When young readers encounter texts that contain too many unfamiliar words, their comprehension suffers. Reading becomes slow, laborious, and frustrating, impeding their learning. That's why vocabulary knowledge is a key element in reading comprehension. To comprehend fully and learn well, all students need regular vocabulary exploration.…

In this study, the author explores the roles of family, culture, language as these shape both the articulated identities of Korean American elementary students, and their literacy practices at school. Using data from an academic year of ethnographic study at a public elementary school, located outside a northeastern metropolitan city, the author…

The purpose of the study was to gain insights on key factors that make a difference in the reading achievement of students attending full-day and half-day kindergarten programs. More specifically, the focus was on investigating the impact that literacy instruction in full-day and half-day kindergarten had on the literacy achievement of struggling…

Increased diversity in our schools and changes in legislation have prompted educators to address the needs of all students (U.S. Department of Education, 2003, 2008, 2009; State of Hawaii Department of Education, 2009). Two major responses have emerged to do this. One is to deliver the same curricula in the same way to all students (Cooper,…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) and the reauthorization of Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004) asserted the need for American children to receive scientifically research-based instruction and interventions. A variety of quantitative studies have determined components of effective reading interventions (Edmonds et…

Differentiated instruction means matching instruction to meet the different needs of learners. To deliver the wide range of instruction required to accommodate differing levels of learners in a classroom, teachers must use data-informed, small group instruction designed specifically to meet students' needs (Kosanovich, Ladinsky, Nelson, Torgesen,…

Within the vast research base on struggling readers, very few studies address the nature of struggling readers from their own perspectives; that is, how struggling readers experience reading instruction. The purpose of this qualitative case study research was to gain a deeper understanding of how three third-grade struggling readers viewed…

Young children who experience difficulty learning to read are at an increased risk for reading failure and behavior problems. Emerging evidence suggests that improving the literacy skills of young struggling readers also improves levels of on-task behavior. This study examined the effects of Headsprout Early Reading, a phonics-based online reading…

Teaching a child to read is one of the greatest gifts we can give to that individual and to society as a whole, and yet many students exit school without the necessary literacy skills. For decades, research has demonstrated the importance of phonemic awareness in the development of the alphabetic principle, a prerequisite for competent reading,…

This dissertation report focuses on the results of an intervention study that examined the effectiveness of two cognitive-based reading strategies ("5 Ws and an H" and paragraph summarization) on the reading comprehension skills of 13 high school students with mild intellectual disabilities as well as the students' abilities to…

While it is known that instructional technology improves academic achievement, there is little research about the integration of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) during Success For All (SFA) reading instruction. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in reading achievement between third…

Research on educational administration from the past 40 years emphasizes the principal as an instructional leader. However, the research community has done little to specifically examine what literacy knowledge and practices elementary principals need to possess or do regarding literacy teaching and learning. Because federal legislation has…

Fluent reading requires the effective integration of orthographic and phonological information in addition to intact processing of either type. The current study used a rhyme decision task to examine phono-orthographic interaction in children with reading disabilities (RD) as compared to typically achieving (TA) children. Word pairs were presented…

Student engagement has been found to be an important indicator of high quality instruction and has served as a focus for improving learning outcomes in the elementary grades. This study focuses specifically on teacher and classroom factors that may increase children's literacy engagement. Participants of this study were selected from preschool…

Currently there is a lack of evidence existing on technology specifically to support students with emotional-behavior disorder (EBD) in schools (Fitzpatrick & Knowlton, 2009). However, assistive technology (AT) considerations for all students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) must still occur. Evidence exists that technology can…