Editor's Note: The content of this article was published by Pearson in the journal EBP Briefs. It is offered for CEUs through SpeechPathology.com in cooperation with Pearson. The following supplemental material is available for download: Appendix A: CONSORT Criteria (Law & Plunkett, 2006).
Learning Objectives
- After this course, participants will be able to identify the clinical question for an example case scenario.
- After this course, participants will be able to list relevant search criteria for retrieving evidence related to the clinical question.
- After this course, participants will be able to identify factors to consider when evaluating the evidence.
- After this course, participants will be able to describe a clinical decision based on the evidence analysis.
Problem
Bryan is an SLP working at a small urban elementary school in a large local district. Most of his students come from lower socio-economic homes; 90% of them receive free or reduced lunch. Bryan’s school is feeling a lot of pressure to make annual yearly progress as stated in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). On last year’s statewide test, the majority of students in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades at Bryan’s school were not performing at grade level. While the statewide test evaluates students’ comprehension of both narrative and expository texts, younger elementary grades primarily focus on narrative text. Bryan understands that language plays an important role, especially in early reading skills, and wants to ensure that he is having an impact on his students’ academic performance. In particular, one group of his language impaired second graders is struggling with reading comprehension. They are reading fluently and accurately but their reading comprehension is not commensurate with their fluency. They are not able to answer questions based on narrative text and are especially struggling with story prediction, main idea, and story vocabulary. The statewide test requires students to read a passage, interpret it, and demonstrate understanding by answering a variety of questions on these areas.
Several months before the statewide testing, the school reading specialist discovered through the school interim testing program that several students on Bryan’s caseload demonstrated high-risk performance in the area of reading comprehension. After consulting with the reading specialist, Bryan realized that he needed to learn more about how to provide appropriate literacy intervention to support the reading comprehension skills of his students.
Bryan’s school district has provided a series of professional development programs for the SLPs that address many areas of language and literacy. One of the programs dealt specifically with reading comprehension and strategies the SLP might use to support the classroom curriculum. The type of strategy that seemed to best fit Bryan’s situation was the story grammar approach. The question Bryan needs to answer is: Does explicit instruction in story grammar positively impact elementary school students’ comprehension abilities in reading narrative text?