Meta-Analysis of Reading Interventions on Reading Comprehension Outcomes of Students with Learning Difficulties

Abstract

Reading is a fundamental ability for all learning activities. Most of all, reading comprehension is so critical that it is called the goal of reading activity. For students at risk for or with learning disabilities who have a lot of difficulty understanding text, therefore, effective reading comprehension instructions must be provided. Thus, a copious amount of meta-analyses have been conducted to identify evidence-based practice for reading. The meta-analyses provided strong support for general components of effective instruction

however, they were unable to provide definitive answers for practitioners looking for concrete suggestions of what evidence-based practices to implement in their classrooms. Focused on providing practical evidence-based practice, the purpose of this meta-analysis is to determine the overall effect of reading interventions on reading comprehension in current studies, and to investigate the effects of student-related variables, intervention-related variables, implementation-related variables, and measurement-related variables on reading comprehension by analyzing the variable categories separately. Based on the results of analyses of these variables, furthermore, this study suggests both controllable and uncontrollable variables for educational practitioners to manipulate for their students with reading difficulties. Eventually, practitioners and policy makers will be able to develop and implement effective reading programs with the practical evidence-based practice for enhancing reading comprehension of students with reading difficulties or disabilities in grades 3 through 9.