Bowers ("Educational Psychology Review," 32, 681-705, 2020) reviewed 12 meta-analytic syntheses addressing the effects of phonics instruction, concluding that the evidence is weak to nonexistent in supporting the superiority of systematic phonics to alternative reading methods. We identify five issues that limit Bowers' conclusions: (1)…

There is much that parents and caregivers can do to help their struggling readers, beginning with understanding how reading is taught in the classroom. The authors of this article offer families a research-based set of six practices for what they can do to support their child with reading difficulties.

Two potential pathways for improving reading outcomes for students with reading disabilities are presented: (a) systematically integrating self-regulation instructional practices within reading interventions and (b) aligning small-group reading intervention with core reading instruction to reduce the pressure on the executive system. Two separate…

To learn challenging content, middle school students are expected to read and comprehend complex text. This poses challenges for content-area teachers whose classes typically include students with reading difficulties and disabilities who have a variety of literacy needs. Some students struggle to decode text while many students struggle with…

Teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension during social studies instruction is critical for reading development and the acquisition of content knowledge. This study systematically investigated how elementary teachers integrate vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction during social studies teaching, as well as the extent to which this…

This within-subjects experimental study investigated the relative effects of word reading and word meaning instruction (WR+WM) compared to word-reading instruction alone (WR) on the accuracy, fluency, and word meaning knowledge of 4th-5th graders with dyslexia. We matched word lists on syllables, phonemes, frequency, number of definitions, and…

We present findings from the first cohort of third- and fourth-grade students with reading difficulties (128 students from 31 classrooms) who participated in a 2-year intervention examining the effects of a reading intervention with and without anxiety management. Using a randomized controlled trial, students were assigned to one of three…

In this study, we examined the extent to which teachers' treatment adherence, instructional quality, and the interaction of these variables influenced eighth-grade students' content knowledge and reading comprehension. We examined treatment fidelity for students (n = 775) in classes randomly assigned to receive an evidence-based content area…

When recommending a program to achieve objectives such as improving learning outcomes for middle school students, school psychologists need information about cost-effectiveness to identify the best fit for student needs and school budgets. However, few cost studies of evidence-based instructional programs exist. We compared the cost-effectiveness…

Teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension during social studies instruction is critical for reading development and the acquisition of content knowledge. This study systematically investigated how elementary teachers integrate vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction during social studies teaching, as well as the extent to which this…

The degree to which a student expresses a reading difficulty is always an interaction between the child's opportunity to learn (due to absences, instructional quality, or other issues) and the extent of the student's reading impairment. Thus, youngsters who are provided a genuine opportunity to learn to read--including high-quality, explicit,…

A substantial number of students read significantly below grade level, and students with disabilities perform far below their non-disabled peers. Reading achievement data indicate that many students with and at-risk for reading disabilities require more intensive reading interventions. This chapter utilizes the theoretical model of the Simple View…

Over the past decade, parent advocacy groups led a grassroots movement resulting in most states adopting dyslexia-specific legislation, with many states mandating the use of the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction. Orton-Gillingham is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive approach to…

This article presents findings from a quasiexperimental study examining the effects of a Tier 2 intervention aligned to Tier 1 instruction, a nonaligned Tier 2 intervention, and a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison on the content knowledge, vocabulary, and reading outcomes of fourth-grade struggling readers. In the aligned condition, teachers were…

Understanding the efficacy of evidence-based reading practices delivered in the Tier 1 (i.e. general classroom) setting is critical to successful implementation of multi-tiered systems, meeting a diverse range of student learning needs, and providing high quality reading instruction across content areas. This meta-analysis presents evidence on the…