Does rainbow repeated reading add value to an intensive literacy intervention program for low-progress readers? An experimental evaluation

Forty low-progress readers in Years 2 to 7 attending an intensive literacy intervention program, conducted on two separate sites, were randomly allocated to two treatment conditions in order to determine the effect of supplementing the program with commercially produced repeated reading materials (the Rainbow Reading Program). The control group experienced the regular form of the literacy program, which includes within it a form of repeated reading, while the experimental group experienced the supplemented literacy program incorporating repeated listening of tape-recorded versions of the text the student is required to read. All students were tested on two measures of reading performance immediately prior to and immediately following almost a term (9 weeks) of daily instruction. Analyses of covariance of post-test reading scores, in which pre-test scores were covaried, revealed no differences between the two groups on either of the two reading tests, indicating that the supplementary program did not demonstrate enhanced efficacy.