This research study examines the impact of teacher research on participants in a large-scale educational reform initiative in the United States, No Child Left Behind, and its strand for reading teachers, Reading First. Reading First supported professional development for teachers in order to increase student scores on standardized tests. The…

A principal describes how she introduced the concept of action research in her school by encouraging teachers to analyze how their teaching practices impacted students' success and to look for ways to improve. During the course of a year, teams of teachers introduced and monitored innovative projects designed to meet students' specific needs in…

The purpose of this study was to explore how critical pedagogy, culturally relevant curriculum, and student centered instruction impacted student engagement in reading for struggling high school readers, including first- and second-generation immigrants. The researcher/practitioner (r/p) chose to highlight Latinas in the study to understand the…

Shares the author's systematic observations and reflections on students' learning in her first-grade classroom as a means of opening a conversation about what counts as teacher research. (SR)

Three Canadian teachers (an English language first grade teacher, a French immersion first grade teacher, and a grade four/five teacher of students with special needs) used an action research framework and a multidimensional model of teaching to study and expand their literacy strategies and watch the effects on their students. The model they…

A second-grade teacher conducted a study aimed at raising students' abilities to use certain strategies (predicting, questioning, and connecting to text) and at increasing their enthusiasm for reading via literature circles (book discussion groups). Test and rubric results, survey responses, and interview comments affirm literature circles' value.…

Discusses ways to get teachers involved in the process of evaluating and changing their methods of instruction--using the example of teaching content material through round robin reading and discussion. (FL)

Argues that classroom research helps teachers (1) explore in a focused way what works with their students; and (2) discover if a problem will be solved by changing the classroom environment. Presents examples of classroom research. Describes procedures for conducting classroom research. (RS)

This article describes findings from a classroom-based action research project conducted by two in-school teachers, a literacy coach and a 4th grade teacher, implementing a new integrated literacy and social studies curriculum and the changes they made in curricular practices and beliefs over a three-year period of time. A university professor…

This action research report describes a program to increase students' reading comprehension and fluency through the use of guided reading. The targeted population consists of second and fourth grade students in a northwest suburban area of a large city located in the Midwest. The problems of low reading comprehension and fluency scores were…

This publication contains reports on six research projects proposed, developed, and conducted by teachers in their own classrooms. The projects were conducted during the 1995-96 school year. The projects are: (1) "M..M..M..Math (Making More Meaning out of Math)" (Naomi Rose); (2) "Effect of Student Achievement as a Result of Individualized Use of…

This study focuses on the progress of six middle schoolers in the St. Louis public schools who had been placed in 6th grade even though they had only first grade-level reading skills. It seeks to answer the following question: What effect will the use of Reading Recovery techniques and individualized reading strategies have on middle school…

This article discusses an action research project that investigated how a 10-year-old boy with learning disabilities, whose first language was Korean, was supported. His individualized instruction involved labeling items in the room, reading sentences that included priority sight words, practicing with consonant blends and vocabulary words, games,…

The nine reports included in this monograph are: (1) "Phonemic Awareness/Multisensory Instruction: An Intervention for Kindergarten Children at Risk in Pre-Reading" (Marcia Anselmo and Patricia Kulp); (2) "The Effects of Reading Aloud vs. Sustained Silent Reading on Student Comprehension" (Karen Border and Mark Ranski); (3)…

The main objective of this self-study is to reflect and document the development of our own praxis by using teacher research in our teacher education courses. By praxis we mean an ongoing interdependent process in which reflection, including theoretical analysis, enlightens action, and in turn the transformed action changes our understanding of…