Teaching Decoding to High School Students

The Institute for Academic Access works to improve the educational outcomes for adolescents with disabilities. As part of this work, they have studied the effectiveness of intensive instruction in decoding on the resulting reading level for struggling adolescent readers. In this study, the researchers looked at the reading scores of students with disabilities at two schools. These readers were reading at the fourth- and fifth-grade levels, even though their high school text books are written at the ninth grade level and above. Those at one school spent between four to eight weeks receiving small group instruction in strategies for decoding multisyllabic words. The group at the other school served as a control comparison group.

All of the students were re-evaluated for reading level seven months later. Students at the school who received the intervention gained an average of 3.9 grade levels in reading decoding skills. During that same time, students in the comparison school made an average gain of less than half a grade level. In addition, the only students to gain proficiency were Caucasian. The minority students in this study, Hispanics of both sexes, lost ground in reading during these seven months.

This study indicates that short, intense instruction in decoding skills can boost reading level for high school students who are struggling readers.

The research report, The effects of an intensive reading intervention on the decoding skills of high school students with reading deficits, is available online at http://kucrl.org/IAA Web/htmlfiles/research/reports/report15.doc.

For more information contact the Institute.