This study evaluates the impacts and costs of the Reading Partners program, which uses community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring to struggling readers in under-resourced elementary schools. The evaluation uses an experimental design. Students were randomly assigned within 19 different Reading Partners sites to a program or control…

With the increased emphasis on standardized testing from state and federal mandates, the need for reading remediation has intensified. Programs directed toward increasing student test scores have been put in place nationwide with mixed results. These initiatives include response to intervention (RTI), direct instruction, and individualized…

Case studies provide two views of adaptive expertise in teaching by analyzing the written reflections of teachers working in a reading clinic. David, with 20?years of experience, described adaptive judgments he made after careful description, data gathering, and analysis of students' responses that allowed him to form hypotheses and craft…

This article presents general implications for using interactive electronic picture books in the classroom. The suggestions are rooted in research with middle grades readers in a tutoring setting and kindergarten through fourth-grade classroom settings. Specific attention is given toward those features in eBooks that may distract, support, or…

Writing plays an important role in adolescent literacy development, but school writing is often too rigid to accommodate their personal needs, not allowing them to write for different purposes and different audiences. Studies of writing generally focus on learning to write or writing to learn. Using a sociocultural lens, the authors focused on…

Many high school teachers and administrators think that reading instruction belongs in the lower grades. But according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 31% of eighth graders read at or above the proficient level, which means that many are entering high school unprepared for its advanced textbook reading and language…

In this article, the authors establish a clinical definition of assistive technology (AT), describe how theory and available research support its use in clinics, link AT in clinics to AT in schools, and describe the potential uses of AT in clinical settings. Although many reasons may underlie a reluctance to embrace AT, surely one of them is an…

Paraphrasing, somewhat different from retelling and summarizing, helps students monitor their understanding and incorporate new knowledge with what they already know about a topic. Paraphrasing helps students realize that comprehension is the goal of reading.

Although there is evidence that literacy deficiencies in adolescents can be remedied with one-to-one tutoring using research-based instructional strategies, a review of current literature provides only limited information on transferring effective instructional strategies to learning environments outside of one-to-one tutoring centers. The authors…

This article summarizes the use of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and subsequent action planning as a tool of self-assessment to meet CAS (Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education) requirements for systematic assessment. The use of the evaluation results to devise improvements to increase the…

This paper discusses the shift from a clinic model to a community model for the practicum experience for literacy education graduate students. The traditional program for the remediation of struggling readers followed a deficit model. Therefore, the reading specialist would pull out the child from regular classroom instruction to isolate a reading…

The author shares insights gained through teaching middle and high school struggling readers and raises issues related to the complexity of addressing the literacy needs of adolescents for whom reading is difficult. The role of university-based reading clinics in helping inservice teachers' think differently about struggling readers and the…

Argues that collecting book reviews from local, regional, and national newspapers, categorizing them by literary genre, and regularly updating the collection can motivate developmental students in choosing books for oral or written reports. (RS)

Seeks to gain insight into the commonalities of diagnostic reports and to identify current trends in communicating perceived strengths and weaknesses in reading to parents and educators. Presents a summary of the common features found. (MG)

Describes the four primary types of private reading/learning center programs. Provides suggestions and guidelines that educators can follow in making referrals or assisting parents to make better informed decisions about educational support services. (RS)