This is the story of Lily, a 12-year-old girl with Williams Syndrome (WS). A reading program was developed to meet Lily's specific reading needs while addressing her individual learning style; this includes attending to the unique characteristics of Williams Syndrome. During this school year, Lily showed significant gains in sight word recognition…

Despite the fact that the early reading proficiency for all children has become a national mandate captured in both the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the poor performance of America's fourth graders on national examinations of reading proficiency indicates that the nation is far from…

Children with autism spectrum disorders are increasingly being educated in inclusive general education classrooms. For optimal results, teachers need to know as much as possible about autism and the teaching methods and modifications that work best for these students. This is a huge undertaking for time-crunched general education teachers, many of…

This What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) topic report addresses reading interventions for students in grades K-3, including core reading curricula, programs, or products to be used as supplements to other reading instruction, programs that focus on staff development, and literacy software. The WWC review on beginning reading focuses on programs…

Even after acting on the best available information to make a grantmaking decision, a grantmaker should seek to learn from grantees, remain adaptable to new ideas and open to unexpected learning, and willing to admit when grants do not turn out as expected. To this end, Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking…

The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act requires states to report annually to the U.S. Department of Education the number of prospective teachers at each of their teacher training institutions who pass the state's tests for licensure. However, the law left decisions on what licensure tests to require, what to assess on them, and their…

Elementary teachers Fay and Whaley share anecdotes of how carefully listening to English language learners read--and discussing with them their errors and confusions--helps teachers better analyze such students' true language and reading abilities. They discuss the importance of spending time talking individually with each child learning to read…

The authors evaluated the effectiveness of explicit reading comprehension strategies instruction, followed by practice in teacher-led whole-class activities (STRAT), reciprocal same-age (STRAT + SA) peer-tutoring activities, or cross-age peer-tutoring activities (STRAT + CA) on 2nd and 5th graders' reading comprehension and self-efficacy…

This paper contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of schools. The analysis is unique in using data on the minutes of instruction per day in each of four subjects taught in the public elementary schools in Illinois. Few education production function papers have information on the amount of instruction students receive in a given…

One of the most difficult problems of modern school practice is how to prevent overcrowding the curriculum, breaking up the school day into small fragments of time devoted to disconnected tasks, and dissipating the energies of the children to such an extent that the process of education is hindered rather than helped by the attempts to enrich and…

How do some students extract complex information from advanced reading materials while others struggle to find the meaning of even simple passages? What characteristics do strategic readers exhibit that others don't possess? Unlocking the cognitive strategies of exceptional readers means finding ways to teach every student to read strategically,…

Published originally in 1952, the bulletin "How Children Learn to Read" was the first in a series designed to illustrate the philosophy and principles set forth in The Place of Subjects in the Curriculum, Bulletin 1949, No. 12. It was planned to describe as simply as possible, especially for inexperienced teachers and for parents, the process of…

The Louisiana Literacy Plan is designed to address the learning needs of all students in grades PK-Adult Education in order to improve the literacy rates of students in the state, thereby developing a more literate and capable citizenry for the future. Connecting this plan to the No Child Left Behind Act, Louisiana seeks to close the achievement…

This book presents state-of-the-science research on the components of successful literacy learning and how to target them in contemporary classrooms. The volume builds on and extends the work of Steven Stahl, whose pioneering contributions encompassed the key areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and assessment.…

The persistent reading struggles and failure of nearly 40 percent of all American children, little improved over time, has led to aggressive government-funded efforts in school districts to train veteran teachers in the science of reading. The accumulated scientific findings of nearly 60 years of research gained the nation's attention with the…