The purpose of this article is to describe a multicomponent intervention developed and implemented by a consortium of districts in the Pacific Northwest through a researcher-practitioner partnership and the process used for collaboration. The intervention was designed to increase reading proficiency and school engagement for struggling readers in…

In school districts across the nation, diverse student groups, including English Learners and students with disabilities, have been experiencing significant gains in reading performance after using READ 180. This compendium of READ 180 research contains results of 40 studies conducted in a variety of settings, in school districts across the…

Founder and executive director of National Reading Styles Institute (www.nrsi.com) describes several instructional methods designed to help below-level readers improve their reading skills, such as choral reading, echo reading, and recording. Describes positive effects of reading style instructional methods in a Texas elementary school and a…

Shares four working generalizations on what it takes for middle school students with persistent reading difficulties to become successful readers: (1) access to materials that span the gamut of interests and difficulty levels; (2) opportunities to share reading experiences with teachers and classmates; (3) real purposes for reading; and (4)…

Discusses research, and strategies and activities for vocabulary development, grouped into five areas: knowing words, morphology, the use of context, the role of definitions in understanding words, and the size and growth of vocabulary. Outlines questions for metalinguistic awareness that can help engage students in word learning. Offers 10…

Cognitive strategy instruction is currently garnering much attention in the literature as an effective means of teaching children who display learning difficulties in a wide variety of academic areas. In reading, the Paraphrasing Strategy, which is one of an array of strategies used in the Strategies Intervention Model (SIM) (Schumaker, Deshler, &…

A daily 5- to 6-minute individual reading fluency intervention with 49 middle school students with learning disabilities used repeated readings focused on phonics, sight phrases, and oral reading. Intervention was for 6-9 months, 10-18 months, or 19-25 months. Significant growth in reading level and reading rate was found for all three of the…

Describes a home reading intervention program for students with real reading difficulties, which has turned many students on to reading, by giving students book bags with three books (at different levels) in each bag for home reading. Discusses developing parent support, outlines contents of 30 book bags, and notes challenges and successes of the…

A study involving 50 seventh-graders enrolled in three remedial reading classes focused on oral reading instruction and contrasted the effects of specific reading strategies with generic encouragement to do well. Students who used a specific oral reading strategy made significantly greater progress in reading that those with generic encouragement…

Discusses what it means to struggle as a reader, lacking competence with reading strategies and lacking confidence in oneself to make meaning with texts. Argues that balance can be found in adolescent reading programs by seeking equilibrium between the visible and invisible aspects of instruction in the development and use of reading strategies.…

Investigates effects of a direct instruction main idea summarization program and a self-monitoring technique on the reading comprehension of 4 sixth-grade students with learning disabilities. Student performance was assessed after the main idea instruction and self-monitoring training. Finds the program produced increases in identifying and…

Discusses "reading nightmares" of reading educators. Shares what junior high and senior high school content area teachers say about their own reading nightmares, in which they often feel unable or unwilling to teach reading in the content area. Argues that by viewing reading as a lifelong process, teachers can help students become better readers.…

Introduces a system for recording and using classroom observation (consisting of cycles of teacher entries based on classroom observation, related hypotheses about students' strengths and needs, and regular checking and revision of the hypotheses) that was developed for elementary and middle school students who have difficulties reading. (SR)

Describes how a reading specialist used metacognition as the basis of her teaching of middle school remedial readers. Describes various ways she worked with embedded questions to get students thinking while they were reading. Describes final student projects on short stories that demonstrate that embedded questions combined with lots of classroom…

Describes a strategy adaptable to middle school, high school, and college levels that helps to motivate students to want to read and gain information; promotes discussion and fosters students' learning from one another; helps below-grade-level readers understand content; and encourages higher order thinking. (SR)