Few students in the United States of America are proficient readers and reading achievement has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for minority groups and struggling readers. Many students who struggle with reading also have problem behavior and need supports that can help them engage across various academic settings. Because of the…

Reading researchers have suggested that teachers struggle with implementing differentiated instruction (DI) in the reading classroom; however, researchers have found that differentiation improves student reading achievement. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to examine reading teachers' perceptions of implementing DI in the reading…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine the examine the effect of individual student goal setting on motivation and reading achievement. The study focused on 50 students in fifth through eighth grade in a rural Midwestern upper elementary school. Upon completion of the Fall Aimsweb Plus Silent Reading Fluency Benchmark…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was for teachers to describe the influence of social interactions and zone of proximal development (ZPD) on ability grouping and mixed-ability grouping in reading achievement at the elementary level. The first research question focused on the influence of social interactions on ability grouping and…

The need for effective reading instruction is of high priority. One of the many ways that students learn to read is through multisensory instruction. Elementary-age students struggle to become proficient readers. This is due to the lack of reading skills. The goal of reading is comprehension. As students learn letter-sound correspondence,…

Lorenzo De Zavala is a low-income school in West Dallas, Texas, and a part of the large Dallas Independent School District. Reading achievement has been low and stagnant over the past few years at this campus due low reading levels in grades Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Additionally, there is a lack of adequate teacher development and…

This dissertation examines how implementing READ 180 for 9th grade students affects their Lexile level and reading ability. The research focuses on two questions: what changes were noticed in the students' Lexile levels? and what program recommendations can be made moving forward? The methodology used was PDSA and improvement science. The study…

The purpose of this study is to explore how best to enact recovery in British schools impacted by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic; and the significance of well-being. Specifically, this research investigates 'How do we improve children's mathematics, reading and writing through the promotion of wellbeing?' Within the constructionist paradigm,…

This study investigated the constructs of reading motivation (i.e., affective and cognitive reading attitude, and reading self-concept) and examined their relations with reading behavior and performance. Hong Kong data from PIRLS 2016 were analyzed to address the questions. A special attention was paid to the indirect influences of the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between face-to-face learning environments before the pandemic during the 2018-2019 school year and varied learning modalities after the pandemic during the 2020-2021 school year. NWEA MAP Growth data was collected for third-grade students in elementary schools in a rural school district…

Hiring private tutors is causing a financial burden on parents, as they are made to pay high tutoring fees in Nigeria. Yet, Nigerian parents continue to invest heavily in financially burdensome private tutoring amid high poverty levels. This evident paradox between high poverty levels and the widespread use of financially burdensome private…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and implement an effective model for reading professional development (PD) for elementary teachers. Cycle 1 data were collected from kindergarten through fifth grade elementary teachers to understand teachers' perspectives of effective PD. The findings suggested that if PD utilizes teacher collaboration…

In recent years, many states have adopted policies to ensure students are reading proficiently by third grade. This kind of policy transfer across states is not a unique phenomenon; researchers have documented analogous proliferations of similar policies both in and outside the field of education. However, there has been little attention paid to…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education worldwide as educational systems made the decision to close schools to contain the spread of the virus. The duration of school closures varied greatly internationally. In this study, we use international variation in school closure policies to examine the effects of school closures on student achievement.…

Background/Context: In the early elementary grades, many students do not achieve literacy proficiency due to inadequate personalized literacy instruction (Taylor et al., 2010). Despite increasing evidence that differentiated instruction informed by assessments of students' reading abilities can improve learning more effectively than…