Students with disabilities in upper elementary grades who read well below grade level often require one-to-one intensive intervention. The following study examines the effects of a combined explicit decoding plus frequency building intervention on consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word reading fluency. Participants were two third-grade students and…

English learners with learning disabilities (LD) have well-documented difficulties comprehending text. This study examined the effects of an intensive reading intervention (Reading Intervention for Adolescents [RIA]) on reading outcomes (word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension) for ninth-grade ELs with LD (n = 85). In the RIA, students…

Upper elementary school students who have reading problems may have difficulty in one or more areas of reading, each requiring specific types of interventions. This study evaluated a short-term reading intervention for 46 fifth-grade students with poor reading comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to an intervention or no treatment…

Systematically observing instruction for students with learning disabilities (LD) provides information regarding the quality of school-based interventions, allocation of instructional time, and other implementation variables associated with student outcomes. In this synthesis, observation studies of reading and mathematics instruction from 2000 to…

The effects of preteaching key words on accuracy and fluency in connected text were examined with three fifth-grade participants identified with learning disability and reading two grade levels below their same age peers. Researchers incorporated a multiple baseline design (i.e., Baseline and Wordlist Intervention) and found that preteaching…

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were…

In this study, researchers operated from cognitive and situated perspectives to understand how individual qualities and contextual factors influenced elementary special education teachers' learning in a multifaceted professional development (PD) project, Literacy Learning Cohort, focused on word study and fluency instruction. Grounded theory…

We describe findings from a series of longitudinal studies utilizing a response to intervention framework implemented over 3 years with students in Grades 6 through 8 with reading disabilities and poor reading comprehension. Students were identified based on reading comprehension scores in Grade 5 (n = 1,083) and then randomized to treatment or…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to (a) compare Tier 2 evidence-based intensive reading instruction to business-as-usual instruction for sixth graders with and without learning disabilities who were "far below" or "below" basic level in literacy and (b) explore the development of a response-to-intervention model…

This study assessed the efficacy of experimental analysis for determining a best intervention program for improving oral reading fluency for students with learning disabilities. Following a two-session baseline condition, four treatments to increase reading fluency (repeated reading, listening passage preview, repeated reading with easier…

This article discusses the need to teach decoding to secondary students with reading difficulties using one of three approaches: reading segmented words part by part; decoding different syllable types; or using a flexible strategy for reading long words. It also stresses the need for reading practice and research-validated programs. (Contains…

Using an extant database, we examined three grade 1 criteria for identifying response to intervention (RTI) in English language learners (ELLs): (a) set benchmark criteria with a standard score above 95 (37th %ile) on both decoding and comprehension measures and a raw score of 40 or more correct words per minute (CWPM) on oral reading fluency; (b)…

This experimental/comparison study of secondary-level, small-group instruction included 318 first- and second-grade students (170 ELL and 148 English-only) from six elementary schools. All schools served high numbers of ELL students with varying school SES in urban and suburban communities. Experimental schools implemented a three-tier model of…