The availability of psychometrically sound and usable universal screeners is a key component to successful early identification within a response-to-intervention model. The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of oral reading fluency (ORF) and an informal reading inventory for identifying students considered at risk for…

The present study investigated whether young Latino dual-language learners' 2-year English reading growth varied over time according to their initial overall oral English ability. We followed 41 Latino children for 2 years. We tested overall oral English at the beginning of the study and administered multiple curriculum-based reading…

This study examined the effectiveness of instruction in a genre-specific reading comprehension strategy, "critical analysis of argumentative text," which was designed to help students to identify, summarize, and critically analyze parts of an argumentative text. The investigators hypothesized that reading instruction would improve the…

The purpose of the current mixed-methods study was to investigate a model of professional development and classroom-based early reading intervention implemented by the 1st-grade teaching team in a large urban/suburban school district in the southeastern United States. The intervention provided teachers with ongoing embedded professional…

The Matthew effect, where good readers get increasingly better over time compared to relatively lower-ability readers, is an often cited phenomenon in reading research. However, researchers have not always found empirical evidence supporting a Matthew effect. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling to test for the presence of the Matthew effect…

The instructional hierarchy offers a useful framework for targeting academic interventions. Within this framework, the accuracy with which a student reads might function as an indicator that the student should receive an intervention that focuses either on accuracy or on fluency. The current study examined whether the instructional level for…

Fluent readers can read connected text with accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Without practice, automaticity cannot develop in reading, and readers must focus their attention on decoding, limiting their ability to simultaneously comprehend. Researchers have traditionally assumed that fluency and comprehension have a unidirectional relationship…

Experts widely consider decoding and fluency as the basis of reading comprehension, while at the same time consistently documenting problems in these areas as major characteristics of students with learning disabilities. However, scholars have developed most of the relevant research within phonologically deep languages, wherein decoding problems…

Direct vocabulary instruction is 1 critical component of reading instruction. Although most students in the elementary grades need to continue building their vocabulary knowledge, students with reading difficulties are at the greatest risk of falling further behind each year in vocabulary and concept knowledge without effective instruction. This…

Explicit strategy instruction combined with student-directed self-regulation in conjunction with cognitive strategies has proven effective in supporting low-achieving students' reading comprehension. Experts have extended 1 such approach, self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for the expository reading comprehension Think before reading,…

The simple view of reading posits that reading comprehension can be decomposed into a print-specific component (concerning decoding and sight word reading) and a language comprehension component (concerning verbal and metalinguistic skills not related to print). One might properly consider lexical skills, indexed by vocabulary measures, part of…

We carried out an experimental study with 2 groups of fourth graders through 10 weekly workshops of 90 min each. The experimental group consisted of 66 fourth graders (male = 26, female = 40), the control group consisted of 48 fourth graders (male = 23, female = 25), and both groups included less skilled and skilled writers. The experimental group…

This study examined whether attitude toward writing is a unique and separable construct from attitude toward reading for young beginning writers. Participants were 128 first-grade children (70 girls and 58 boys) and 113 third-grade students (57 girls and 56 boys). We individually administered to each child a 24-item attitude measure that contained…

We conducted a mixed methods study to evaluate motivation among 20 fourth-grade students who struggle with reading and writing prior to and after receiving either self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instruction for expository reading comprehension or SRSD instruction for expository reading comprehension plus informative writing. We…

This comparative case study investigated the implementation of an empowerment model for struggling readers that utilized the Internet as a context for reading, writing, and communicating in 3 different classroom contexts. Through student-centered techniques, such as flexible grouping and peer teaching, we designed Internet Reciprocal Teaching to…