Peer Reviewed Article free essay sample

Locate a peer-reviewed journal article related to literacy evaluation/intervention and write a research summary on the article. The article should be no more than 5 years old. Please follow the format located on the following page of this assignment. OBJECTIVES: This assignment will serve as an introduction to scholarly journal articles. As a Speech-Language Pathologist it is imperative that you use the latest research to design effective methods to treat your clients. After this assignment you should: 1) Gain experience in searching for scholarly articles using internet resources and database materials. Gain exposure to peer-reviewed journal articles and how they are written. 3) Be able to extract important details and information from a scholarly article. 4) Be able to adequately analyze and critique an article. I. Purpose of Study (Specific reason for study) Why is this study being done What is the â€Å"Statement? † The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an experimentally derived reading intervention, delivered by peers, on the oral reading fluency of a first-grade student. II. Rationale for the Study (Theory behind the study) A. What led the author(s) to pursue the study? The authors think that oral reading fluency is a critical prerequisite to independent comprehension of text. Unfortunately, oral reading fluency is frequently neglected by classroom who may feel pressed to spend more time working on comprehension tasks and not devote sufficient time to practicing oral reading of connected texts. The authors think peer-mediated interventions (i. e. , the use of other students as change agents) may be an efficient method to have students practice tasks to improve fluency with basic academic skills like oral reading. What is/isn’t presently done (clinically) that led the author(s) to study this topic? Peer-mediated interventions have been shown to improve reading outcomes. Besides reducing the amount of direct instruction required by the teacher, peers are a readily available resource and have frequent contact with each other, making them a potential source of reinforcement. Contact with natural reinforcement contingencies such as pro-social peer interactions through a structured intervention may promote maintenance of intervention effects. C. What â€Å"new† information has become available that the author(s) felt worthy of study? Brief experimental analysis (BEA) has proven to be useful for selecting intervention components on an individualized basis. Reading interventions selected based on BEA results have led to increased oral reading fluency when implemented by experimenters, teachers, parents, and even the students themselves. III. Method A. Who were the subjects? (participants) Were they appropriately chosen for this ? study? Michelle was a 7-year-old first-grade Caucasian girl who had been referred for reading problems. She had no known psychoeducation- al diagnoses and received no intervention or special education services. At the time of referral, Michelle was reading 11 correctly read words (CRW) per minute, compared to the class average of 66 CRW per minute. Three children in the same classroom were selected by the teacher to be peer tutors. All chosen tutors exceeded the classroom average reading performance as well as the first-grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DI- BELS) spring benchmark (i. e. , 40 CRW per minute; Good Kaminski, 2002). During the winter DIBELS administration period, tutors read an average of 88 CRW (range, 78 to 107). Assessments (conducted by the experimenter) and reading intervention sessions (conducted by tutors) occurred in the classroom. B. What were the subjects asked to do? Same-grade peers were trained to lead the target student (Michelle) through a structured intervention protocol based on the results of a brief experimental analysis C. How was the study performed? The teacher trained the tutors using explanations, modeling, and practice of the protocol. At the beginning of each week, the teacher prompted Michelle to choose a reading partner. Prior to each intervention session, the experimenter assessed Michelle using four of the six curriculum passages (i. e. , the current weekly intervention passage and three other randomly selected intervention passages to establish concurrent measures across passages for design purposes). The teacher then reminded the students of the contingency for performance improvements, provided the intervention checklist, and directed the students to begin. Instructional steps included listening passage preview, repeated readings, and word supply error correction. After the intervention session, the teacher timed Michelle’s third reading while measuring CRW per minute (with the same procedures used by the experimenter) and graphed her performance. IV. Results A. What were the results of the study? The results reveal that performance increased (including both improved CRW and reduction in errors) following the introduction of peer tutoring across all passages. A clear change in level was correlated with the introduction of the peer- mediated intervention for both CRW per minute (increase in performance) and errors per minute (reduction in performance). Anecdotally, the teacher stated that Michelle was ‘‘like a different child,’’ in that both her reading and peer interactions improved significantly. The teacher observed fewer negative interactions (e. g. , name calling) and more positive social interactions. The teacher also reported that the intervention was easy to supervise, required minimal time, and produced the desired effects. B. Did the author(s) find what they thought they would find? Yes, I think the authors found that peer-delivered reading intervention can in fact improve the oral reading fluency of a child. V. Discussion? A. How does (do) the author(s) explain the results B. Why did they, or did they not, find what they had expected? These results appear to augment the visible effects obtained with the intervention passages. The authors would argue that the results further strengthen the suggestion that measurement of generalized responding should become the standard of academic intervention studies. VI. Clinical Implications A. What are the clinical implications of the study? The generalizability of these results to other students is limited by the fact that they were based on only one student. Some of the positive features of the environment may further limit generalizability of the results. For example, the teacher and peers were highly cooperative. The same results might not be achieved under less optimal circumstances. B. What do the results mean to you clinically? I do agree that peer-delivered reading intervention could be a successful practice implemented in a literacy curriculum. C. How will you practically apply/transfer the results of this study to your clinical work? When working in the field as an SLP in a literacy intervention team, I would use this technique as supplement to aid a child who is struggling with oral reading fluency VII. Limitations of Study (Examples)? A. Number of participants compared to the general population (e. g. small # of participants) B. Changes in language disorder: Could other factors be the reason (time, other teachers, caregivers). VII. Future Research (follow up study)? A. How could future research be done differently on the study? Future investigations could determine whether positive results are obtained with different configurations of interventions. In future studies, a systematic evaluation of generalized responding following academic intervention within an experimental design would be helpful for determining whether students’ responding is coming under the stimulus control of the universe of possible stimulus–response relations that are necessary for them to progress through school curricula THIS SHOULD END WITH A FINAL PARAGRAPH STATING YOUR OPINIONS ON THE ARTICLE. I highly enjoyed this article, as it is a personal belief of mine that peer-to-peer interaction can be a highly effective tool that can be used to scaffold the skills of children who are behind. Additionally I think that oral reading fluency is a skill that is neglected in the literacy curriculum. This is a very important skill that is most certainly used throughout one’s life, yet it is often neglected unless specifically taught later in a speech or oratory specific class. However, I would love to see this study with a larger population. I’m sure the authors did not have access to a great number of sample students, yet I would love to see this study conducted with more test subjects. Furthermore it would be very interesting to see the effects of not only the child who has a deficit in the oral fluency skills, but also the children who are their peer tutors. I think that peer-to-peer tutoring may in fact help both the tutors and the child being tutored. It’d be great to see research to back up this projection.