NCJ Number
222366
Journal
Journal of Correctional Education Volume: 59 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2008 Pages: 65-85
Date Published
March 2008
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study investigated a systematic reading intervention in which youth incarcerated at juvenile corrections facilities were randomly selected and assigned to one of two treatment conditions.
Abstract
Results showed that explicit, intensive, and highly structured reading instruction could increase the reading performance of incarcerated youth in a relatively short period of time. Limited evidence suggests that instruction in a smaller group was significantly better than instruction in a larger group although this difference was only demonstrated on the word identification subjects. Smaller group size had a small positive impact on the reading achievement of students at least in this one area. Despite the lack of statistical differences across the other subtests, the treatment 1 group achieved greater mean gains from pre-tests to posttest on the decoding, word reading, and comprehension subtests than the treatment 2 group. Instructors in a small group had greater opportunities to work directly with students, monitor student activities, and provide immediate corrective feedback than the instructors in the large group. The intervention only lasted for 21 sessions, but greater gains could have potentially been achieved by participants in the treatment 1 and treatment 2 groups if the length of intervention had been the total 36 weeks. The majority of the students, whether in treatment 1or 2, made reading gains over the 12-week period. Twenty-four participants at 3 juvenile corrections facilities (located in a southwestern, a mid-Atlantic, and a southeastern State) were randomly selected from students at each facility who were evaluated using the Woodcock Johnson Test of Achievement, third edition. Tables, references