The effects of reading racetracks on the sight word recognition of four elementary school students with learning difficulties

Abstract

Many children with different kinds of learning problems struggle with reading. To help them combat their challenges, easy-to-implement interventions are needed. Reading racetracks have proven to be effective tools to increase sight word fluency in students with disabilities. The purpose of this single-case study was to evaluate this technique, for the first time, in a context outside of the United States. Four elementary school children with various learning difficulties received nine to twelve individual intervention sessions from one of two graduate students. The results indicated that reading fluency of 30 common two-syllable German words rose remarkably in all four participants. Even though the treatment was a little less effective for one female student, diagnosed with intellectual/developmental delays, than for the other three students, performance gains were still noteworthy. This study provides further evidence that reading racetracks are an effective practice to build fluency in children with disabilities.