This case study describes how culturally relevant pedagogy can be used in disciplinary rigorous ways in an urban middle school history classroom. The focus is on a unit about the Johnstown Flood of 1889, which provided a setting for teaching about the event as well as the historical thinking practices of contextualizing, sourcing, and…

This study explored the differential contribution of cognitive and motivational factors on the comprehension of an expository text in secondary school students. One hundred and fifty-five 7th and 8th grade students were assessed in prior knowledge, inferences, metacognition, reading motivation, topic interest, and reading comprehension of history…

Content area reading comprehension and writing have been a challenge for children in the U.S. schools for many years as evidenced by state and national assessments. One promising solution to the problem is text structure based instruction that promotes strategic selection, encoding, retrieval, and use of information for myriads of activities…

In Florida, middle grades students take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test 2.0 (FCAT 2.0) in reading and writing. In partnership with the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), Avalon Middle School implemented the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) framework beginning in the 2012-2013 school year to develop literacy skills across…

The science vocabulary from a science curriculum standards document (Ministry of Education Ontario, 2007) was classified by morphological developmental level and compared to the grade level topics of the curriculum (grades 1 to 8). Descriptive statistical analyses highlight the complex nature of science vocabulary and the incompatibilities between…

In this experimental study we examined the effects of integrating teacher-directed knowledge-building and student-regulated comprehension practices in 7th- to 10th-grade English language arts classes. We also investigated the effect of instructional quality and whether integrating practices differentially benefitted students with lower entry-level…

The performance of English language learners (ELLs) has been a concern given the rapidly changing demographics in US K-12 education. This study aimed to examine whether students' English language status has an impact on their inquiry science performance. Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis was conducted with regard to ELL status on an…

New literacies are affecting the ways that we choose to spend our time in teaching and learning. In this article, Hagood describes the work of nine middle grades teachers' explorations of new literacies, including digital technologies and pop culture, and their implementations in their content area instruction. She also highlights some of the…

This study examined three teachers' responses to professional development initiatives designed to support them in integrating literacy strategies with their social studies curriculum. Data from participant observation, interviews, archival records, and email exchanges provided insights regarding participants' efforts to weave together literacy…

This grounded theory study examined the perceived effects of a cohort of seven secondary-level teachers earning a reading endorsement in a single-district sponsored professional development program. The researcher collected data through semi-structured personal interviews with the teachers, their principal, and the director of special services for…

Background/Context: The majority of middle school students in U.S. schools are struggling readers and lack the reading abilities needed to successfully comprehend texts, complete reading-related assignments, and learn subject matter content. Researchers have suggested that struggling readers' comprehension abilities can be improved if their…

This brief describes a quasi-experimental study of Word Generation, conducted in public middle schools in Boston. Word Generation is a robust vocabulary intervention that is implemented across key subject areas. The purpose of the program is to enhance students' vocabulary in support of improved reading comprehension. The brief outlines the…

According to a 2010 report by ACT, "Only 31 percent of students are performing at a college-and-career reading level with respect to successfully understanding complex text" (p. 5). This statistic demonstrates what educators know: Middle and high school students face numerous challenges in reading, understanding, connecting to, and…

This year-long case study examines how a struggling reader in a sixth-grade social studies class, a seventh grade mathematics class, and an eighth grade science class "transacted" with the reading task demands of her specific classroom. Through regular classroom observations and interviews, the researcher documents how each student responded to…