Local Problem

The problem at a high school in South Georgia is that it is not known the extent of impact teaching reading using silent reading and repeated reading has on reading skills of students with mild intellectual disabilities in Social Studies. Both methods used together have been shown to be effective at increasing reading skills (Kim, Wagner, & Foster, 2011). Students have reading requirements that need to be met before graduation. Students may not be able to graduate if they are not able to read the material that is required for high school (Williams, 2014). Time is important and can be saved by using methods that have already been shown to increase reading skills (Pfost, Hattie, Dorfler, & Artelt, 2014). Currently close to 60% of students who receive special education services are not graduating with the same reading skills as their same age peers (Lowndes County Schools, 2015; Ga Military College, 2016; Valdosta State University, 2016).

This problem impacts the students who receive special education services because the students have to take remedial courses to get into college and fall behind their same age peers (Ga Military College, 2016; Valdosta State University, 2016). Possible factors that could contribute to this problem involve a lack of training for teaching reading to this population, a lack of consistency of teaching methods used for reading, and a lack of consistently using researched methods to improve reading skills (Teacher Survey, 2015). There are a large number of students who receive special education services who struggle when it comes to reading (Rosenberg, Westling, & McLeskey, 2013). Those students also have a reading goal so special education teachers need to be able to teach reading (McLaughlin & DeVoogd, 2017). Special education teachers need to have the ability to teach students according to their IEP goals and cover the regular curriculum (Mitchell, 2014). ***Comment MJ3: Which statement are you using from the literature that states there is a need for your study or that your study fills a gap? The statement needs to be published five years ago or more recently. There are a large number of teachers who are not prepared to teach reading. Repeated reading and silent reading methods can be taught easily to teachers, so they can help students increase their reading skills with methods that have already been shown to increase reading skills (Williams, 2014). According to Escarpio and Barbetta (2015), stronger credibility of reading methods can be shown by future research on repeated reading and other reading methods that include participants of older ages, a variety of exceptionalities, and both genders.

This study will add to the current knowledge on teaching reading by using repeated reading and silent reading. Both reading methods have been proven to help increase reading skills (Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig, 2015). How to teach reading effectively to students is a problem affecting a large population of the high schools in this locality. Furthermore, there is a significant increase in the disparity between the reading rates of students without disabilities and students with disabilities as these students progress through high school (Lowndes County Schools, 2015). The poor academic performance risk, as well as the possible frustration which is associated with low reading skills in South Georgia high schools, is a major concern for the students and parents (Ardoin et al., 2016). However, it is evident that the affected students are mostly unable able to graduate because they cannot fluently read the material that is a requirement in high school (Zawoyski, Ardoin, & Binder, 2015; Pressley & Allington, 2014). The issue is a major concern for parents and other stakeholders because the majority of students in the United States graduate easily and with better reading skills than their same aged peers in South Georgia (Ardoin et al., 2016).

Students with mild intellectual disabilities have relatively low reading rates. The negative attitudes towards reading could also be the reason for low reading performance (Guthrie, Klauda, & Ho, 2013). There is evidence that recommends teaching with the strategies of repeated reading and silent reading to increase reading skills (Klingner, Vaughn, & Boardman, 2015). Teachers are given a significant role in addressing their students’ poor reading skills, reading rates, and attitudinal barriers. This can be accomplished by identifying the impacts of each factor and applying the most appropriate instructional strategies as well as technology tools (Nguyen et al., 2014; Heller, Pattillo, & Smith, 2004; Guthrie & Klauda, 2014). School systems need to work hard in order to solve teaching-related problems such as lack of training for teaching reading to this population and lack of consistency of the methods used to teach reading.

Rationale

The challenge of low reading skills among some group of students is a major problem in South Georgia and the United States in general. The most affected group is students with mild intellectual disabilities. Research on the extent to which silent reading and repeated reading impacts high school reading skills is important (Ng, & Muntaner, 2014). This research deals with mild intellectual disabilities in finding the type of effect these reading methods have on students. Statistics show that approximately 60% of students with such challenges who receive special education services graduate with better reading skills than their counterparts with similar problems who do not receive special education services (Hutchins, 1995; Lowndes County Schools, 2015; McCulley & Osman, 2015). It is also evident that these students show similar reading skills after receiving special education services. This study points out both student-and teacher-specific problems that lead to low reading skills in high schools. However, over 85% of the problems are teacher-related or from lack of know-how from the teacher and school in general (Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig, 2015; Vaughn et al., 2013). Most of the teachers fail in playing their part in enabling growth of reading skills among high school students. Students only contribute to little or none in the cause of this challenge (Pressley & Allington, 2014). However, research shows that corporation between the stakeholders would help curb this challenge to a larger extent.

