The goal of the current study was to gain insight into what elements encompass business-as-usual (BAU) reading instruction and to what extent BAU reading instruction includes elements that have been found to positively impact reading competence. In addition, we examined whether and how these evidence-based elements are incorporated and how they…

If you were to walk into this second-grade classroom during reading workshop, you would notice students reading books specific to their reading level and interest. You would also notice students using different tools to support their reading development. One of the teacher's goals is to help students become independent readers who are able to…

This yearlong quasi experimental study examined the effects of two approaches to guided reading on second-grade students' reading abilities. The 79 subjects were chosen as a nonprobability sample and served as the treatment and comparison groups. The groups were pre- and post tested using the Developmental Reading Assessment, Second Edition…

Fifty 2nd- and 3rd-grade students identified as experiencing difficulty reading were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. In the experimental group, students received a reading intervention called Read Two Impress for a total of 360 min. Students in the control continued to receive regular instruction from their teacher. A 2 × 3…

The purpose of the present study was to explore the beliefs and practices of teachers who implement independent reading in their classrooms. Results showed that teachers who implemented independent reading believed in the importance of both the quantity and quality of student reading. The teachers' practices of independent reading showed students…

This article describes an action research project undertaken by a second grade teacher looking for research-based ways to increase his students' reading comprehension. He designed fifteen comprehension workstations and evaluated their effect on his second graders' reading comprehension scores as measured by district Imagination Station…

This study examined the impact of independent practice of multiple-criteria text that targeted high-frequency words, decodability, and meaningfulness. Second-grade students, including at-risk students, were randomly assigned within classroom to a treatment group that read multiple-criteria text ("n" = 34), or contrast group that read…

This article provides a statistical analysis of the reading gains observed at one American school in the Caribbean that was using Accelerated Reader. It provides an estimate of the number of hours students needed to read to advance their reading performance an additional year. The authors estimate how much Accelerated Reader contributed to the…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate if students who read decodable books during independent reading time improved word reading and decoding skills more than students who read authentic literature during independent reading time but received the same instruction. The study was conducted for 10 weeks with 62 second-grade…

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of second grade students about reading, themselves as readers, their motivation to read, and their subsequent reading achievement. Allowing students time to read independently during the school day and providing various reading materials in the classroom are options that some school…

The author cuts through the pressurized, strategy-overloaded, fluency-crazed atmosphere surrounding reading instruction to lay out the reading and writing workshop practices that are most effective in developing readers in the primary grades. She shares the daily how-tos needed to sustain a literacy block that engages children in authentic reading…

CD-ROM storybooks may facilitate reading comprehension for students who are struggling with reading comprehension. Therefore, the use of CD-ROM storybooks in the classroom as part of a reading instruction program, literacy center, or for independent reading time could benefit young readers. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

The goals of this study were to (a) develop an empirically based model regarding the development of fluent and automatic reading in the early elementary school years and (b) determine whether fluent text-reading skills provided benefits for reading comprehension beyond those accounted for by fluent word decoding. First-, second-, and third-grade…

Filling a crucial gap in the literature, this immensely practical volume presents innovative tools for helping K-3 students significantly increase their ability to make meaning from texts. The focus is on teaching the comprehension processes employed by expert readers, using a carefully sequenced combination of whole-class activities, specially…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a home repeated-reading intervention on the reading achievement of eight low-performing second-grade children in an urban school by taking into consideration their need to develop automaticity and the role their parents play in this process. Specifically we posed the following…