Supplemental instruction in early reading: Does it matter for struggling readers?

The authors compared phonics and reading comprehension achievement of 1st,grade children and reading achievement of 2nd-grade children who received daily sups plemental reading instruction with the achievement of children who did not receive supplemental instruction. The authors collected data through individual administration of phonics and reading tasks, classroom observations and field notes, and teacher interviews. First, and 2nd-grade children served by models that included daily instruction as a suppler ment to their regular classroom reading instruction achieved significantly higher scores on the reading comprehension measure than did students in the models without this feature. Yet, authors found no significant differences between the 1st-grade students in the 2 groups on phonics measure. Findings have implications for policy making when educators decide to include supplemental instructional opportunities in their overall school literacy plan.