This study is being conducted to assess the impact of teaching reading, using silent reading and repeated reading with high school reading skills. This study is focusing on students with mild intellectual disabilities and how they are affected when silent reading and repeated reading methods are used to teach reading (Guthrie & Klauda, 2014). The use of silent reading, along with repeated reading, has been shown to be effective at increasing reading skills (Kim, Wagner, & Foster, 2011). Additionally, the study contains figures and graphs showing the current trend in the high schools. This study is accompanied by specific interpretations for the information provided (Tracey, & Morrow, 2017). With the use of available data, the researcher will identify the important points on the extent at which reading skills are increased for students who have mild intellectual disabilities when silent reading and repeated reading methods are used in high school (Paige et al., 2014). Georgia and more specifically South Georgia is affected by high rates of reading problems and low graduation rates, and has a great need for using other methods to increase reading skills (Lowndes County Schools, 2015). .

This study will be an important tool in providing other states with the specific strategies in their pursuit in reading skill excellence for students with mild intellectual disabilities in high school. The strategies that this study will offer will also be applicable in curbing the same challenge in all high schools across the country and for other disabilities that may be affected by repeated reading and silent reading as well (Guthrie, & Klauda, 2014). This study could also be utilized by other first world countries and developing countries as a benchmark to solve their struggles with the reading skills inequality in high schools (Scammacca et al., 2015). This study stresses that teacher-specific solutions are the best strategies for improving the level of student reading skills. Thus, they should be regarded and adopted as the vital approaches. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and show the extent of impact on reading skills for students who have mild intellectual disabilities, when silent reading and repeated reading methods are used to teach reading in high school Social Studies.

Definition of Terms

Sustained silent reading: This refers to a reading activity that is completed in class. Students are given a certain amount of time to material silently. The material is chosen by the students for information or pleasure. This method helps students learn to read, just for the sake of reading. There is no pressure of assessments, monitoring, skills work, or instructions from the teacher (Brussee et al., 2015).

Independent Reading: This refers to increased collaboration among teachers and students. Teachers provide guidance in the selection of text by the students. Students are responsible for keeping track of their reading material. They are also responsible for reflecting on the content of their reading. This strategy uses a collaborative approach to participation in discussions and mini-lessons (Mano & Guerin, 2018).

Guided Repeated Oral Reading: This involves students participating in reading the material out loud. This is dome between three to five times. The students get feedback from their peers and the teachers. This method helps to give students confidence, since they begin the process slowly and increase their speed as they repeat the text (Spichtig et al., 2016).

Scaffolded Silent Reading: It refers to silent reading, which involves the use of independent-level texts that are selected from various subjects. Also involved is interaction with individual students, periodic monitoring, and accountability through response arguments. It was mainly designed to help in addressing the weaknesses identified in traditional sustained silent reading (Grapin et al., 2017).

Repeated Reading: This refers to a reading method that was proposed by Jay Samuels, which focuses on developing automatic decoding. This is specifically for struggling readers. Focus is on asking students to read short text passages out loud until they reach a certain level of success in speed and accuracy. The text usually consists of fifty to two hundred words (Ciuffo et al., 2017).

Reading Fluency: Reading fluency refers to using intellectual material to decode words. There should be challenges when reading (Honig, 2014). Reading fluency comprises of three main components, which include automaticity, accuracy, and prosody (Caldwell, 2014).

Curriculum-based measurement: This is designed to provide a reliable and quick indication of the general academic health of a student (Blonder et al., 2018). The design of the measure enables the assessment of a student in basic academic skills. An example includes the measurement of oral reading fluency using words per minute (Young et al., 2017).

