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Education reform has produced a plethora of initiatives to enhance student achievement beginning in Prekindergarten and extending into higher education. These reforms are directly associated with student performance on standardized assessments. Currently, the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) assesses schools and school districts using the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI). The CCRPI score has become a sole contributor to determining which schools receive immediate focus to implement the aforementioned abundance of initiatives to include commercial products as interventions (Georgia Department of Education, 2018). These commercial products include text books, manipulatives, reading guides, and computer programs deemed necessary to raise the reading levels of students as well as standardized test scores. Many schools across the United States are using commercial reading intervention programs to improve the reading abilities of struggling students (Bippert, 2019). While the purchase and implementation of intervention programs begins the process of improving student achievement, the continued support through fidelity of the intervention is needed.

Background

Reading Interventions

As students continue to struggle with reading skills and fall further below grade level reading standards, districts and schools are continuously looking for strategies and programs to help students fill the gaps and make enough academic progress. Students may have difficulties with basic skills like decoding multi-syllable words, understanding the meaning of content vocabulary, and making inferences within academic texts. For struggling students to progress and meet grade level reading standards, they need intensive and appropriate interventions. This is even more pertinent in middle and high school when students need more than phonics interventions to be successful. Students in middle and high school can make progress with individualized and intensive instruction focused on word recognition, vocabulary, and comprehension (Moats et al., 2017).

In order to be academically successful, small-group reading interventions need to go further than simply decoding (Bippert & Harmon, 2017). Students must be able to read grade level texts, understand vocabulary, and comprehend academic texts.

Small-group reading interventions need to be specific and intensive while also motivating the participating students to read. Small-group reading interventions need to have texts, books, and other materials that are engaging, interesting, and applicable to students’ real-life (Bippert & Harmon, 2017). When reading interventions are culturally relevant, students’ interests are peaked, and specific reading skills can be intensively focused on. Reading fluency and comprehensive improved when culturally relevant passages were used in small- group reading interventions (Bennett et al., 2017).

Students who struggle with reading may have significant issues in other areas like behavior and attention that can add to the students’ struggles. Reading achievement and behavioral attention improve when students participate in an intensive, response-based reading intervention over three years (Roberts et al., 2016). In order to show improvements and gains, intensive reading interventions should have a multiple year duration. Students who received two years of intensive reading interventions made significantly greater gains in reading fluency than similar students who only received one year of intensive reading intervention (Miciak et al., 2017).

There are many problems that can negatively impact the success of a reading intervention program and create poor academic achievement results for struggling students. Teachers, students, parents, and school leaders can become frustrated and disillusioned with a lack of promised results and blame the reading intervention program as opposed to the poor practices.

Blended learning creates a personalized learning experience for students while combining teacher instruction in the classroom with technology (Horn & Stacker, 2011). Blended learning is not merely putting technology in place of direct instruction. It is the blending of the two in order to benefit the students. Blended learning in small-group reading interventions consists of the instructor giving direct instructions about a reading skill and students practicing and reviewing that skill at their prescribed level using the computer-based program.

Though the results of blended learning show greater gains in early intervention, there are considerable benefits when used in interventions at higher levels. Adolescent struggling readers have positive results when using blended learning interventions (Moats et al., 2017). Struggling readers who participate in blended learning interventions are better able to synthesize the information presented due to the enhanced review and forced assessments via the program. Students are then more successful in their class (Desplaces et al., 2015).

Blended learning has many benefits in the educational arena and especially with struggling readers who may need materials presented in other ways. However, blended learning is not without its own issues and shortcomings that can negatively impact instruction. Blended learning requires teachers to be engaged in the lessons as well as the technology used. Teachers who are less engaged with the instructional training and the lesson negatively impact the improvement in students’ reading skills (Schechter et al., 2017).

Blended learning should not be used as a fix all for every struggling reader, as there are some groups of students that do not benefit from blended learning at the same rate as others. For example, English Language Learners who are struggling to learn to read were able to make similar gains as their non-struggling peers, but are not able to catch up using a blended learning approach (Amendum et al.,2017).

In summary, there is a great deal of research in the field of reading intervention and blended learning. The research does have certain limitations that describe only the benefits of some commercial reading interventions in order to lead districts to purchasing that particular reading intervention program. Though there is research in blended learning, there is little distinction between blended learning in kindergarten through twelfth grade education and higher education. There is also a void in the research pertaining to adolescents and middle school students. There is a need for further research in the field of reading interventions and blended learning as it pertains to middle school struggling readers

Statement of the Problem

Schools across the nation are implementing commercial reading intervention programs to support student achievement. However, there remains middle school students who are far below grade level in reading and are not earning satisfactory scores on standardized assessments. The problem of practice is the implementation of programs without reviewing the impact of the programs on their student population. The purchase of a commercial reading intervention program should not be a means to an end. It is essential that educational leaders review and reflect upon results of reading intervention programs and make decisions based on the results.

When reviewing the data collected from reading intervention programs, educational leaders can guide their future decisions about meeting the needs of students who are considerably below grade level including student and teacher scheduling, purchasing of technology, and the future purchasing of intervention programs if needed. The goal of the implementation of the reading intervention is to meet students where they are currently in their reading skills and advance them to show significant growth to be successful in reading on grade level.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of an intensive blended learning reading intervention on the standardized assessment scores of middle school students who are at least two grade levels behind in reading at a Title I school in Georgia. This study aims to establish if students who are significantly below grade level can make growth with the assistance of an intensive blended learning reading intervention.

