Significant numbers of adolescents and young adults do not adequately understand complex texts, impeding their school success, access to postsecondary learning, and opportunities within an increasingly competitive work environment. National data (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], 2015) have shown improvements among fourth- and…

This article describes evidence-based practices that beginning special education teachers can readily implement in special or general education settings that promote reading and content outcomes for students with disabilities as well as general education students. We describe two approaches: (a) Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT),…

There are research-based principles and practices that can be found in reading intervention research and applied in the middle grades to improve student outcomes. School leaders and teachers of all disciplines can consider using these strategies to provide effective reading instruction school-wide, as well as more intensive interventions for those…

This brief introduces a research-based practice, Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR). This reading comprehension practice, designed to improve secondary students reading comprehension skills, combines two instructional elements: modified reciprocal teaching and cooperative learning or student pairing. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and…

Studied effectiveness of a cooperative-learning approach designed to foster strategic reading and social studies learning, in three heterogeneous, culturally and linguistically diverse, fourth-grade classrooms. Found that the experimental-group students made greater gains than control-group students in reading comprehension, and equal gains in…

Describes procedures for teaching Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), in which students of mixed reading and achievement levels work in small, cooperative groups to assist one another in applying reading strategies to facilitate their comprehension of content-area text. Discusses whole-class instruction of CSR strategies, implementing CSR in…

Investigated the efficacy of two related reciprocal teaching interventions--with cooperative grouping or with cross-age tutoring--on the reading comprehension of learning disabled English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. Found no significant difference between the two groups: both made comprehension gains and continued to improved when…