The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) require students to use language in different ways. Expressive and receptive language skills are necessary to participate in the standards-based scientific practices of asking questions, constructing explanations, and engaging in arguments from evidence during scientific discussions. Participating in…

This pilot study examined the effects of the Interactive Book Reading at Home (IBR; Wasik, 2009) parent training program on the emergent literacy skills of preschool children and parent beliefs about reading. A quasi-experimental, pretest and posttest design was utilized. Twenty parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to a control or treatment…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comprehension of questions beginning with different wh- question words presented in two referential conditions to individuals with intellectual disability (ID). Thirty-nine school-age participants completed a battery of who, what, where, when, why, and how questions with and without a picture…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which tri-weekly evidence-based vocabulary lessons implemented throughout the regular school day would increase kindergarten students' expressive and receptive vocabulary development, thus decreasing the vocabulary gap exhibited between low-income children and their more advantaged peers…

To focus on the need to improve literacy in rural Appalachia, this study investigates the use of Text Talk during read-aloud to increase the receptive vocabulary of participants. The investigator read six picturebooks to two groups of kindergarteners. Group A had 21 participants and Group B had 20 participants. Each group received instruction on…

This study investigated some of the underlying factors that may relate to and predict the reading comprehension of children in fourth through eighth grade (N = 47). A subset of these children previously had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; n = 10); the remainder are classified as typically-developing (n = 37). The participants…

The purpose of this study was to design and establish the technical adequacy of curriculum-based measures (CBMs) of vocabulary acquisition for use with preschool children. This study sought to establish the technical adequacy of two tools that can be used for measuring benchmarks of vocabulary acquisition for both native English speakers and for…