Instructional Level: This is the use of learning material, which is considered to be at an appropriate level of challenge for the individual learner. A good instructional level has a balance in the challenge and is not too difficult or too easy. Normally, the instructional level targets a reasonable accuracy range of between 93% and 97% (Santi & Reed, 2015)

Repeated Reading with Pairs of Students: This term refers to an instructional management procedure where two students, who are at the same instructional level, take turns reading out loud. The other students time the reading and count any reading mistakes (Tucker, 2016).

Students at Risk for Reading Risks: Students who are a risk of reading failures are the students who score low on the measures of reading fluency. The level of scores can be determined by counting correct words per minute and whether the accuracy level falls below or above the recommended 93% to 97% reading accuracy (Cho et al., 2015).

Automaticity: This term refers to the ability of a reader to read the words from a text effortlessly and correctly, which needs to be done in a manner that allows the reader  to use cognitive resources towards attention to the meaning while reading. This concept comes with practice and is enhanced by different pedagogical techniques (Gellert, 2014).

Connected Texts: This is when unfamiliar passages are read by students repeatedly, This allows the student to achieve fluency. The choice of the passages should be dictated by the instructional level of each student. These texts are identified as the intervention or non-transfer passages (Jennings et al., 2014).

Transfer Passages: The passages are the new passages that students have not interacted with previously. The passages are called generalization passages since they are also used in the assessment of generalization of the skills that the students have attained throughout their learning. The two common types of transfer passages are near transfer and far transfer. Near transfer passages are those that contain words that highly overlap with the practiced passages. Far transfer passages are those that have numerous unstrained words in comparison to the practiced passages (Wagner & Espin, 2015).

Individual Intelligence Tests: The tests that are administered one on one to students. This type of test is normally a part of the assessment process (Robeck & Wallace, 2017). The two most common individual intelligence tests are the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. These tests can be used to determine the level of intelligence of students. They are also used to categorize the students with intellectual disabilities, in order to determine where the students can be best served (Urbanski, 2015).

Significance of Study

The current study will be an original contribution to the teachers at the high school on teaching reading, using methods that have been shown to be effective at increasing reading skills. Results from the study will show if the two methods used for reading material that is required for Social Studies provide increases in reading fluency and comprehension skills. One way to show stronger credibility of reading methods suggested by Escarpio and Barbetta (2015) is for future research on repeated reading and other reading methods to include participants of older ages, a variety of exceptionalities, and both genders. The study will use students who are in high school and have been identified as having a mild intellectual disability. The results will show the impact of teaching reading, using repeated reading and silent reading methods. The decision of whether to teach using repeated reading and silent reading methods will come from the results of the study. Educators spend a large amount of time trying to find the best ways to help students increase skills in reading. Teachers need to be able to teach, using the best practices that have previously been researched and proven to provide positive results (Klingner, Vaughn, & Boardman, 2015).

This study will provide social change that is positive for students who have mild intellectual disabilities. The extent there is an impact on reading skills for students who have mild intellectual disabilities when silent reading and repeated reading methods are used to teach reading in high school Social Studies. The next environment will be impacted by increasing reading skills, by teaching with reading methods that have been shown to increase reading skills. The majority of high school students need help with reading when they move onto the more complex reading material that is required in high school. Less than half of all high school students have been shown to read on grade level. The inability to read on grade level causes a large amount of high school students to have trouble reading and understanding high school content (Hong-Nam, Leavell, & Maher, 2014). Teaching at the high school level focuses on content, not reading skills. Reading instruction needs to take place at all grade levels including high school (Capin & Vaughn, 2017). Students need reading skills in all future environments such as college, filling out forms for jobs and daily life, or reading directions (Job & Coleman, 2016). Reading is needed each day. If students are going to be successful in the future they need to learn to read (Basaran, 2013). Students who do not learn to read while going to school have been shown to have difficulties finding a job (Bulgren, 2013). This may lead to a lack of independence and a need for assistance from society (Job & Coleman, 2016).

Research Questions

The following research question guided this study:

***Comment MJ6- Why do Research Questions 2 & 3 repeat what Research Question 1 presents?***Can I have just 1 research question, or should I have the methods separate with 2 questions?

