This technical report is one in a series of five describing the reliability (test/retest and alternate form) and G-Theory/D-Study research on the easyCBM reading measures, grades 1-5. Data were gathered in the spring of 2011 from a convenience sample of students nested within classrooms at a medium-sized school district in the Pacific Northwest.…

The purpose of this study was to discover if differences existed in the early literacy skills of non-resident kindergarten students participating in the learning community open enrollment program and resident kindergarten students that do and do not qualify for the free or reduced lunch program at the beginning and end of their kindergarten year.…

The current study examined the effects of self-regulatory interventions on reading, writing, and math by conducting a meta-analysis of single-case design research. Self-regulatory interventions have promise as an effective approach that is both minimally invasive and involves minimal resources. Effects of the interventions were analyzed by…

The present study examined whether explicit training of letter-clusters leads to more gains in word-reading speed than training of the separate letters of the same clusters. Ninety-nine poor reading second-grade children were randomly assigned to a cluster-training, a parallel letter-training, or a no-training condition. The cluster-training…

This research extends previous studies regarding the metaphoric competence of autistic and learning disabled children on different measures of visual and verbal non-literal language comprehension, as well as cognitive abilities that include semantic knowledge, executive functions, similarities, and reading fluency. Thirty seven children with…

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, then we rob our children of tomorrow" (Dewey, 1916). Dewey's words are still relevant today as educators across the world consider how to best connect the print-based literacies of the past to the technologically based literacies of the present. Dewey's advice of re-envisioning how to best teach children…

In the past decade the proportion of school-aged children in the United States who are English language learners (ELLs) grew by 32%, compared with a 4.9% overall increase in U.S. school enrollment. This only heightens the already important challenge of providing effective, appropriate reading instruction for ELLs because all teachers can expect to…

Much has been written about the importance of extensive reading for the development of language fluency, yet it is not often an activity of choice by students as a means of improving language learning. Many of my multi-level (elementary-intermediate) Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) Certificates in Spoken and Written English (CSWE) students…

Reading instruction often does not focus on appealing to student interests, offering choice, or responding to the needs of advanced readers. In this experimental study, we examined the effects on achievement of an instructional approach involving choice, differentiated instruction, and extensive, supported, independent reading, with corresponding…

This case study explored how children's moral expressions like love and violence differ according to the mode of narrative, comic strips or written narratives. Sixteen third-grade children from a primary school in Finland took part in the study. Children's moral expressions were divided into justice and care. Reading frequency of fairy tales and…

The knowledge and practices associated with improved outcomes for readers have yielded converging evidence about practices associated with improved reading outcomes for primary students. This considerable intervention knowledge can be beneficial for English teachers working with struggling secondary readers. Fluency is one critical element that…

This study involved examination of the validity evidence of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills-Next Edition (DIBELS Next) for a sample of 85 third-and fifth-grade students, in reference to the "simple view" of reading. Tests administered included DIBELS Next, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IV (PPVT-IV), Group Reading…

Early identification of students who are at risk for writing difficulties is an important first step in improving writing performance. First grade students (N = 150) were administered a set of early writing measures and reading measures in January. Sentence Writing Quality and Oral Reading Fluency demonstrated strong classification accuracy when a…

The authors used a large data set (N = 1,011,549) to examine literacy growth over a single school year comparing general education (GenEd) students to three high-risk subgroups: English language learners (ELL), those with a specific learning disability (LD), and those identified as both LD and ELL (LD-ELL) in students in Grades 3-10. The authors…

This study tested a hypothesized model examining reading proficiency across first grade. It addressed how alphabetics at the beginning of the year were mediated by applied and automated skills at the middle of the year to explain actualized reading at the end of the year. The alphabetic skills of 102 first graders were measured in October and the…