Many students, especially English language learners (ELLs), struggle when they write. This study examined the various writing strategies 3 Spanish-speaking bilingual student teachers used to help their elementary school ELL students write. This was a case study that looked at how these student teachers used their primary language, among other…

This pilot study examined multilingual university students' willingness to engage in voluntary extensive reading (ER) of books after they received training. The research questions were whether training appeared to promote self-efficacy, motivation for the task, use of metacognitive strategies, and independent reading. University freshmen in an ESL…

This qualitative study focused on teacher's beliefs about students' motivation for reading and how teachers act on those beliefs in classrooms. After conducting five focus groups of teachers, researchers analyzed and interpreted transcripts to identify major themes. While instructional processes mediated the building of relationships between…

The primary goal of this research is to better understand my students' reading orientations--what they believe it means to be a successful reader. I also seek to identify the relationship between those beliefs and my teaching. The data come primarily from six focal students in my second-grade classroom in an urban public charter elementary school…

The field of teacher research is increasingly including self-study as a valid and reliable method with which teachers can study and improve practice. In this self-study, I develop knowledge of myself as a nonfiction reader and use it to inform my instruction. Guided by the work of Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, and Hurwitz (1999), I use…

Without proficiency in content reading skills, seventh grade students were at risk of not being able to achieve understanding of what they read in non-fiction texts, a skill that is absolutely necessary for college-bound students. The purpose of this action research study was to investigate whether an approach that involved specific and focused…

This study is an examination of animal-assisted therapy in an attempt to explore the ways it may serve as reading intervention program for struggling readers. Due to the low rate of literacy in the U.S., children are often put into reading intervention programs where they are required to read to an adult; potentially creating anxiety that may act…