Developing automaticity at the component skill levels of letter -sound correspondence, letter combinations, word reading and connected text: An analysis of outcomes for children at risk for reading difficulties in grades two and three

While fluency is increasingly recognized in the research literature and in practice as a vital component of reading instruction, there remains a lack of empirical research on effective fluency building interventions. Although research has identified some critical features of effective fluency interventions for connected text reading, few studies have investigated the role of developing automaticity of component skills for connected text reading and comprehension. This study investigated the effect of developing automaticity at the component level on the letter-sound correspondence, letter combination, word reading and connected text fluency and reading comprehension of students identified at risk for reading difficulties in Grades 2 and 3.;Forty-nine students in 2nd and 3rd Grade from seven elementary schools in Oregon participated in the study. All students had been identified at risk for reading difficulties in previous years and continued to be at risk during the 2002--2003 school year based on low performance on measures of oral reading fluency. Students were grouped based on pretest performance and were randomly assigned to one of two instructional conditions: (a) component skill automaticity instruction, or (b) connected text fluency instruction. Students participated in daily 15-minute lessons 5 days per week from November through mid May.;Group performance was compared on measures of decoding, word reading, passage reading and comprehension. Between-group analyses revealed no statistically significant differences between groups on accuracy or fluency based measures of letter-sound correspondence, letter combinations, word reading, passage reading and comprehension. Students in both conditions demonstrated significant growth across measures from pretest to midyear and pretest to posttest. In comparing student absolute levels of performance to criterion levels from national normative samples, the majority of students made low to average growth indicating their continued risk for reading difficulties.;Results indicate students derive no differential benefit from developing automaticity of component skills over practice reading connected text. Both approaches were effective in improving fluency. These findings provide additional support for the effectiveness of guided repeated oral reading, the importance of overlap of shared words and content across passages, practicing skills to mastery, provision of corrective feedback and placing students in appropriate reading materials.