Mindfulness for Struggling Readers

Many primary-aged learners, third through sixth grade, struggling with reading fluency find reading challenging owing to a lack of techniques for reducing anxiety in the classroom environment. Failure to develop adequate mindfulness strategies in the classroom weakens the potential of reading fluency and academic success for elementary school children. Researchers have suggested a contributive role of Mindfulness Education to enhance academic reading performance for primary-aged students; however, a gap has been identified in the literature with regard to the influence of mindfulness toward reading anxiety and its impact on reading fluency and the exact characteristics of the relationship between these variables. The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a 6-week Mindfulness Education (ME) program on third through sixth grade students and to investigate a possible causal link between anxiety and reading fluency.

The participants for this study included 173 primary-aged students from regular education classrooms in two elementary schools in southern California. Through several types of measurements, participants’ reading fluency and anxiety were assessed for data collection and analysis. The results showed a statistically significant difference between pretest and

posttest for anxiety after 6 weeks of ME activities. Additionally, results showed a statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest for reading fluency after 6 weeks of ME activities. Moreover, results showed a statistical difference found between the test scores of the treatment group and control group after 6 weeks of ME activities.

To evaluate the true efficacy of the ME intervention, additional research is necessary as the limitations of time constraints, outside activities, end-of- school year tasks, time of intervention, and frequency of usage may have become confounding variables. ME intervention may become a helpful problem-solving tool for reading fluency and anxiety when students do not respond well to traditional strategies.

What this means in regular English is that regular use of Mindfulness activities not only help children relax, it also allows them to be more calm during reading fluency tests. This would include reading for test examinations as well. If you would like more information on how to use Mindfulness activities at home with your children sign up here or you can email any questions to: DrPattiMartin@gmail.com