Twenty adult ESL students at a community college participated in a semester reading intervention. Participants received a modified extensive reading treatment, and some participants received an additional repeated reading direct instruction reading intervention. The author examined the impact of the reading interventions on ESL students' reading…

Parents of three second-grade students identified as at-risk readers were trained to tutor their children. The reading interventions were either accuracy (i.e., modeling and phrase drill) or proficiency (i.e., repeated reading and reward). Intervention selection was based on predicted level of the instructional hierarchy. Students reading below 32…

This report considers the science of adult literacy acquisition, with the goal of identifying principles that may improve the effectiveness of adult literacy programs. We define literacy as a continuum, from emerging literacy, through improving literacy, to fluent literacy and we outline the factors that influence how far along that continuum an…

The current research examines the effect of two methods of vocabulary training on reading fluency and comprehension of adult English as second language (ESL) tertiary-bound students. The methods used were isolated vocabulary training (bottom-up reading) and vocabulary training in context (top-down reading). The current exploratory and…

This study investigates how literacy was constructed at an adult literacy organization's volunteer tutor-training program. By drawing on qualitative analysis of training texts used during training, such as training evaluations, and data gathered from interviews with experienced tutors, it is possible to identify the assumptions about literacy…

This paper summarizes the results of a literacy content knowledge survey and assessment administered to adult education providers in Kentucky (n=520). This descriptive study focused on two main goals: 1) to obtain a description of Kentucky adult education programs including instructors' backgrounds, professional preparation, and teaching…

This study investigates the effect of timed reading (TR) and repeated oral reading (RR) on 35 adult students of English as a foreign language. Students in the TR (n =18) and RR (n =17) groups read 52 and 26 passages respectively over a 13-week period. Reading rates and comprehension levels were measured at three occasions: pre-intervention,…

For the last two years the author has used Repeated Reading (RR) to teach reading fluency in English as a Foreign Language classrooms in colleges and universities in Japan. RR is a method where the student reads and rereads a text silently or aloud from two to four times to reach a predetermined level of speed, accuracy, and comprehension. RR…

This dissertation examined the application of evidence-based tutoring for oral reading fluency (ORF) to a natural setting, using teachers as parent trainers. Measures used to determine the impact of parent tutoring included treatment integrity, student reading outcomes, attitudes towards involvement and reading, and social validity. Six teachers…

The theme for the 58th annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) was Bridging Cultures Through Literacy. In the first section of the Yearbook, Parker Fawson's presidential address captures the unique nature of ALER and its role in his professional development, and then moved beyond to capture the changing…

This article shares the research-based instructional techniques used in a reading program (Reading Acceleration Program, or RAP) in a school in which the majority of the students were English-language learners and came from low-income families. In this model, special education and general education teachers collaborated in order to intervene on…

Reading is the most basic of skills. Reading provides access to other skills and knowledge, facilitates life-long learning, and opens doors to opportunity. The National Institute for Literacy is authorized by the U.S. Congress to collect and disseminate information on the components of reading and the findings from scientific research. The…

"EFF HOT (Highlights on Teaching Topics) Topics" is a publication of the EFF (Equipped for the Future) Center for Training and Technical Assistance. Each issue concentrates on a specific topic, highlighting examples of actual practice and offering strategies and tools for using EFF in the classroom. In this issue, "HOT Topics" focuses on the EFF…