RQ1- To what extent does the teaching of reading using silent reading and repeated reading impact the reading skills of students with mild disabilities in high school Social Studies?

Review of the Literature

The Problem

The problem at a high school in South Georgia is that it is not known the extent of impact teaching reading using silent reading and repeated reading has on reading skills of students with mild intellectual disabilities in Social Studies. Currently, close to 60% of the students who receive special education services are not graduating with the same reading skills as their same age peers (Lowndes County Schools, 2015; Ga Military College, 2016; Valdosta State University, 2016). However, there is still a widening gap between students who can read well and students who struggle with reading (Pfost, Hattie, Dorfler, & Artelt, 2014). This problem impacts the students who receive special education services because the students have to take remedial courses to get into college and fall behind their same age peers (Ga Military College, 2016; Valdosta State University, 2016). There are several possible factors that have contributed to this problem. One factor is a lack of training for teaching reading to this population of students. A second factor is a lack of consistency of teaching methods used for reading with this population of students. A third factor is a lack of consistently using researched methods to teach reading with the current population of students (Teacher Survey, 2015). This is the problem affecting a larger population of the high schools in this locality. Furthermore, there is a significant increase in the disparity between the reading rates of students without disabilities and students with disabilities as these students progress through high school (Lowndes County Schools, 2015). This study will contribute to the current knowledge on repeated reading and silent reading which are both reading methods that have been proven to help increase reading skills (Reutzel, Petscher, & Spichtig, 2012). This study will contribute to the body of knowledge needed to address this problem by showing the extent of the impact on reading skills with students who have mild intellectual disabilities when silent reading and repeated reading are used in high school Social Studies to read the material.

The strength of reading skills has been shown to be important in current reading and future reading for all students (Basaran, 2013). Reading comprehension and reading fluency work together and are needed in order for students to be successful in school (Stevens, Walker, & Vaughn, 2016). Teachers need to know how to teach reading skills in order to help all students achieve the highest level of reading skills they can achieve (Tarkhanov & Fomin-Nilov, 2016). There are many reading methods that can be used to help students increase their reading skills (Lovett, Lacerenza, Steinbach, & DePalma, 2014). Previous studies have been carried out on different aspects of the effect of the implementation of reading methods on various groups of students (Bergen, Zuijen, Bishop, & Jong, 2017). There have also been studies carried out using the different reading methods in different environments (Freund, Kopak, & O’Brien, 2016). The size of the research groups have been different in many studies and may even be shown to contribute to the final results of the studies. According to Zhan and Kudua (2014) information theory has a strong focus on studying a specific area for the benefit of everyone, it will be important to see how this research can have effects for such a large group of students. The impact of these techniques on high school students with intellectual disabilities needs to be researched further (Bulgren, Graner, & Deshler, 2013). The current topic of silent reading and repeated reading has not been researched thoroughly (Klein, 2016). This literature review looks into the different research studies carried out by other researchers and their findings. Areas are also identified that need further research and what the current research will contribute to the current field of study.

The Importance of Reading Skills

The importance of proper reading habits cannot be overstated because this is what provides a foundation for all future reading. Studies have shown that being able to read fluently is directly related to reading comprehension (Basaran, 2013). Reading fluency is very important in order for students to become successful at reading (Guerin & Murphy, 2015). When children develop strong reading skills at a very young age, they have been shown to adapt faster in their places of work than children who did not develop strong early reading skills (Jamieson, 2013). Research further indicates that when parents show continued interest in the reading of their children, there are positive results (Basaran, 2013). Reading is so important in a child’s life because through reading, children discover new ways of solving problems Children are also exposed to new information and new ways to achieve their goals that would not have been possible without reading (Daniels, 2017). Through reading, children have been able to discover new hobbies and talents. Other children have even explored new areas that have ended up becoming the career of their life and succeeded in them (Linder, Mueller, Gibbs, Alper, & Freeman. 2017).

