Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Maryanne Longo

Abstract

The implementation of effective reading programs for special education students is paramount for school success due to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and the reauthorization of Individual with Disabilities Education Act. One local school implemented the Science Research Associates Corrective Reading Program (SRACRP) because their special education students did not meet the required proficient or advanced reading scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). The purpose of this quantitative within-group study was to determine if special and regular education students demonstrated growth in reading comprehension after the implementation of the SRACRP. The theoretical foundation for this study was Piaget's stages of development, which is consistent with the SRACRP instructional design of assimilating words through repetition. The research question examined whether the SRACRP impacted the reading levels of 200 randomly selected 3rd to 8th grade special and regular education students as measured by archived PSSA scores. Archived PSSA scores were collected from the year before and the year after the program's implementation. Repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that special and regular education students' mean scores increased significantly after the implementation of the SRACRP. The results of this study may inform school principals and policy makers to critically evaluate reading intervention programs prior to implementation. The results may also lead policy makers to use the SRACRP as a method to increase students' reading comprehension scores and eventually meet the requirements of the NCLB.

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