Effects of a Reading Fluency Intervention on Reading Skills of Students at a Residential Treatment Center for Youth with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Students who have been identified as having emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are at risk for reading difficulties due to their problematic behaviors being the focus of attention rather than their academic deficits. Reading difficulties that are slight in the early elementary grades often become more pronounced as a student progress into the upper elementary and middle school grades. Students who are placed in residential treatment centers are at further risk due to multiple school and other placements. In this study, six students who were attending a residential treatment center in the southeast were administered a reading fluency intervention. The intervention components were chosen from best practice and elements found to be effective for EBD students placed in less restrictive educational placements. A multiple baseline across participant design was used to examine whether these best practice components would also help improve the fluency of students in a residential treatment center who were reading at or below grade level. Significant improvement was not found on the standardized tests (WJ-III, TOWRE, GORT-4) from pretest to posttest. However, significant improvement on the curriculum based measures was found for all students.