Effects of Family Involvement with Students at Risk for Reading Disability

Abstract

Family environment strongly influences many aspects of education. A section of the school population that requires special attention are those students with a learning disability, especially those with reading problems, which make up the largest group of students with special educational needs. Through the family literacy programme “Would you read me a story, please?”, this study aims to ascertain whether the commitment of parents in the education of their children in reading is an effective means to improve their learning. For this, a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was performed. There were 206 participants, students from 1st year of Primary Education from five different schools and their families. Family Involvement variable was assessed through a record of weekly monitoring completed by each family. The Reading Performance was assessed before and after programme implementation though PROLEC-R. The results show significant differences on all subscales of reading performance between the group of students who participated in the programme and those who did not follow, whether showing normal performance at the beginning of the investigation or having a possible reading disability. The number of students at risk of reading disability in the pretest is more reduced in the experimental group than in the control group.