The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the "Corrective Reading Decoding B1" program on the basic reading skills, social adjustment, and treatment responsiveness of elementary and middle school students with high-incidence disabilities (N = 51). Students were provided an average of 3 40-45 min lessons per week over the course of…

This action research report describes a program to increase students' reading comprehension and fluency through the use of guided reading. The targeted population consists of second and fourth grade students in a northwest suburban area of a large city located in the Midwest. The problems of low reading comprehension and fluency scores were…

The purpose of this article is to describe the professional development plan for an elementary school receiving federal funding through the Reading Excellence Act (REA). The Reading Excellence Act provided the school with a two-year plan for literacy improvement. During the first year of the grant, assessment-driven instruction and flexible…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a home repeated-reading intervention on the reading achievement of eight low-performing second-grade children in an urban school by taking into consideration their need to develop automaticity and the role their parents play in this process. Specifically we posed the following…

When mobile assessment tools was first introduced to teachers at Kyffin Elementary School in Jefferson Country, Colorado, teachers were not comfortable with the technology. According to Blanche Kapushion, principal at Kyffin, teachers were not used to using technology in class, and it did not look like that was going to change. Nonetheless,…

CD-ROM storybooks can support the development of the five essential elements of reading instruction identified by The National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Specific features inherent in these texts, audio pronunciation of text, embedded vocabulary definitions and animated graphics can be used…

Two studies of Grade 1 reading interventions for English-language (EL) learners at risk for reading problems were conducted. Two samples of EL students were randomly assigned to a treatment or untreated comparison group on the basis of their language of instruction for core reading (i.e., Spanish or English). In all, 91 students completed the…

Components of first-grade intervention programs that addressed oral language and listening comprehension instruction within an intensive literacy intervention for native Spanish-speaking students struggling with reading difficulties are described. Findings for the intervention are based on 4 large-scale experimental studies (published elsewhere)…

The purpose of this followup study was to determine the long-term predictive validity of theoretically coherent reading measures administered during fall and winter of kindergarten. Seventy-nine children were screened using measures representing letter identification, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming.…

"Read Well" is a research-based reading curriculum designed to improve student literacy. This program includes explicit, systematic instruction in English decoding, sustained practice of decoding skills and fluency, and instruction in vocabulary and concepts presented in text. It also provides support for English language learner (ELL)…

A study examined parents' contributions to the emerging reading abilities of kindergarten and first-grade children by documenting the variation in parent-child interaction during joint storybook reading and the specific interaction patterns associated with children's reading fluency and affect. Subjects, 32 white, working-class parent-child pairs…

A practicum addressed the below-average reading comprehension performance of first graders by the implementation of precision teaching and specific solution strategies. Students (51) were actively involved in their own learning and decision making through the continuous monitoring system of precision teaching. Reading techniques called RAP (an…

A study examined the effects of instruction in meaningful units on the comprehension and fluency of poor readers in the fourth grade. Subjects were five fourth-grade students in a northeast Georgia school classified as poor readers. Method of instruction included modeling smooth reading with appropriate junctures and good intonation. The…

To determine whether repeated reading of stories in a developmental reading program would build fluency in slow readers, a study examined five students in the "low" reading group of a self-contained third grade classroom. During a 10-week period, students read a series of 10 stories from the basal reader "Widening Circles."…

A study examined oral and silent reading rates at various levels of difficulty to establish criterion rates for fluent reading at the fourth grade level. Subjects, 27 male and 45 female students from 6 classes in 3 public schools in central Oklahoma who read at an average of more than one year above grade placement, had their oral and silent…