Five reading lesson instruction characteristics were examined in relation to first and second graders' end-of-year instructional reading level: (a) teacher's preferred interaction style (indicated by extent of teacher telling and coaching); (b) teacher's preferred grouping (indicated by extent of whole class and small group instruction); (c)…

How might a district support significant teacher and program change that results in higher student reading achievement while using its own personnel? To answer this question, we explored five districts in one Midwestern state that tried to do just that with the help of a local university. We used both quantitative and qualitative data, including…

More than one third of American children cannot read at a basic level by fourth grade (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007) and those numbers are even higher for African American, Hispanic and poor White students (Boorman et al., 2007). These are alarming statistics given that the ability to read is the most basic and fundamental skill for academic…

This research explored the relationship of the Reading First Initiative (RFI) in terms of its impact on students' early reading development K-3 and teachers' delivery of instruction. Extant test data were used to establish quantitative data. Direct observation utilizing a checklist consisting of five categories--management, environment, setting…

This study examined the school and student predictors of early reading outcomes for kindergarten students enrolled in schools that participated in a beginning reading reform program. The study employed a nested design with students nested within schools and applied hierarchical linear modeling analyses to account for the organizational structure…

Reading fluency is a critical component of effective reading instruction for students of early elementary age. However, national data suggest that 40% of U.S. fourth-grade students are nonfluent readers. Implementing evidence-based, time-efficient, and procedurally standardized instructional strategies may help address this problem. This study…

Substantial research supports the need for early intervention efforts for students at risk for failure. Despite the empirically documented importance of early, explicit reading intervention for students who enter school without critical prereading skills, many kindergarten programs delay intensive reading instruction until later in the year.…

The primary purpose of our research was to determine if a comprehensive, phonics-based, direct instruction reading program would be effective in teaching early reading and language skills to students with moderate intellectual disabilities (ID). Participants were 28 elementary students from 10 public schools in an urban school district and one…

This research study endeavors to examine successful pedagogical practices that may increase the literacy skills of African American male students. This study examines how urban setting teachers utilize specific reading strategies including reading circles, small and individual group tutoring, in an effort to increase African American males'…

A theory-based approach was used to investigate the relations among Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) initial skill status in the fall of first grade, NWF growth across the school year, and end-of-year oral reading fluency and reading comprehension (RC) skill. Hypotheses were anchored to Perfetti's verbal efficiency theory and the role of automaticity…

This study attempted to provide a systematic framework for phonics instruction for beginning readers in literature-based classrooms based on relative frequency of phoneme-grapheme occurrences found in three distinct corpora. The first corpus contained an academic word list. The second corpus contained the running text from 363 books identified as…

This study reports the construction of the Dialogic Reading Inventory (DRI), a tool for assessing a parent and child's storybook reading behaviors. Twenty-three parent-child dyads participated in the study. The Adult-Child Interactive Reading Inventory (DeBruin-Parecki, 1999) items were grouped into four categories and revised to reflect current…

This study investigated preschool teachers' beliefs and practices regarding the use of computer technology in teaching reading and writing in Jordan. The researcher developed a questionnaire consisting of two scales--Teachers' Beliefs Scale (TB Scale) and Teachers' Practices Scale (TP Scale)--to examine the role of computer technology in teaching…

The purpose of this correlational study was twofold: to examine the relationship of students' reading performance on six different diagnostic reading assessments and the third grade Ohio Reading Achievement Test; and to assist educators in choosing the diagnostic assessments that best identify students at risk of failing the third grade Ohio…

Undergraduate students at a teacher education institution, the University of Northern Colorado, are the target audience for an exhibit of a reading series from the Libraries' Archival Services collections. The display highlights an important era in the university's history involving four faculty members: Paul McKee, M. Lucile Harrison, Annie…