This study identified the literacy strategies and activities teacher candidates used during clinically rich field experiences based on their elementary-aged students' needs. The teacher candidates' weekly teaching logs were analyzed, and four categories of literacy strategies and activities emerged, including comprehension, word study, writing,…

The purpose of this semester-long project was to redesign the ninth grade English language arts curriculum to include a literacy-based multicomponent intervention to meet the needs of developing readers, while simultaneously maintaining a rigorous curriculum challenging proficient readers in a general education classroom. I examined peer-reviewed…

This study explores the possibility that early word segmentation is aided by infants' tendency to segment words with repeated syllables ("reduplication"). Twenty-four nine-month-olds were familiarized with passages containing one novel reduplicated word and one novel non-reduplicated word. Their central fixation times in response to…

This is a practical article for teachers in the primary grades and for other teachers and reading specialists whose students experience difficulty responding automatically to high-frequency words. In this article, we will begin by providing some helpful information about vocabulary and high-frequency words in particular. You will learn why…

Throughout elementary education, foundational literacy has been one of the essential components of students' reading and writing abilities. For students to be successful in their literacy skills, it is necessary for them to be afforded systematic word study instruction through the intentional teaching of foundational skills along with multisensory…

For the purpose of this article within this special issue on Structured Literacy™, we were asked to address the code-focused skills of phonemic awareness and word reading. Findings from research studies converge to show that explicit and systematic instruction helps most students understand how speech sounds, or phonemes, map to letters and…

Access to quality literacy instruction is access to acceptance into the literate community in which students with severe disabilities live and work. Providing that instruction to students with severe disabilities who are not traditional readers and writers can be challenging. Luckily, there are many easy and interactive tools available for…

This teaching tip identifies ways to "WIN" at vocabulary learning. Specifically, the approach conveys three morphological strategies in the mnemonic "WIN." These three strategies remind students to find smaller units of meaning within bigger words, look for those units in other words that they know, and notice the context. Each…

The ways in which adult learners study information influences their judgment-of-learning (JOL) accuracy (e.g., Koriat et al. "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General," determine whether developing learners' metacognitive monitoring is similarly influenced by different study techniques. In two experiments, we examined JOL accuracy in…

This study was designed to explore the effectiveness of balanced literacy instruction in two pre-kindergarten programs in a North Eastern suburban school district. The researcher used a mixed-methods design which included classroom observations, student performance data, and teacher interviews to determine if the language arts program produced…

Students' knowledge of vocabulary affects their reading comprehension. Despite abundant research findings in vocabulary learning, practical instructional methods for use in schools are typically underdeveloped. This article proposes a research-based method for teaching the meanings of base academic vocabulary (i.e., Tier 2) words. The method…

Due to the need of the closing the vocabulary gap between struggling and non-struggling readers, many school districts across the nation are faced with the extensive growing rate of students, falling behind their grade level peers. To meet this goal, administrators and teachers seek word study strategies to incorporate in their small group…

For many teachers, the term "scaffolding" has come to mean providing just the right amount of help when a student encounters difficulty. However, there is another facet of scaffolding that has been largely ignored, and that is making decisions about what to focus on to help the student. In this article, new research findings are shared…

This multiple baseline across participants study examined the efficacy of a data-based individualization word study intervention for students with autism spectrum disorder (N=5) and low word reading skills. An experienced interventionist provided 1:1 word reading instruction in 30-minute sessions five times per week for an average of 10 sessions…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to carry out a systematic review of literature of effective reading intervention for students with -- intellectual disabilities (ID), intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and multiple disabilities (MD). Findings and recommendations for future research are discussed. Background and rationale:…