Beginning in 2002, researchers developed, implemented, and evaluated the efficacy of an English reading intervention for first-grade English learners using multiple randomized control trials (RCTs). As a result of this efficacy work, researchers successfully competed for an IES Goal 4 effectiveness study using the same intervention. Unlike the…

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),…

We use three data sources to build a rationale for why intensive interventions are necessary for students with pervasive reading disabilities: current data on the performance of students with disabilities on reading achievement measures over time, observation studies on students with reading disabilities in general and special education…

When students read more, vocabulary knowledge increases (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2003; Krashen, 2004). Out of every 100 unknown words that students encounter while reading, they learn an average of 15 of them from text alone (Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999). In addition, as students age, they are more likely to infer word meanings, indicating…

This article describes the importance of vocabulary knowledge in adolescents' reading comprehension, particularly for students with disabilities. Students with stronger vocabularies tend to have better background knowledge and improved understanding of content-area texts. We describe evidence-based vocabulary instructional practices that…

This article reflects a metaview of the work of the three research projects funded through the Institute for Education Sciences under the Reading for Understanding competition that addressed middle-grade through high school readers (grades 4-12). All three projects shared the assumption that instruction is necessary for successful reading to learn…

This randomized controlled trial focused on 59 struggling readers in the third and fourth grades (30 female, 29 male) and examined the efficacy of an intervention aimed at increasing students' multisyllabic word reading (MWR). The study also explored the relative effects of an embedded motivational beliefs (MB) training component. Struggling…

This study examined the effectiveness of a researcher-provided intervention with fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. The intervention emphasized multisyllable word reading, fluent reading of high-frequency words and phrases, vocabulary, and comprehension. To identify the participants, 1,695 fourth-grade students were screened…

We examined the efficacy of an afterschool multicomponent reading intervention for third- through fifth-grade students with reading difficulties. A total of 419 students were identified for participation based on a 90 standard score or below on a screening measure of the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension. Participating students…

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of a content knowledge and reading comprehension treatment implemented by 8th-grade social studies teachers over the course of 1 school year. We randomly assigned 8th-grade students with reading difficulties to the intervention treatment condition (n = 45) or the business-as-usual comparison condition…

This study reports vocabulary and reading comprehension instructional practices implemented in middle and high school social studies and language arts classrooms. It also describes text reading practices. We conducted 137 observations of 11 social studies and 9 language arts teachers over the course of 1 academic year. We observed instructional…

This experimental study examined the efficacy of a multicomponent reading intervention compared to a control condition on the reading comprehension of adolescent students with low reading comprehension (more than 1½ standard deviations below normative sample). Ninth-grade students were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 25) and comparison (n =…

This meta-analysis synthesizes the last two decades of experimental and quasi-experimental research on reading instruction across academic contexts (e.g., social studies, science, mathematics, English language arts) for English learners (ELs) in grades 4 through 8, to determine (a) the overall effectiveness of reading instruction for upper…

Sixty fourth- and fifth-grade general education teachers were randomly assigned to teach Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR; Klingner, Vaughn, Boardman, & Swanson, 2012), a set of reading comprehension strategies, or to a business-as-usual comparison group. Results demonstrate that students with learning disabilities (LD) who received CSR…