Exploration begins from understanding and reading (Ciuffo, Myers, Ingrassia, Milanese, Venuti, &Alquino, 2017). Through reading one begins to understand themselves better and even the environment that surrounds them. According to Lepola and Niemi (2016) books can be a student’s best friend and in a sense, a counselor. Knowledge is passed on through books therefore it would be unfortunate for students who cannot access information from books because they are unable to read. The basis of any reading is on understanding. It is through reading that people understand the rules of life in order for them to adapt in a society (Lepola & Niemi, 2016).Reading also builds confidence and enables people to plan better and memorize information. Therefore all of the reading skills that students learn enable them to develop a path that leads them to a better understanding of the future (Lepola & Niemi, 2016). One author noted how high school teachers are given the responsibility of teaching reading skills. The best way to do this is to use strategies that have already been proven to increase reading skills (Williams, 2014). This shows the need for understanding reading skills in students and studying the best ways to increase reading skills.

This study will investigate the benefits associated with using silent reading and repeated reading methods to teach reading skills to students, and to show an increase in reading skills. Intense reading instruction can be provided to high school students who receive special education services than to students who do not receive special education services. The current study is important for all students but especially students with mild intellectual disabilities. Research has shown that students who receive special education services graduate with better reading skills than students who do not receive special education services (McCulley & Osman, 2015). The methodology that teachers can implement to improve the reading ability of students is also very important. Teachers learn how to teach students during the instruction they receive in college and during student teaching (Tarkhanov & Fomin-Nilov, 2016). Ford-Connors et al. (2015) wrote how teachers know what they are meant to teach, but they have not been told how they are going to explain it. The issues that result in this problem are a lack of training for teaching reading to this population, a lack of consistency of teaching methods used for reading, and a lack of consistently using researched methods to improve reading skills. Technology has also been shown to be very important with any method that is used to teach or increase reading skills (Sen, 2016). Repeated reading and silent reading methods are the focus in the current study.

Target Groups under Research

Vaughn et al. (2013) conducted a study with a similar methodology to the current study, where participants were not randomly assigned to classes. Participants were of an older target group than the majority of other studies. Alharbi (2015) conducted a study using older students, specifically college level students, to show if using a silent reading strategy and an oral reading strategy helped strengthen reading skills. Participants were randomly assigned to either of the groups which is similar to the current study (Alharbi, 2015). Previous research has also been conducted on participants from a wide range of ages. Grabe and Stroller (2013) conducted their research on eighth grade students. Studies by Hawkins et al. (2013) were conducted on students in fourth grade. Price, Meisinger, Louwerse, and Mello (2015) carried out their study on students in 3rd grade. It is clear that these researchers put more emphasis on researching younger students. The current research intends to address the challenge of reading in an older group of students, those in high school. The importance of focusing on high school students for this research will be to show how repeated reading and silent reading techniques affect older students. Hawkins et al (2013) pointed out that there is not enough research on the current topic with older students. They suggested that future research needs to involve participants who are older than the majority of studies already conducted. Again, Hawkins et al (2015) suggested in their later studies that future research should include older students. According to Sénéchal, (2017) good decisions are made through reading information. Students in high school are in the stage of making choices about their lives. They are also in the stage of exploration, for instance they want to try out how to prepare a meal or read a manual on a new gadget. It is therefore important for this study to pay special attention on them and understand their reading habits.

A huge factor that affects the ability of students to learn how to read is the presence of disabilities (O’Brien, Hausmann, Wallot, & Kloos, 2013). Repeated reading and silent reading have been shown to greatly improve the fluency with which students carry out their reading. Previous studies compared cases that involved students with disabilities and those without disabilities. Studies by Erickson, Derby McLaughlin, & Fuebrer, (2015) and Savaiano & Hatton (2013) showed that repeated reading greatly improved the reading fluency of students with different disabilities, even including visual impairments.

