Utah Systems Conference 2018

Children’s ability to learn to read directly affects their performance in school and also how successful they are throughout their lives. Children and adolescents who struggle with reading are more likely to drop out of school and be less prepared for higher education and career opportunities. The solution for increasing students’ reading proficiency seems simple: students need to read more and with greater efficiency. Many U.S. educators search for efficient programs and approaches to narrow the ever-widening gap between skilled and struggling readers. To that end, special and general educators alike are always seeking a more effective method or process to increase oral reading fluency and comprehension skills. While most methods produce some improvement, many require more class time than is available and additional work to adapt the method to different student levels. The simplicity, cost effectiveness, and minimal time required to implement dyad reading, as well as the documented robust gains achieved, exhibit the usefulness of this method.