Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

Background: Reading comprehension and writing ability are critical to students' success in introductory psychology. However, these generally are not prerequisites. There is conflicting evidence with regard to the effectiveness of remedial reading and writing classes for students with low placement exam scores. Objectives: To explore whether…

Many adolescents, particularly adolescents with disabilities, have difficulty with literacy tasks such as reading and writing. Yet research has found that when students with disabilities receive appropriate instruction, they typically are able to improve their overall writing outcomes. This study explored the effectiveness of a summary writing…

The academic landscape has been changing over the last several years bringing with it an emphasis on high stakes testing. Studies conducted over the past several years that have shown the success of the Question-Answer-Relationships (QAR) strategy in helping students develop their comprehension skill. This study looks at the effects of the QAR…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention for second graders at risk for academic failure, which taught reading comprehension embedded in social studies content. The intervention included instruction about the structure of cause/effect expository text, emphasizing clue words, generic questions, graphic organizers, and close…

Struggling adolescent readers are distinct from others in two important ways: (1) They are "adolescents"; and (2) they have a "history" of struggle with reading. Good pedagogy prescribes that effective programs "meet students where they are." For middle-school students, this means meeting them in adolescence.…

Improving comprehension skills is vital to building cognitive skills. Reading and literacy skills enable youth to gather information and create knowledge from various sources, and then to consider solutions to problems in and about their lives from both a cognitive and a creative standpoint. By implementing disciplinary reading strategies in the…

"READ 180" is a reading program designed for students in elementary through high school whose reading achievement is below the proficient level. The goal of "READ 180" is to address gaps in students' skills through the use of a computer program, literature, and direct instruction in reading skills. The software component of the…

"Fluency Formula"[TM] is a supplemental curriculum designed to promote reading fluency for first- through sixth-grade students. The program emphasizes automatic recognition of words, decoding accuracy, and oral expressiveness as the foundation for building reading fluency. A daily 10- to 15-minute lesson is delivered in the classroom.…

David Booth, a renowned storyteller and educator, conducted a one-day Saturday conference that focused on reading comprehension. The day consisted of three one-hour sessions that discussed and demonstrated effective comprehension classroom techniques with elementary school students. This conference was conducted at a public college in New York…

A study investigated the effect of video and narrative presentations on children's comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. Participants were students in four heterogeneously grouped eighth-grade English classes (n=16, 22, 21, and 11) in a rural school district in southwestern New York. The short story selected was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's…