Size of Research Groups

A key difference in the studies that different researchers have carried out is in the different sizes of groups that were used. Some researchers opted for small groups. Escarpio and Barbetta (2015) carried out their research on four students. Only two boys and one girl participated in the study conducted by Erickson, Derby, McLaughlin, & Fuebrer, (2015). A study conducted by Hawkins, et al. (2013) only used 4 students. Chang (2012) conducted a study on silent reading and oral reading that used 35 students. Chang and Millet (2014) conducted a similar study using 26 participants. A study conducted by Gibson, Cartledge, Keyes, & Yawn (2014) used only 8 students from first grade. A study conducted by Guerin & Murphy (2015) used only 3 students. The current research will target 80-96 students from eight different special education resource classes. The participants will come from the courses that have End of Course Tests so assessments will measure the same skills for all of the students in the study. The courses will be the Special Education resource classes of U. S. History courses and the Economic courses. There are approximately 13 to 16 students in each of the 6 classes that are being used for the study. This higher number of students will enable this research to be more credible in terms of analysis made on the students. One of the few available studies showed that using a higher number of participants showed a higher level of credibility than studies where smaller numbers of participants were used (Case, Speece, Silverman, Schatschneider, Montanaro, & Ritchey, 2014). A large amount of studies conducted in the past used a small amount of participants. More dynamics will be considered in these students, in particular their reading habits as opposed to the four students considered in the earlier research.

Results From Previous Research Studies

The current research aims at investigating if the same results occur from groups of high school students with mild intellectual disabilities as the different groups that have already been studied. Previous research has identified the different reading techniques to be effective with a wide range of different students (Lepola & Niemi, 2016). Research by Cuevas et al. (2014) showed that silent reading increased reading skills. Reading comprehension also increased significantly. Another study showed the importance of using silent reading to increase reading skills (Reutzel & Juth, 2014). A study by Chang and Millett (2103) showed that reading comprehension skills increased when repeated reading methods were used with university students. A study conducted with elementary school students showed that the use of repeated reading increased reading skills, specifically reading fluency and reading comprehension, in students who had learning disabilities (Strickland, Boon, & Spencer, 2013). Silent reading has been shown to be similar to oral reading, and the majority of research has focused on oral reading methods (Vanden Boer, VanBergen, DeJong (2014). Repeated reading and silent reading have shown to have comparable positive results in all areas of reading skills (Schimmel & Ness, 2017). A study conducted by Alharbi (2015) showed an increase in reading skills after the reading strategies were used but did not show one strategy to be significantly better than the other strategy. Gibson, Cartledge, Hayes, & Yawn (2014) also showed that the use of repeated reading caused increases in reading skills. One study actually showed that silent reading at the middle school level produced results that it did not increase reading skills as well as other methods (Dickens & Meisinger, 2016). This shows a need for the current study, to show that repeated reading and silent reading help increase reading skills.

Theoretical Basis

Comment MJ8- Your selection of theories needs to be convincing and justified to your study

Information theory has a strong focus on continuing to study a specific area for the benefit of everyone (Zhan & Kudua, 2014). The use of reading methods that have already been researched is economical. Reading affects society as a whole. Students and society benefit when students graduate with strong reading skills. The students are receiving the benefits of increased reading skills (Park, 2016).

***Start Here***There have been studies conducted in the area of reading that have followed Information Theory. (add information from 4 studies that followed information theory).

Comment MJ9-A convincing argument is needed that Scientific Realism supports and affirms your study

The conceptual framework chosen for this study is Scientific Realism (Creswell, 2012).  Silent reading and repeated reading methods are being studied to show if the two reading methods are effective enough to show increases in the area of reading skills (Sankey, 2014). Silent reading is being used since reading skills are needed in every area of life for all people.

***Start Here***Scientific Realism has played a role in several studies conducted on reading methods (add information from 4 studies that had something to do with scientific realism).

Research Methodology and Design

Comment MJ10- A convincing rationale for your selection of your research methodology needs to be presented

Quasi-experimental research is the method being used for the study. The focus of the study is a quantitative approach. The main reason for choosing a quasi-experimental design has to do with studying what effect a teaching method has on reading skills. There is an independent variable and a dependent variable (Kizkapan & Bektas, 2017). Another reason A quasi-experimental design was chosen is because some of the factors are not able to be controlled. Even though the study is an experiment, the participants are not being randomly selected.

Quantitative research is being used to show the relationship between two reading methods and reading skills (Sukamolson, 2012). Quantitative research has been used in the past to study the effectiveness of reading interventions and to compare interventions to each other (McCulley & Osman, 2015).

***Start Here***Quasi-experimental and a quantitative approach have been used in several previous studies conducted on reading methods (add information from 4 studies that used a Quasi-experimental and a quantitative approach).

