EPS contracted with LXD Research, a third-party research company, to examine the relationship between progress in S.P.I.R.E. and student reading outcomes at Martin County School District in Florida. LXD Research analyzed 192 students from grades 3-5 in 13 elementary schools who use S.P.I.R.E./i.S.P.I.R.E. reading intervention that uses an…

While most educational models point toward cognitive and metacognitive skills to promote reading comprehension, recent studies indicate that motivation also plays a key role. Consequently, studying social factors that may support reading motivation represents an interesting research avenue. We therefore performed a systematic review of the…

The learning gap between intermediate students on grade level and those below grade level continues to grow. Intermediate students with below-grade-level reading comprehension skills struggle with informational texts and across-content material. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore parent and teacher perceptions of…

Students deserve to see representations of themselves in the books that they read, but with low amounts of culturally diverse books being published, this is not an easy feat. Students are exposed to a wide variety of literature in their classrooms, and as the need increases for culturally responsive teaching, it is important to explore how…

Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This…

Many students struggle to understand what they read. The purpose of my study was to determine the relationship between teachers' instruction of three processes believed to help readers to become more engaged (purpose setting, questioning, and predicting), students' use of these engaged reader processes, and students' comprehension development. My…

Teachers can potentially address reading comprehension deficits in a content area, such as science, by using the students in their classrooms as resources. We examined the effects of a class-wide partner reading intervention with science reading materials on a measure of content comprehension skills. A total of 65 fourth-grade students and 61…

Despite the social turn in views of language and the increasing attention to an application of genre theory in teaching languages, the field of Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language (JFL) has not yet found genre a valuable resource for approaching learners' writing ability. Writing is still practiced as a psycholinguistic space to check learners'…

The authors examined the strength of literature circles in developing background knowledge--an acknowledged sticking point in the development of understanding for middle graders--with a special focus on the literature circle role of "investigator," where it is student initiative and not teacher direction that guides comprehension. Observing…

Frequently, when assigned to read, intermediate and middle grade students engage in a mindless encounter with the text. Or, try as they may to focus and gather information, they're mostly confused and not sure how to repair the breakdown in their meaning-making. With the new focus on close reading--and on engaging students with more rigorous…

Developing silent fluent reading is an important goal to be achieved in elementary literacy instruction. This article reviews characteristics of effective silent reading fluency instruction and practice. Next, the authors make the case for four components of effective silent reading fluency practice routines. Finally, the authors describe two…

Although several different reading fluency intervention approaches appear promising for adolescents who are struggling readers, few studies have directly compared various approaches. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to determine the relative effects of word-oriented, fluency-oriented, comprehension-oriented, and multi-component…

Strategic grouping can transform reading instruction in the middle grades from a hit-or-miss learning experience to a targeted, responsive one. This book features a practical and field-tested model for small-group differentiated reading instruction in Grades 4-8. Jennifer Berne and Sophie C. Degener offer a clear, detailed discussion of how to…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a program that offered sustained strategic reading instruction on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted among 1,469 children from 40 schools in the Netherlands. Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Multilevel…

Teachers in inclusive classrooms are challenged to provide reading instruction for students with a wide range of instructional levels. This article reports on the implementation of guided reading in four middle years inclusive classrooms, the impact on student engagement and reading progress, and teacher perspectives on the guided reading…