| Summary: | A quasi-experimental research design was used to evaluate the efficacy of MindPlay Virtual Reading Coach (MVRC), an ICT-based reading intervention, in addition to regular daily language instruction provided by a classroom teacher. After attrition, participants included 170 students enrolled in eight second-grade classrooms (four classrooms in each school) in two public elementary schools in the southwestern United States. Examiners obtained reading achievement data for each participating student. Pre- and post-test measures included tests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement (WJ IV ACH), as well as the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF-2). A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was used to determine whether there were significant mean differences in (a) non-word reading, (b) real word reading, (c) non-word spelling, (d) real word spelling, and/or (e) reading fluency post-test achievement scores favoring students assigned to use the MVRC online reading intervention, once the effects of differences in pre-test achievement scores and relevant demographic variables had been accounted for. Analyses revealed a significant main effect (λ= .668, F [5, 161] = 16.014, p < .001, multivariate η² = .332) of the intervention on achievement scores of participants assigned to the treatment condition, a result which was confirmed across three of the study's dependent variables: real word spelling (F[1, 165] = 16.341, p < .001, multivariate η² = .090), non-word spelling (F[1, 165] = 29.212, p < .001, multivariate η² = .150), and reading fluency (F[1, 165] = 58.348, p < .001, multivariate η² = .261).
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