Summary

Overall, this chapter discussed and outlined the key themes that are within the research literature. Different researchers have often suggested that research using different exceptionalities, other grades, and different subjects are needed (Strickland et al., 2013). Bulgren (2013) stressed that all students with learning disabilities can achieve success if teachers use interventions that have already been studied and shown to increase reading skills. The author also pointed out that more research on this topic should be conducted with students who have learning disabilities and other disabilities. Hawkins, et al. (2013) made it a point to inform the readers that future studies need to be conducted using participants of different ages, gender, and disabilities. According to Strickland et al. (2013) research using different exceptionalities, other grades, and different subjects is needed. Cuevas et al. (2014) suggested conducting future research with more diverse groups of participants. According to Hawkins et al. (2015) more research needs to be conducted using older students than the majority of current research uses.

The current study will focus on older students who have mild intellectual disabilities. It will look at the reading fluency and reading comprehension with a larger participant group of between 80-96 students (Merga, 2013). Different studies have indicated that experience is gained from other people and reading is one of the methods of gaining experience because you read what other people have gone through Reading connects to the brain and it is in silent reading that concentration and focus is better in high school students (Ciuffo&Alquino, 2017). If the current study shows increases in reading skills, both of the methods will be used at the high school to help increase reading skills throughout the school.

Specific issues addressed include:

• The different groups of students studied by the various researchers
  • The different age groups will show how silent reading and repeated reading affect different aged students. This will show if the two reading methods work the same will all age groups.
• The methods that these researchers used to carry out their research.
  • The different methods used to carry out different research studies will show which method or methods prove to be the best. This will allow for only the best type of methods to be used in the future.
• The results that these previous research papers came up with.
  • The results from all of the previous research papers will show which studies to follow in the future. This will allow for less time to be wasted on research that has already been conducted and shown to be invaluable.
• The need for teachers to learn what they will teach the students.
  • Teachers have to know how to teach, using the methods that have already been proven to work. Teachers do not already have the knowledge of how to use all of the reading methods that have been proven to be effective.

In spite of the intensive research that has been carried out in this field of improving the reading skills of different students, limited analysis has been carried out on students in high school with mild intellectual disabilities. This study aims at investigating how silent reading and repeated reading techniques will improve the reading ability of these students. According to Daniels (2017) the best discoveries have been made in silence because this is when you learn and grow and see the point of the author in a clear vivid manner.

References

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Daniels, J. (2017). Studies that have shown that how to read, a statistical study. Teaching Statistics, 39(3), 75-78.

Dickens, R. H. & Meisinger, E. B. (2016). Examining the effects of skill level and reading modality on reading comprehension. Reading Psychology, 37(2), 318-337.

Erickson, J., Derby, K. M., McLaughlin, T. F,.&Fuebrer, K. (2015). An evaluation of read naturally on increasing reading fluency for three primary students with learning disabilities. Educational Research Quarterly, 39(1), 3-20.

Escarpio, R. &Barbetta, P. M. (2015). Comparison of repeated and non-repeated readings on the reading performances of students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 1-14.

Ford‑Connors, E., Robertson, D. A., Leighton, C. M., Paratore, J. R., Proctor, C. P, & Carney, M. (2015). Comprehension instruction within the context of the common core. Comprehension Instruction: Research-Based Best Practices, 105.

Freund, L., Kopak, R., & O’Brien, H. (2016). The effect of textual environment on reading comprehension: Implications for searching as learning. Journal of Information Science, 42(1), 79-93.

Gellert, A. S. (2014). Does repeated reading predict reading development over time? A study of children from grade 3 to 4. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 55(4), 303-310.

Gibson, L., Cartledge, G., Keyes, S. E., & Yawn, C. D. (2014). The effects of a supplementary computerized fluency intervention on the generalization of the oral reading fluency and comprehension of first-grade students. Education and treatment of Children, 37(1), 25-51.

Grabe, W. P. &Stoller, F. L. (2013). Teaching and researching: Reading. New York, NY: Routledge.

Grapin, S. L., Kranzler, J. H., Waldron, N., Joyce-Beaulieu, D., & Algina, J. (2017). Developing local oral reading fluency cut scores for predicting high-stakes test performance. Psychology in the Schools,54(9), 932-946.

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