District leaders in a large urban school district in central Florida wanted to examine the efficacy of a new curriculum designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students so as to improve reading achievement. The new curriculum, called Word Knowledge Instruction (WKI), consists of 15-minute lessons 4 days a week for 20 weeks. The lessons…

This randomized controlled trial in 55 low-performing schools across Florida compared 2 early literacy interventions--1 using stand-alone materials and 1 using materials embedded in the existing core reading/language arts program. A total of 3,447 students who were below the 30th percentile in vocabulary and reading-related skills participated in…

This randomized controlled trial in 55 low-performing schools across Florida compared 2 early literacy interventions--1 using stand-alone materials and 1 using materials embedded in the existing core reading/language arts program. A total of 3,447 students who were below the 30th percentile in vocabulary and reading-related skills participated in…

The importance of adolescent literacy is well established, and the topic continues to be of both local and national interest. Practitioners need to know not only which programs and practices appear effective, but which have the scientific evidence to support that claim. To identify effective programs and practices for general education students in…

The implementation of effective instructional materials, such as a core reading program, by a qualified teacher is an important part of improving students' reading achievement. But selecting those instructional materials can be time-consuming. Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southeast created this rubric for evaluating reading/language arts…

There are many types of programs for Spanish speaking students in the US, with varying methods and goals. Some preliminary work suggests that bilingual classrooms may differ widely in instruction, even under the same program labels. However, there are few studies which have compared the extent to which various bilingual program models differ in…

The issue of whether to separate English language development (ELD) into a separate instructional block or whether to integrate it with reading/language arts instruction is an unanswered question with theoretical and practical implications. We addressed this question by observing instruction across the year in 85 kindergarten classrooms that…