When observing and consistently hearing about the obstacles our current public educational system faces, many are left wondering what can be done to produce genuine, significant, and continuous improvement. Upon deeper analysis of educational systems, one can see that many areas need system improvement. SOAR School (pseudonym) is a Pre-K-5 school…

This study provides important insights about the dynamic landscape of technology integration in early childhood education, particularly its role in supporting reading development among students in kindergarten through third grade. The research methodology adopted for this study was a mixed-method approach, incorporating both quantitative and…

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to study the effectiveness of two readers' theater (RT) programs in promoting reading skills and motivation of dysfluent readers in Grades 3-4. One program (RT Goal) included a goal of preparing a performance for an audience (n = 50), while another program (RT Practice) did not include such a goal (n =…

Struggling readers are likely to face life-long challenges in achieving success in school and life as a result of their struggles with reading (Armbruster et al., 2001; Arnold, 2010; Hernandez, 2011). Third-grade students with reading disabilities are an exceptionally critical group who may experience enhanced risk during the year that the focus…

In this study, we examined the impact of a simple explicit-timing intervention on low-achieving third-grade students' ability to read more rapidly and accurately. We implemented an ABAB design with four struggling readers to establish experimental control and to evaluate the effects of the treatment in terms of the target variable. The results…

We report findings from multiple baseline design studies examining the effects of a program ("Data Mountain") to improve the oral reading fluency (ORF) performance of 12 third-grade students with significant reading difficulties. The Data Mountain program guided students through self-monitoring, goal setting, and motivation training…

This study investigated the relationship between teachers' comprehension monitoring strategies instruction and students' reading comprehension in the context of the Interactive Strategies Approach--Extended intervention (ISA-X, Gelzheiser et al., 2011). In the ISA-X, the teachers were encouraged to provide third and fourth grade students with…

The goal of a Comprehensive K-3 Reading Policy is to establish intensive reading intervention for K- 3 students who are at risk of reading failure to help ensure they read on grade level by the end of third grade. The policy also requires third grade students to demonstrate sufficient reading skills for promotion to fourth grade. Retention can…

This study investigated the efficacy of the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL) in improving reading achievement in primary grade struggling readers. 30 readers, enrolled in a summer reading clinic, participated in daily 40-min mini-reading lessons across 5 weeks. During the fluency lessons, readers practiced and developed their literacy skills…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) establish a challenging text-complexity standard for all high school graduates to read at college and workplace text-complexity levels. We argue that implementation of the CCSS standard requires concurrent examination of historical student reading-growth trends. An example of a historical student average…

Tier 3 interventions are necessary for improving the reading performance of students who fail to respond adequately to Tier 1 general education instruction and Tier 2 supplemental reading intervention. In this pilot study, we identified 8 students in 3rd and 4th grade who had demonstrated slow response to Tier 2 reading interventions for three…

Reading is typically considered a survival skill in our technology- and literacy-bound culture. Individuals who struggle with learning to read are at significantly elevated risk for a number of negative outcomes, including school failure, under- and unemployment, and special education placement. Thus, those who do not learn to read fluently will…

Repeated reading of infrequent syllables has been shown to increase reading speed at the word level in a transparent orthography. This study confirms these results with a computer-based training method and extends them by comparing the training effects of short syllables and long frequent and infrequent syllables, controlling for rapid automatized…

Given the importance of federal legislation in combating educational inequities, particularly those in reading development, the identification of specific school-based variables that contribute to reading proficiency for struggling readers is paramount. While federal education policy, such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (2002)…

An action research project was undertaken focused on integrating recorded readings and Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) into center-based instructional time in a third-grade classroom. Initial DIBELS test results were used to select 6 struggling readers, all of whom showed improved fluency in response to our instructional interventions. The…