Effect of Direct Instruction Programs on Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this quasi experimental research study was to examine the effects of two direct instruction programs, SRA Reading Mastery Signature and SRA Reading Success on reading comprehension skill acquisition of middle school students who qualify as a student with a specific learning disability. Furthermore, the study was used to compare the reading comprehension achievement of students who participated in SRA Reading Mastery Signature and students who participated in SRA Reading Success using the reading portion of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment. The treatment groups were located in a moderate size school district in the Upstate region of South Carolina. After a 10-week intervention period, post test scores from the literary text subtest, informational text subtest, and vocabulary development subtest of the reading portion of the Measure of Academic Progress assessment were compared using three separate ANCOVA. The pretest scores served as the covariate. There were no significant differences found between the two treatment groups. Practical and methodological implications and limitations are discussed and recommendations for future research are included