*4.2. Procedures*

The purpose of this study was to explore the e ffectiveness of a newly developed reading intervention for struggling elementary readers. The intervention, Read Like Me, is a multifaceted approach composed of several researched interventions. The researchers employed the timeless practice of reading aloud [39] at the beginning of the intervention, followed by a practice-based method called Read Two Impress [12]. After su fficient practice, the student then read the text aloud to the interventionist. In this study, the student received the intervention three times per week for 12 weeks. The following are the steps used in each thirty-minute session:


The intervention was given three days a week for 30 min each day and was conducted similarly during each session. To begin, the interventionist reads a book that is approximately six months above the student's current independent reading level. If the text appears to be too di fficult after following the Read Like Me protocol, dropping a level may be necessary. Conversely, levels can be increased if the student reads with ease. In this particular case, the chosen books increased by one level each week. However, it remains a case-by-case decision. It is important for the interventionist to read the book with the exact expression and fluency with which they want the student to read.

After reading the book, the interventionist and student reread it together using the R2I protocol. The interventionist starts o ff and reads at a pace that is comfortable for the student but still challenges their normal pace. The goal is to push them to reach their full potential without overwhelming or frustrating them. Hence, the interventionist sets the pace with the particular student in mind. This phase is done page by page. Once the page is read together, the student then reads the page himself to the interventionist. This continues until the book is finished or the reading for that day is completed.

The third and final phase of the intervention is done solely by the student. The student starts from the beginning of the book and now reads aloud to the interventionist on his own. The interventionist assists as needed on major miscues but allows the student as much independence in this phase as possible. This is the phase that builds the student's confidence. The third phase completes the session for that day. It is important that the interventionist monitors the progress of the student throughout the treatment phase so that the levels of the books chosen are appropriate. This process continues for each session—three times a week for 30 min—for a minimum of 12 weeks. Following the twelve-week mark, data were reviewed and graphed to determine the results, and post assessments were administered to see if the progress remained or dissipated once the intervention ceased.

#### *4.3. Design and Instrumentation*

To complete the preliminary investigation, we planned a single-subject experimental ABCA design, meaning we established a baseline (A), introduced an intervention (B), modified the intervention (C), and returned to baseline (A). We used leveled reading passages to establish a baseline, monitor two treatment phases, and then returned to the baseline. For leveled passages, we used the Grade 2 Oral Reading Fluency passages from Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS-ORF) [40]. The weekly administration of DIBELS-ORF provided a word recognition automaticity score (words read correctly per minute). During the oral reading, we also scored the student's reading prosody with the Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MDFS) [41]. Scores were independently reviewed to establish inter-rater reliability, and the resulting measure of agreemen<sup>t</sup> was considered outstanding (Kappa = 0.93, *p* < 0.001).

In addition, the primary researcher administered the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (4th Edition) for second grade (GMRT-4) before and after the intervention phases. The GMRT-4 is a standardized reading assessment that measures a student's reading comprehension, word knowledge, and decoding. Validity and reliability of the GMRT-4 is considered high. The correlations between the two forms (S for the pretest and T for the posttest) are strong on all three measures, including word decoding (r = 0.86), word knowledge (r = 0.86), and reading comprehension (r = 0.82). The overall scores between the forms are also strongly correlated (r = 0.90). Finally, the internal consistency and reliability is also considered high (KR-20 = 0.97; [42]).
