SuperReading: Further evidence of its effectiveness measured through adult assessment tests
Melissa Scagnelli, Massimo Ciuffo, Alice Baradello, Francesca Santulli
SuperReading is a course aiming to enhance the acquisition of new reading strategies in adolescents and young adults. The course focuses on silent reading, which is the approach to reading most commonly adopted by students from adolescence onwards. Tests administered to a population of 156 participants showed a significant improvement in reading speed, comprehension, and reading effectiveness, both in normotypical readers and in students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLD). In the light of these results, we decided to verify the effectiveness of the course through independent measurements, using a battery of standardised tests specially designed for adults. In this paper, we present the results concerning the performance of 30 subjects (27 students with SLD; 3 neurotypical readers), focusing on two tests included in the battery: a reading aloud test and a silent reading test. In both cases, the performance of the test group improved significantly, with a high effect size, while a comparison with a control group including 22 subjects showed statistically significant differences in the behaviour of the two groups. Therefore, the results confirm the effectiveness of the SuperReading course, and encourage us to continue our research on a wider population.
Keywords
Adult dyslexia, reading effectiveness, strategic reading, silent reading, SuperReading.