Oral Reading Intervention for an English Language Learner: A Single-case Design

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effectiveness of conducting a reading intervention in a public primary school setting in Chinese vernacular school in Malaysia. Literature indicated that struggling readers did not master letter-sound correspondences despite the phonics was emphasised in to date curriculum. One male learner who was identified by his classroom teacher as needing special assistance in reading performance participated this research. Using a single-case research design, the participant’s oral reading fluency (ORF) in terms of word correct per minute (WCPM) was measured. Several nonparametric statistics methods, such as Tau and percentage of nonoverlapping data (PND) were applied to compute the degree of association and effectiveness of the intervention, respectively. Visual analysis was carried out to interpret the graph. The data collected was also compared with the updated ORF norm that was established in the United States. The results revealed that the reading intervention facilitated the improvement of ORF of the participant. The significant implications and future research recommendations on the development of reading intervention were highlighted.