Increasing content accessibility to promote reading comprehension among English learners

This study employed an alternating treatment design with a baseline for three English learners in an urban Midwestern middle school to investigate the utility of a culturally adaptive intervention package called Preview‐Review. Participants were provided with a scripted bilingual preview of conceptual and contextual information relating to the topic and explicit instruction of passage vocabulary using cognates, multiple exemplars, and reinforcement. The effects of repeated readings alone and in combination with preview‐review were measured on oral reading fluency, reading comprehension score, and reading comprehension rate. Results indicated that the repeated readings with preview‐review were superior to the repeated readings stand‐alone condition across all target variables. The study also finds support for the use of reading comprehension rate for progress monitoring intervention effectiveness with English learners.