Closing the achievement gap in reading for struggling students is a goal that most urban schools are striving to achieve in this era of No Child Left Behind. Early intervention remains the best approach for successfully supporting those who struggle in the primary grades, but instruction must be targeted or matched to the assessed needs of the…

Although several school districts in a southern US state use a three-tiered Response to Intervention (RtI) model to supplemental core reading instruction and positively impact student achievement, the model appears to have had nominal impact. The theoretical foundation for this study is anchored in a constructivist approach to education. Three…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a reading intervention program used with second and third grade students identified as not meeting grade level expectancy. Studies have indicated students who are not reading at grade level by the end of the third grade have an increasingly difficult time achieving at the rate of their…

This study compared a multiple exemplar approach involving the training of key words and sentence structures to a typical repeated readings procedure for their effects on students' generalized oral reading fluency. The two training approaches were also compared in terms of their relative learning rates (i.e., fluency gain per minute of instruction…

"Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition"[R] is a reading and writing program for students in grades 2 through 6. It has three principal elements: story-related activities, direct instruction in reading comprehension, and integrated language arts/writing. Daily lessons provide students with an opportunity to practice comprehension…

This study investigated teacher educators', prospective teachers', and K-12 teachers' opinions about the effectiveness of ICT related courses and the ways to improve the courses in Turkey's pre-service teacher education programs. The researchers used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches within the data collection and analysis…

The history of strategies research during the past quarter century has been a story of significant conceptualizations and reconceptualizations regarding the nature, development, and teaching of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Theoretical models, empirical research, and discussions contributed by Michael Pressley have been central to…

"Bridges in Mathematics," published by the Math Learning Center (MLC), is an elementary school math curriculum covering kindergarten through fifth grade that focuses on problem solving and skill building, and applies a combination of whole-group, small-group, and independent activities. Lessons incorporate visual models, including…

This research report provides additional data, manifestations and discussion about avoidance strategies employed by a language-learning disabled student during reading activities. Rather than seeing avoidance as due to random distractions or oppositional behaviours, these data provide a rationale for viewing many types of avoidance as systematic…

Despite impressive advances in the science of reading intervention, how to best help at-risk readers remains a point of contention. Because reading represents the synthesis of background factors and language and reading skills--all of which develop with age and experience--this meta-analysis investigated whether development (as approximated by…

The purpose of this study was to (a) evaluate and discuss strengths and weaknesses in the current system of identifying gifted students and (b) investigate the effectiveness of using the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to identify underrepresented and gifted minority students in grades one through five in Central Mississippi. The study consisted…

This article reports on the collaborative initiative of two primary school teachers who created and implemented innovative pedagogy in order to foster a culture of thinking in their classrooms. The paper outlines teaching strategies that were used with the intent of making students mindful of themselves as learners and thinkers. A…

This article describes how Readers Theatre was implemented as an engaging means for reading fluency instruction in a second-grade classroom. A weekly Readers Theatre format was utilized over the course of a school year. The format was added to the existing literacy program. Data collected during the school year revealed significant gains in…

This study examined the effects of passage and presentation order on progress monitoring assessments of oral reading fluency in 134 second grade students. The students were randomly assigned to read six one-minute passages in one of six fixed orders over a seven week period. The passages had been developed to be comparable based on readability…

This study reviews the state of professional development (PD) for teachers of beginning readers in Florida's rural schools. Teachers of beginning readers need to have a deep understanding of language, of how the reading process develops, and of effective pedagogy in early literacy. Few teachers begin their careers with sufficient knowledge and…