Literacy is essential to the development of any nation. Despite foreign aid to support education initiatives in Africa, high rates of illiteracy persist. This synthesis examined the extent to which early literacy intervention research has been conducted in Africa and the effects of these interventions on reading outcomes for students in…

Separating students into homogeneous groups is a common instructional practice used by elementary teachers during reading instruction. Although researchers have been studying the effects of homogeneous grouping for many decades, there is little consensus on whether grouping is an effective or equitable instructional practice. The central challenge…

Common Core Reading Standard 10 not only prescribes the difficulty of texts students should become able to read, but also the difficulty diet of texts schools should ask their students to read across the school year. The use of quantitative text-assessment tools in the implementation of this standard warrants an examination into the validity of…

This study focused on the predictive validity of fluency measures that comprise Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). Data were gathered from first through third graders attending 44 schools in 9 districts or local educational agencies that made up the first Reading First cohort in Michigan. Students were administered DIBELS…

Examines five factors common to elementary schools that serve as major barriers to improved reading achievement: (1) grouping practices and the inappropriate use of instructional time, (2) low teacher expectation for student learning, (3) inappropriate instructional strategies for teaching reading, (4) differential curricula, and (5) inadequate…

A meta-analysis was conducted of 14 studies examining whether whole-language instruction increases the reading skills of low-SES students in grades K-3. Evidence suggested that low-SES primary school children do not benefit from whole-language instruction, compared to basal instruction. Findings indicated that there may be some advantages to the…

Examined six aspects of vocabulary instruction given to fourth and sixth graders prior to reading in two basal reading series. Found that words targeted for instruction were already known; instruction in the two series differed markedly; much of the instruction was not sufficient to improve comprehension; and instruction was not necessarily suited…