title: The effectiveness of a 2-year supplementary tutor-assisted computerized intervention on the reading development of beginning readers at risk for reading difficulties: a randomized controlled trial.
abstract: Children with low (pre-)literacy skills may benefit from individual tutoring during the early phases of learning to read. Dutch at-risk students from 13 schools received in first and second grade a computerized reading intervention, delivered by non-professional tutors at school. Digital logs indicated that treatment integrity was lower than intended; therefore, the intervention group was subdivided using a completion criterion. Third grade assessments revealed that the subgroup that had finished the program successfully (IF, N = 40) was able to read as fluent as the average reader, outperforming the subgroup that had not completely finished the program (InF, N = 31) as well as the group that had not worked with the program (controls, N = 66) on all reading measures. This study demonstrates that a well-implemented tutoring model can serve as a (cost-)effective complement to the classroom practice for beginning readers.
authors.affiliation: Kohnstamm Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Regtvoort
authors.forename: Haytske
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zijlstra
authors.forename: Aryan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van der Leij
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000628:therapy*; D018479:Early Intervention, Educational / Q000379:methods*; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: computer supported; non-professional tutors; one-to-one instruction; poor readers; sustained early intervention; treatment integrity