Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Gloria Kieley

Committee Member

Linda Gaughan

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

academic confidence, academic performance, comprehension, education environments, implementation challenges, implementation strategies, inductive analysis, intensive reading, literacy success, longitudinal studies, mixed methods approach, motivation, online platform, qualitative perceptions, Reading Plus, reading comprehension, reading fluency, reading intervention programs, rural settings, semi structured interviews, struggling readers, student achievement, student engagement, student perceptions, suburban settings, teacher perceptions, teachers' experiences, vocabulary

Abstract

The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore teachers’ experiences and perceptions regarding the impact of the Reading Plus program on 10th-grade students in intensive reading courses. The research was aimed to understand how teachers perceive the program’s effectiveness in enhancing reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, as well as their reports about student engagement and the challenges and successes encountered during implementation. The data was gathered from semi structured interviews with 8 teachers with at least 2 years of experience teaching with Reading Plus in intensive reading programs. Themes for teachers' experiences were generated by inductive analysis.

Findings showed that Reading Plus aids in improvement in reading fluency and comprehension. The online platform fostered increasing student engagement and motivation, students exhibited improved academic confidence and performance across subjects, and educators faced some problems with implementation but worked out strategies to promote program success. In summary, teachers found Reading Plus to be a useful teaching resource that could be used to help struggling readers in intensive reading classes.

Future research should be geared toward comparing Reading Plus with other reading intervention programs, analyzing literacy success over time through longitudinal studies, and including student views to obtain a more thorough picture of the Reading Plus experience. Research is needed to investigate Reading Plus's effectiveness in rural and suburban settings to determine if results are similar across different education environments, and to gather and assess student achievement data along with qualitative perceptions to use a mixed methods approach.

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