Informed Strategies for Learning (ISL) was designed to increase children's awareness and use of effective reading strategies. This study demonstrated that metacognition can be promoted through direct instruction (ISL) in the classroom. Increased awareness can lead to better use of reading strategies. (DWH)

This study assessed the effects of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), a reciprocal classwide peer-tutoring strategy, on the reading performance of native Spanish-speaking students with learning disabilities (LD) and their low-, average-, and high-achieving classroom peers. Participants were 132 native Spanish-speaking English language…

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…

This study illustrates the types of information microgenetic methods can yield. Ninety-seven 5-year olds who had not mastered number conservation were given training in conservation or in reasoning about conservation. Results elucidate how changes in thinking occur and demonstrate children's efforts to understand other people's reasoning. (SLD)

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 study investigated the effects of computer-assisted comprehension practice using a researcher-developed computer program, Computer-Assisted Collaborative Strategic Reading (CACSR), with students who had disabilities. Two reading/language arts teachers and their 34 students with disabilities participated. Students in the intervention group…

Third grade students involved in group-assisted reading made greater achievement gains in comprehension and vocabulary than did those who were given no assistance. Group-assisted reading is easy to implement and may be used to help remedial readers perform better. (JD)

Students in fourth and seventh grade who were poor comprehenders were taught prediction, clarification, question generation, and summarization using scaffolding instruction. Performance on a standardized comprehension test improved for the students who received the instruction. (PCB)

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…

Two studies evaluated the use of the Student Team Reading (STR) and Student Team Writing (STW) program in urban middle schools. The first study investigated the use of STR in 20 experimental sixth-grade classes in three schools matched with 39 classes in three control schools. The second study investigated the use of STR and STW in sixth, seventh,…

A study of the effects of peer-pairing and integrative motivation on both formal language performance and actual language behavior with Korean immigrant children is presented. The formal language learning was measured by tests of oral production and listening comprehension, and actual language behavior was measured by observations in a natural…

A prereading strategy designed to predict events and provide practice in answering questions requiring inferences between text and prior knowledge were used with elementary school students. The performance of experimental groups surpassed that of the control groups on some measures while results were mixed on other measures. (MKM)

Sixty children (ages 8-10) with severe reading disabilities received daily intensive one-to-one instruction that differed in depth and extent of instruction in phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding. Both approaches were highly effective in improving reading accuracy and comprehension although measures of reading rate showed continued severe…

Among 68 rural learning-disabled students in grades 5-7 having moderate decoding fluency and high decoding accuracy, a paraphrasing cognitive strategy increased reading comprehension of main ideas more effectively than repeated readings or control training. Paraphrasing plus repeated readings was no more effective than paraphrasing alone. Contains…

Gaps in reading performance between Anglo and Latino children are associated with gaps in vocabulary knowledge. An intervention was designed to enhance fifth graders' academic vocabulary. The meanings of academically useful words were taught together with strategies for using information from context, from morphology, from knowledge about multiple…