During the fall of the 2016-17 school year, first, second, and third grade students in six elementary schools -- two in St. Paul and Eagan, Minnesota, and four in Bedford County in the Piedmont region of Virginia -- were assigned to take part in randomized efficacy trials carried out for the purpose of rigorously evaluating the impact of…

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of a multitiered supplemental tutoring program within a first-grade responsiveness-to-intervention prevention model. Struggling first-grade readers (n = 649) were screened and progress monitored at the start of the school year. Those identified as unresponsive to general education Tier 1 (n =…

This article reports on 2 experiments in inner-city Baltimore evaluating a computer-assisted tutoring approach, Tutoring With Alphie (TWA), in which 1 paraprofessional can work with up to 6 children at a time. In Study 1, we randomly assigned 14 schools to receive TWA or to continue with whatever approaches they were currently using. Each…

Two professional development (PD) models for teachers were compared on teacher and student outcomes. Special education teachers participated in Literacy Learning Cohorts (LLC), a PD innovation designed to improve content and pedagogical knowledge for providing reading instruction to upper elementary students with learning disabilities. The LLC,…

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons Project on the literacy and life skills of students in grades 3, 4, and 5. A4L Lessons is a supplementary literacy curriculum designed to blend the creativity and discipline of the arts with learning science to raise student achievement in reading and…

This study was needed to determine if the Accelerated Reader (AR) program made a positive impact in schools, which were attempting to increase student achievement in reading. The purpose of this study was to determine if students who received reading instruction supplemented with the AR Program achieved higher reading scores as measured by the…

This study replicates research on the efficacy of a repeated reading intervention with word-level instruction for students in Grades 2 and 3 with low to moderate fluency skills, examines differences between treatment implementers, and tests unique contributions of treatment-related variables on outcomes. Students from 13 schools were randomly…

This study examined effects of a repeated reading intervention, Quick Reads, with incidental word-level scaffolding instruction. Second- and third-grade students with passage-reading fluency performance between the 10th and 60th percentiles were randomly assigned to dyads, which were in turn randomly assigned to treatment (paired tutoring, n = 82)…

This study evaluated the effects of a fluency-based reading program with 15 second and third grade students and 15 matched controls. Gains in oral reading fluency on untrained CBM probes were evaluated using a matched-pairs group-comparison design, whereas immediate and two-day retention gains in oral reading fluency on trained passages were…

A total of 46 children in Grades 2 and 3 with low word-level skills were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that received supplemental phonics-based reading instruction. One group received intervention October through March (21.5 hours), and one group served as a control from October through March and later received intervention March through May…

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction--CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive…

Implemented structured cooperative-learning strategy for reading, Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC), in nine third-grade classes (n=198) and compared with nine control group classes (n=194). CIRC group outgained controls on Reading Comprehension as measured by California Achievement Test. When groups were divided into reading…

This article reports the effects of a 2-year supplemental reading program for students in kindergarten through third grade that focused on the development of decoding skills and reading fluency. Two hundred ninety-nine students were identified for participation and were randomly assigned to the supplemental instruction or to a no-treatment control…

Three studies evaluated Tier 1 early intervention for handwriting at a critical period for literacy development in first grade and one study evaluated Tier 2 early intervention in the critical period between third and fourth grades for composing on high stakes tests. The results contribute to knowledge of research-supported handwriting and…

Investigates the effectiveness of a direct instruction model for teaching children to comprehend anaphoric relationships. The results provide further support for the efficacy of a direct instructional model for teaching children reading comprehension skills. (HOD)