Like many high school English teachers, I often had a difficult time getting my students to write. I knew the key to getting them to write was to find activities that interested them. What do most students love? They love going out to eat! They love not just the food, but the whole experience of "going out." Cozzy's Restaurant was this teacher's…

In this article, studies on co-teaching for students with learning disabilities are briefly reviewed. Next, the factors affecting responsible co-teaching for students with learning disabilities are discussed, including how technology (i.e., computer-assisted collaborative strategic reading) might assist in promoting success while overcoming…

Three hundred and forty-six secondary students (127 special education and 219 general education) were surveyed about their perceptions of co-teaching. While significant differences were discovered between groups, all students responded favorably to co-teaching: they indicated they were getting better grades and developing better literacy skills,…

In this reanalysis of narrative notes collected in a larger study of co-teaching, the reading and writing demands of high school social studies classes were explored. Eight pairs of teachers (one special education teacher, one social studies teacher) from five high schools in Western Pennsylvania and New York were observed co-teaching in social…

Co-teaching is a frequently suggested service delivery model for meeting the needs of students with learning disabilities (LD) in an inclusive environment. However, there is currently little empirical research to support these suggestions. In this study, general and special educators at one secondary site taught ninth-grade English in four…

This study is an investigation of the perspectives of college students who served as tutors for struggling first-grade readers. Two research questions drove the study: What did the tutors perceive as strengths and weaknesses of the tutoring program? and What possible solutions did they have for addressing any concerns? Quantitative and qualitative…

This article presents a case study of a fourth grade boy's experiences in writing, preceding and following a story he wrote about a boy whose struggles in writing led directly to his death. We explore how Max's writing experiences related to his identity, specifically his sense of himself as a writer, his struggle to communicate his ideas, and his…

The increasing demand for improved student performance in the context of significant time constraints places considerable stress on educators and administrators to develop innovative strategies that promote literacy acquisition. This article describes the procedures and outlines the evaluative data for Reading Their Way, a literacy acquisition…

This review focuses on the development of writing research informed by a Vygotskian perspective. A methodological environment to aid the instruction of writing is presented. The review reveals the need to conduct research in developing students' inner voice, to lower the cognitive drain created during writing, and to understand how helpful the…

The effects of tutor- or computer-assisted word recognition were assessed in a sample of third grade children. At pre-test, students' reading accuracy and fluency were evaluated on a training word list, generalization word list, and reading passages. Students were then randomly assigned to one of three group conditions--control (students practiced…

The first-grade components of three textbook programs--mainstream basal, combined phonics and literature, and phonics emphasis--were compared on cognitive load (e.g., number of different words) and linguistic content (e.g., number of monosyllabic, simple vowel words). Three levels of three components of a program--literature anthologies, decodable…

This study analyzed the word-, sentence-, and passage-level demands of high-interest, low-level books in a manner consistent with an interactive model of reading comprehension. Cases consisted of three randomly selected passages from sixty different books. Cases were analyzed across five variables: high-frequency words, decodable words, sentences,…

This study investigated the effects of highly decodable text and coordinated phonics instruction on first graders' word recognition strategies. The quantitative study sought to examine the validity of a major claim about highly decodable text--that it enables readers to apply phonics instruction to a greater extent than less decodable text. All…

The purpose of the present study was to broaden planned behavior theory and examine its applicability to predict the academic achievement of students of low and high spelling ability. Two hundred fifty seven students, 54 low spellers and 203 high spellers from thirty elementary schools in northern Greece, participated in the study. Between groups…

Improving the reading outcomes of children with concomitant emotional and behavior disorders (BD) and phonological processing deficits represents one of the greatest challenges facing educators today. For example, the results from a meta-analysis indicated that problem behavior (Z[sub r]=.46) was as important as phonological processing skills in…