Using a pre/posttest Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), students participated in a 7-week study using repeated reading as an intervention. The study data compared the results between an experimental and control group utilizing repeated reading. The purpose of the study was to determine if repeated reading had an impact on reading fluency following the implementation of the intervention. The results of the study indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the control and experimental group at the conclusion of the study. It was noted, however, that both groups made gains from pretest to posttest on all three measurements of oral reading fluency, comprehension, and prosody