The evolving educational landscape of our students' needs post-Covid has highlighted that student response to intervention must be of concern to all educators. Our student population has experienced an event that is like no other in our shared educational histories and our response to the aftermath of this event and how we assist students who are…

Providing appropriate reading interventions for older, adolescent students is a complex and multifaceted process. There are a multitude of factors that influence student reading outcomes and the researcher aimed to explore how awareness of morphological structures can facilitate reading growth in high school students who have reading disabilities…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and impacts of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model in its first year of implementation in 66 schools across the U.S. and to document scale-up progress during the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant period (2017-2021). The impact evaluation included 21,529 9th grade students…

This study documents the process of implementation of an adolescent reading intervention. Using data from observations of teachers (n=17) during the 2013-14 school year, I conducted a nuanced descriptive analysis of fidelity of implementation (FoI). I also analyzed weekly logs completed by literacy coaches (n=3) to examine variation in quantity…

The Striving Readers program aimed to raise the literacy levels of middle and high school students reading below grade level and to build a strong research base on effective adolescent literacy interventions. This report summarizes the results of a systematic review of evaluations of the ten different interventions funded by the Striving Readers…

The need for fidelity of implementation (FOI) measurements and assessments during efficacy and effectiveness studies is becoming evident in the requirements of many educational research funding organizations. The purpose of this study was to determine teachers' levels of FOI when implementing a reading curricular intervention and to investigate…

The roughly one-quarter of U.S. eighth graders who score below basic on national assessments of reading are poorly equipped for the reading demands of secondary school. They struggle with summarizing and making text-based inferences (NCES, 2013). Intervention in middle school needs to be comprehensive, both because of the heterogeneity of the…

Data-based instructional programs have proliferated in American schools despite limited evidence of their effectiveness in improving educator practice and raising student achievement. We report results from a two-year school-randomized evaluation of the Achievement Network (ANet), a program providing schools with standards-aligned interim…

We tested whether urban middle-school students from mostly low-income homes had improved academic vocabulary when they participated in a freely available vocabulary program, Word Generation (WG). To understand how this program may support students at risk for long-term reading difficulty, we examined treatment interactions with baseline…

"Thinking Reader" is a software program for students in Grades 5-8 that incorporates elements commonly identified in policy reports as being key components of effective adolescent literacy instruction. This evaluation of the impact of "Thinking Reader" use by Grade 6 students focused on two confirmatory research questions about…

The authors describe an independent evaluation of the READ 180 Enterprise intervention designed by Scholastic, Inc. Despite widespread use of the program with upper elementary through high school students, there is limited empirical evidence to support its effectiveness. In this randomized controlled trial involving 312 students enrolled in an…

Lack of progress of children with emotional disturbance (ED) has begun to be documented in longitudinal school-based studies. Variability in these studies may be due to several factors, including widespread differences in academic, behavioral, and social functioning of these children, their special education status, and school contextual factors.…

Formative assessments--assessments that measure what students do and do not know, so that teachers can modify their instruction accordingly--have been widely hailed as a potential vehicle for improving student achievement. Yet little solid research evidence exists about their effectiveness, especially in reform-rich school districts. This study…

The "Vocabulary Improvement Program for English Language Learners and Their Classmates" ("VIP") is a vocabulary development curriculum for English language learners and native English speakers (grades 4-6). The 15-week program includes 30-45 minute whole class and small group activities, which aim to increase students'…