We attempted to strengthen an evidence-based, peer-mediated, first-grade reading program (First Grade Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies [PALS]) by modestly revising its content and adding a repeated-reading (RR) component. In a cluster-randomized trial, we conducted a component analysis of the revised program by creating two versions of it.…

The problem addressed in this study was that at risk readers lack the prior background knowledge in order to allow reading comprehension to take place. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental case study was to analyze if the use of developing and building background knowledge and experience assisted at-risk readers in reading…

Practitioner knowledge, as the center for change in teacher education, is the heart of The Carnegie Project of the Educational Doctorate (CPED) program. Margaret Lata and Susan Wunder explain a key principal of CPED is to grow practitioners as change agents, through the development of a Problem of Practice. In their article, Investing in the…

This study examined the effects of an early reading intervention on preschool-age dual language learners' (DLL) early literacy skills. Instruction in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge was embedded in interactive reading strategies, also known as dialogic reading. A single subject multiple baseline across subjects design was applied to…

The primary goal of this research is to better understand my students' reading orientations--what they believe it means to be a successful reader. I also seek to identify the relationship between those beliefs and my teaching. The data come primarily from six focal students in my second-grade classroom in an urban public charter elementary school…

In the action research project report, the teacher researchers found that many kindergarten and first-grade students did not have the reading readiness skills to be reading at their benchmark target. The purpose of the project was to improve the students overall reading ability. The dates of the project began on September 8 through December 20,…

This article reports that educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners (ELLs) are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are…

With 70 percent of its student body entering school reading below grade level, Blackstone Academy Charter School realized that teachers needed to make literacy a pillar of the school's culture. This 9-12 urban high school administers a reading evaluation developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association each fall and spring to all incoming…

This newsletter focuses on the importance of reading and writing skills in all educational and career pathways. It includes a variety of strategies for integrating reading and writing skills across the curriculum--in academic, career/technical and fine arts courses--in ways that improve student achievement in reading and writing and in the content…

Compared students' acquisition and use of reading strategies and reading attitudes in skills-based and whole-language settings. Participants were low-income first graders. Students completed a common reading task. Researchers coded literacy strategies for self-correction and substitutions and conducted classroom observations. Children in the…

Children whose homes are filled with books, whose parents read to them, and who have begun to understand the reading process have higher levels of reading skills and knowledge when they enter kindergarten than children who do not have such rich literacy experiences before entering school. This article describes a family literacy project developed…