Extensive reading interventions for students with reading difficulties after grade 3

Wanzek, J., Vaughn, S., Scammaca, N.K., Metz, K., Murray, C.S., Roberts, G., and Danielson, L. (2013). Extensive reading interventions for students with reading difficulties after grade 3. Review of Educational Research, 83(2), 163-195.


If you are looking for ideas about which intervention programs can best help middle grade and secondary school struggling readers, this article will disappoint you. At best, it does provide a list and brief description of a number of intervention programs, which could be useful for beginning a search for a good program. This article does not, however, present compelling evidence in favor of any of the programs that were in the research studies that qualified for inclusion in this meta-analysis. In fact, as is often the case with meta-analyses like this one, we learn much more about what we don’t know about using intervention programs with older children than we learn about what we do know. As is also true of meta-analyses, the review is not an inclusive one but an exclusive one. The goal of these analyses often seems to be to narrow the analysis down to as few studies as possible. Here, only ten studies met the criteria set up.

It does seem clear from this article that we cannot assume that intervention programs that have been successful with younger students will work with older students. Anyone who has worked with students at varying age levels knows that. With struggling learners above Grade 3, the baggage gets heavier and more complicated, because a history of reading problems is disruptive for a learner in so many ways. If a child cannot read well, he or she also can lose out on important knowledge that will assist in understanding concepts. Problems with motivation to read, one’s concept of oneself as a reader, and feelings of failure and not belonging in school will also enter in. A learner who has been struggling for a long time may not believe that he or she can ever succeed as a reader. With all of those things working, it is little wonder that intervention programs don’t seem to help much with older learners.

The programs used in the studies discussed here yielded very modest positive results at best, and the authors point out many questionable aspects and limitations related to the studies themselves as well as their own analysis. It is clear that more work needs to be done here. With the large amounts of money being spent on some of the intervention programs mentioned here, it is imperative that we really know whether or not they work to help students. If they don’t work, or even if we don’t know whether they work, we shouldn’t be spending money on them until we know they do. From research with younger students, it does seem that working one on one or in small groups is an important factor, and that the total amount of time spent in the intervention matters. Though the authors did not find compelling evidence that these factors worked in the same ways with older students, it would be worthwhile to look further into factors such as these.

I suspect that it isn’t really what program that is selected that will make a difference. It is more how that program is implemented, who implements it, and how well it fits the student and his or her own unique challenges and strengths.