Writing is a complex process that presents challenges for middle school teachers and their students with and without disabilities. A particular area of difficulty is the application of content-area vocabulary in the explanatory writing of sixth-grade students. This two-group quasi-experimental study investigated the effectiveness of an elaborative…

Struggling deaf readers, like struggling readers with dyslexia, share similarities in their difficulty with phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Orton-Gillingham instruction is used to remediate these difficulties among hearing readers, but data is needed on its effectiveness with deaf students. Five subjects, who…

Vocabulary knowledge is a crucial component for success in and out of school. For most children, word acquisition hits a plateau in the middle of elementary school, which has a negative impact on their academic achievement. This study evaluated whether the instructional strategy of drawing cartoons improved the vocabulary achievement among 5th…

Improving the quality of education for millions of children worldwide has become a global priority. This study presents results from the first experimental evaluation to test the impact of a universal school-based program on (1) the quality of school interactions (i.e., students' perceptions of the level of support/care and…

Context: Policy makers have long used policy tools to influence various components of the education system. The passage of No Child Left Behind increased the federal role and the focus on student outcome measures. This change in the policy environment can affect not only teachers and teaching but researchers and research on teaching as well.…

When it comes to content area material, much of what students read and learn is predicated on information they have read before and are supposed to remember. Teachers often use silent reading and round robin reading as preferred reading methods to help students learn content area material. The objective of this study was to test reader's theater…

This article shares the insights of a tutor as she works with a fourth-grade African American girl. For this case study, the authors use interactive read-alouds and writing samples to document the reading and writing events of this yearlong tutorial experience. They report on the power of critical literacy to engage a developing reader and improve…

This article includes the findings from a formative experiment implementing inquiry with informational texts in a fifth-grade bilingual classroom after the completion of state assessments. The pedagogical goals were focused on facilitating engaged reading and writing for native Spanish-speakers and building content knowledge and related academic…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of E-readers during guided reading instruction would affect students' reading motivation, attitude toward reading, and reading comprehension. The study utilized on a quasi-experimental mixed methods research design that involved 35 fifth grade students in two fifth grade reading classes. For 10…

This report discusses the second year of Austin Independent School District's (AISD) High Dosage Tutoring Program: students' progress, program summaries, and participant survey results.

The research base on how to effectively intervene to improve the reading fluency of students with academic and behavioral disabilities at the middle school level does not provide a strong support for evidence- based practices with this age group. The purpose of this study was to extend the body of research on reading fluency interventions to…

A synthesis of the extant research on peer-mediated reading and math interventions for students in regular or alternative education settings with academic difficulties and disabilities in Grades 6 to 12 (ages 11-18) is presented. Interventions conducted between 2001 and 2012 targeting reading and math were included if they measured effects on at…

Increased diversity in our schools and changes in legislation have prompted educators to address the needs of all students (U.S. Department of Education, 2003, 2008, 2009; State of Hawaii Department of Education, 2009). Two major responses have emerged to do this. One is to deliver the same curricula in the same way to all students (Cooper,…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) and the reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) asserted the need for American children to receive scientifically research-based instruction and interventions. A variety of quantitative studies have determined components of effective reading interventions (Edmonds et…

Teaching a child to read is one of the greatest gifts we can give to that individual and to society as a whole, and yet many students exit school without the necessary literacy skills. For decades, research has demonstrated the importance of phonemic awareness in the development of the alphabetic principle, a prerequisite for competent reading,…