Date

5-2018

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Chair

Verlyn Evans

Keywords

Large Group Tutoring, One to One Tutoring, Reading, Reading Instruction, Small Group Tutoring, Tutoring

Disciplines

Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Methods | Educational Psychology | Outdoor Education

Abstract

Reading below grade level in the third grade is a serious issue that too many students are facing. If struggling readers do not improve their reading skills prior to entering the fourth grade, they risk academic failure and limited success in the future. It is important, therefore, to get students who are not reading on grade level back on track as soon as possible. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine the effectiveness of tutoring for improving the reading skills of third graders. A sample population of 2,565 third graders from 43 Title I elementary schools in a large rural school district in Southeastern North Carolina participated in this study. Deindentified data for the participants were collected from the school district’s Associate Superintendent for Evaluation and Testing. The descriptive statistics was computed for each tutoring group using SPSS. This causal-comparative research design also used a two-way ANOVA in SPSS to examine the reading achievement scores on the North Carolina READY English Language Arts/Reading Assessment for the sample population for the beginning and end of the 2016-2017 school year. All three of the tutoring comparison groups of students served as treatment groups and control groups for the others. The researcher examined the following research question: Is there a difference among the reading achievement scores of male and female third grade students who participate in one-to-one tutoring, small-group tutoring, or large-group tutoring? It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean reading scores between the third graders participating in one-to-one, small-group and large-group tutoring. There was not a statistically significant difference in mean reading scores between females and males. There was a statistically significant interaction between gender and tutoring type for the difference in the BOG and EOG Reading Scores. This study was important because the results could provide educators with information for improving students’ reading skills through tutoring. Recommendations for further research based on the results of this study could include: to find out if an achievement gap remains after tracking the literacy competency levels of the participants in this study as they matriculate through school , conducting a mixed-methods study to examine the literacy skills that are being taught by third grade teachers whose students perform at or above grade level on the North Carolina READY English Language Arts/Reading Assessments for grade 3 (End-of-Grade 3 (EOG 3)) versus third grade teachers whose students do not perform at or above grade level, conducting a mixed-methods study to examine the literacy skills that are being taught by second grade teachers in the district whose previous students perform at or above grade level on the North Carolina READY English Language Arts/Reading Assessments for grade 3 (Beginning-of-Grade 3 (BOG 3)) versus second grade teachers whose students do not perform at or above grade level, and extend this study to include other school districts to determine if the results would be similar.

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