This article features a discussion of what contemporary research tells us are the most significant factors that individually and collectively serve to thwart the writing development and performance of students with LD. Support is drawn from recent research syntheses, as well as individual studies. I begin with an overview of skillful writing and…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a classroom-based strategy instruction package grounded in self-regulated learning. The Self-Regulated Assignment Attack Strategy (SAAS) targeted self-regulation of assignment management and related academic-behavioral variables for 6th grade students in resource support classrooms. SAAS was…

The Idaho State Department of Education (SDE) recently revised its SLD identification policy to include a requirement to document a student's response to intervention coupled with a comprehensive evaluation. To implement this policy, the SDE is using multiple implementation drivers. In this article, we describe how and why the new policy was…

Adolescent English language learners (ELLs) with learning difficulties face many challenges when reading in the content areas. In this article, we review what research tells us about how best to support ELLs' reading comprehension and content learning. We draw from recent research syntheses as well as individual studies. We highlight one…

The present paper reports a secondary analysis of data from a published randomised controlled trial. This paper compares the outcomes of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and those with a general delay (GD) following participation in either an oral language intervention or a phonology with reading intervention. Sixty-eight children…

This article addresses the important topic of culturally proficient/responsive school administrators for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with learning disabilities (LD). Culturally proficient/responsive school administrators with knowledge and strong leadership skills in multicultural education are essential to impact school…

An exploratory factorial analysis of the Multicultural and Special Education Survey (MSES) evaluated the professional development training needs of general and special educators in a midwestern state. Survey items were selected from the culturally and linguistically diverse multicultural, bilingual and special education literature bases (CLD). The…

An important goal of research on specific learning disorders (such as dyslexia, or specific reading disability, or dysgraphia, or specific writing disorder) is to elucidate the universal characteristics and cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences of literacy acquisition and disability. However, despite the acknowledged necessity of…

This study was conducted to ascertain if repeated reading or question generation was more effective at improving reading fluency and comprehension of fourth- through sixth-grade students with learning disabilities or reading problems. Adult tutors trained by the investigator conducted the interventions. Instructional components and training within…

This study evaluated perceived social support and self-esteem in 66 students who attended a private school for students with learning disabilities. Results from a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that support from parents predicted 35% of the variance in global self-worth. Support from classmates, close friends, and teachers did not make…

A single-subject reversal design with counterbalanced phases across two classrooms was used to measure the effects of peer tutoring on the retention and generalization of spelling words in two third-grade general education classrooms. The results revealed that the mean pretest-posttest gain scores during all the peer tutoring phases of the two…

There is growing evidence that the current method of identifying students with a learning disability (LD) is ineffective. The wait-to-fail model of assessing students after second/third grade as well as conceptual problems in using intelligence tests for identification result in students not receiving the assistance they need during the…

This study compared the effects of two types of instruction on the learning of content-area vocabulary words of six middle school students with learning disabilities. A multiple-baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the two instructional models (i.e., definition and concept model) on the percent of…

Effectively scaling up evidence-based educational practices requires identification of barriers to the wide-scale implementation and maintenance of such practices at a distance from the original research and development team. The two studies reported here investigated the implementation of ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) in nine schools across five…

Many students find writing extremely difficult and frustrating because they are not able to learn and apply the strategies used by skilled writers. Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) is a comprehensive, flexible model that explicitly helps students learn to manage the writing process. An extensive body of research has documented that SRSD…