Data were collected from participants throughout the fall 2011 semester. Baseline measures of both word reading speed and comprehension were obtained prior to the commencement of practice exercises involving rapid serial visual presentation of words and tachistoscopic scroll presentation of words. AceReader Online contained integrated assessment components, allowing students to be assessed in similar ways to their practice exercises, following the Author’s (in press) guidelines that students should be tested in the same media format in which they receive instruction (i.e., digital instruction and digital testing, or paper instruction and paper testing). A paired t-test was selected to compare individual words per minute scores. Pretest scores (M = 176.6; SD = 8.3) and posttest scores (M = 289.8; SD = 24.2) following the 12-week intervention resulted in t(93) = -4.283, p < .001, CI.95 -165.7, -60.7. Because the distributions of the data for both word reading speed were highly negatively skewed, implying a non-symmetrical distribution, a bootstrap paired t-test was conducted, which indicated similar results, p < .01 (p = .003). Further, Cohen’s effect size (d = -6.26) suggested an extremely high practical significance.

Paired t-test results on comprehension scores from pretest to posttest indicated statistically significant findings as well. Pretest scores (M = 83.2; SD = 5.5) and posttest scores (M = 85.2; SD = 8.0) were collected before and after the 12-week intervention, resulting in t(93) = 2.00, p < .05, CI.95 -3.98, -0.03. Because the distribution of the data for both pretest and posttest in reading comprehension were highly positively skewed, a bootstrap paired t-test in SPSS was utilized, netting similar results (p < .05). Cohen’s effect size (d = .029) denoted a small practical significance.