This study examined teachers' language use across the school year in 6th grade urban middle-school classrooms (n = 24) and investigated the influence of this classroom-based linguistic input on the reading comprehension skills of the students (n = 851; 599 language minority learners and 252 English-only) in the participating classrooms. Analysis…

Proficiency in writing increases opportunities in higher education, employment, and social relationships. Many students in the United States, however, are struggling writers. In particular, the writing performance of students with disabilities in secondary grades continues to lag behind grade level peers. The purpose of this article was to review…

This study analyzed the impact of classroom based reading instruction ("direct instruction") on the standardized test scores of 6th grade students as measured by the New York State English Language Arts assessment (NYS ELA). It was hypothesized that the implementation of direct instruction in reading in grade 6 would improve NYS ELA…

Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS), a technology-based mathematics curriculum, was piloted in the 2012-2013 school year at a Minnesota rural public middle school. The goal was to find an equivalent or more effective mathematics teaching method than traditional direct instruction. The purpose of this quantitative study was to…

Web-based learning tools (WBLTs), also known as learning objects, have been evaluated with a wide range of metrics, but rarely with respect to pedagogical design. The current study evaluated the impact of instructional architecture (direct instruction vs. constructive-based) on middle (n = 333) and secondary (n = 389) school student attitudes…

This study will examine strategies that ESL teachers and content teachers can use to help middle school ESL students acquire science vocabulary and meta-cognitive strategies for writing skills in non-fiction text forms. Two appendixes are included. (Contains 3 figures and 2 footnotes.)

The widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (2010) has caused mathematics and special educators to reconsider instructional methods. The Common Core introduces eight Standards for Mathematical Practice that outlines the dispositions that should be fostered in students. Most notable are those that push students to analyze problems,…

In a study with ninth-grade mathematics students on learning the concept of variance, students experienced either direct instruction (DI) or productive failure (PF), wherein they were first asked to generate a quantitative index for variance without any guidance before receiving DI on the concept. Whereas DI students relied only on the canonical…

Present national methodological standards for evaluating the credibility of the design of individual research studies have resulted in findings reporting the pre-­post effectiveness of Direct Instruction programs to be eliminated from consideration by educational leaders involved in making curricular decisions intended to advance local school…

This study examined the effects of a peer tutoring program that used a Direct Instruction (DI) reading curriculum. Students identified as gifted and talented delivered instruction, using the DI reading program, to their struggling reading peers. The students used a cross-skill peer tutoring instructional format. The results indicated that all of…

Explicit strategy instruction combined with student-directed self-regulation in conjunction with cognitive strategies has proven effective in supporting low-achieving students' reading comprehension. Experts have extended 1 such approach, self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for the expository reading comprehension Think before reading,…

Classroom research on process-outcome relationships had burgeoned in recent years, revealing notable methodological advances and sensible, replicated findings. The studies of the early 1970s supporting direct instruction as particularly effective for producing achievement in basic skills in the early grades have been replicated and extended to…

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of the published research-based strategies used in content area instruction for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Twenty-eight (N = 28) studies published from 2000-2012 that met the criteria for inclusion were located, reviewed, and synthesized. Findings revealed the…

Prior studies have not tested whether an instructional intervention aimed at improving metacognitive skills results in changes to student metacognition, motivation, learning, and future learning in the classroom. We examined whether a 6-hr intervention designed to teach the declarative and procedural components of planning, monitoring, and…

The purpose of this action research was to determine the level of improvement of middle school students who were low performers in a mathematics class (N = 8) and who received "explicit instruction" with "double dosing" compared to their peer group who received normal instruction (N = 49). Results showed that at-risk…