A two-tiered approach to a Buddy Reading Programme for struggling adolescent readers

This thesis reports on a study of the effects of a two-tiered Buddy Reading Programme on the reading skills of 12 to 14 year old middle school students in a high-poverty urban school in a Midwestern United States school. The research took place during one school year with white and African American students. The research, influenced by action research, was in the form of a Buddy Reading intervention programme using a reciprocal teaching model, within a constructivist paradigm. The key finding of the study was that the social nature of the programme allowed the middle school students to rehearse texts, engage in dialogue surrounding texts, and led to improvement in the affective aspects of reading, as well as in reading skills. This social aspect led many of the students to engage in literacy activities beyond those required either for the programme or in classroom instruction. A second finding of the study was that a comprehensive, balanced approach to literacy instruction was effective for simulating the process of reading for the struggling readers and leading them to emulate the reading processes of proficient readers. Through the programme, the students were immersed in a literacy-rich environment and interacted with texts in a positive, natural way.