Research Question

The following question guided this study: What is the impact of an intensive blended learning reading intervention on middle school students’ standardized assessment scores at a Title I middle school in Georgia?

The following sub-questions were addressed within the study: When comparing English Language Arts scores from the previous school year without the intervention, what standards did students show progress in, as shown in growth between Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3? And when comparing English Language Arts scores from the previous school year without intervention, what standards did students underperform in?

Significance of the Study

There is a surplus of studies dedicated to reading interventions at the elementary level but there is a gap in the literature when focusing on the secondary level, specifically in how blended learning interventions can influence middle school student growth. This study serves as a foundation for discovering how the combination of reading interventions and blended learning, as previously researched, can be applied at the middle grades level. While this study reflects the impact of an intensive blended learning reading intervention at a school with the lowest CCRPI score in the school district, a score of 63.3 as compared to the district score of 84.3, the study contributes to a broader understanding of school implementation of interventions used to close the gaps in standardized assessment scores of subgroups who were significantly behind in reading skills.

Though this study is unique due to the application to a single Title I middle school, the information gained from this study may be used by middle school principals and superintendents to lead future purchasing, policy, and scheduling decisions based on the selection of interventions. The information from this study may also be used by teachers and instructional specialists to determine best placements and successful strategies for students within the general education classroom.

Procedures

Research Design

The research design is a quantitative study utilizing one-group pretest-posttest design using a paired t test. According to York (2016), a paired t test is normally used when comparing pretest and posttest data that can be matched. The study is of quantitative methods. Archival data were collected by Georgia Milestones Assessment Systems and disbursed to the school system of the sample school at the end of each school year. Data were collected within a week of standardized testing through school-provided laptops. Data were disbursed with a barcode creating anonymity for the participants.

The researcher will begin this study by receiving permission from school administration to collect data from GMAS scores and intervention groups. The researcher will seek approval from Georgia Southern University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). Once the IRB approves this study, students in the sample group will be scheduled in a 90 minute double block class which includes a 45 minute segment computer-based lesson and a 45 minute teacher-led scripted lesson each day. The students are assessed at the end of each unit which takes an average of 10 days to complete. Data is collected to determine if students are making progress within the program. The data is collected by the teachers within the intervention classrooms. The researcher will analyze archival data and therefore, the data is not collected by the researcher.

Setting

The study will review archival data from a single Title I middle school in an afluent suburban Georgia school district. The school district has five high schools, eight middle schools, 18 elementary schools and one alternative school. The research school has the lowest CCRPI score in the district, a score of 63.3 compared to the district score of 84.3. The research school implemented an intensive blended learning reading intervention to close the gaps in standardized assessment scores of subgroups who were significantly behind in reading skills.

Participants

The participants are in two separate groups, an intensive group and a strategic group. In the intensive group, there are thirteen sixth graders, fifteen seventh graders, twenty-two eighth graders and fifteen special education students in all three grades. In the strategic group, there are fifty-eight sixth graders, thirty-four seventh graders, and thirty-six eighth graders. The students are in these groups because of their Fastbridge CBM Reading scores, prior year ELA grades, and most importantly, their Georgia Milestones scores. Students in both groups are at least two grade levels behind and have a Lexile score below 900.

The population was 690 students in sixth through eighth grade at a Title I middle school in a suburban school district in Georgia. The population of the school includes 54.8% White, 23.9% Black, and 9.9% Hispanic. The population includes 55.7% of students identified as economically disadvantaged. A total of only 59.65% of students met the target in the English Language Arts section of the Georgia Milestones Assessment.

Data Collection

This study will use archival data to determine the impact of the intensive blended learning intervention on standardized assessment scores. Data will be collected through the Language Live platform to determine satisfactory participation in the intensive blended learning reading intervention. Data will also be collected through the Georgia Milestones Assessment System at the end of each school year.

Data Analysis

The data collected will be analyzed by reviewing the GMAS scores of students who are currently participating in the intensive blended learning reading intervention and determining how many students progressed from Level 1 to Level 2 and Level 2 to Level 3 from the pre-treatment school year through the following school year. The data will be used to determine the impact of the intensive blended learning reading intervention on the GMAS scores of the participants

Limitations, Delimitations, and Assumptions

The limitations of this study include sample size, data collection process, and time. As this is a niche study in one middle school, the sample size is determined by the student population of the study school. The data is collected through online assessments via the Language Live program and the Georgia Milestones Assessment. Due to this collection, there are limitations associated with the technology and internet access. There is also a limitation of time because the time spent on the Language Live program is determined by the school bell schedule. There is also a limitation to the second year of data collection due to the closing of schools and cancellation of standardized testing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Definition of Key Terms

The following key terms were identified for the purpose of the study:

Blended Learning- Instruction delivered through the use of two or more strategies, usually with the use of technology (Bonk & Graham, 2006).

Reading Intervention- School-based instruction focused on specific reading skills (O’Connor & Vasasy, 2011).

Chapter Summary

The introduction of an intensive blended learning reading intervention requires a great deal of development of strategies for scheduling, purchasing resources, and providing teacher training. Previous research has focused on the benefits of blended learning in elementary schools as well as higher education with a distinct lack of focus on middle schools. Though reading interventions are used daily in schools across the country, research shows that there is a need for consistency amongst reading interventions used and how they are implemented in schools. Thus, this study is intended to determine if the purchase and introduction of the Language Live blended learning reading intervention has improved the standardized assessment scores of middle grades students.

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