Instruction--the interaction that takes place between students, teachers, and content--is the foundation in which learning occurs. Effective literacy instruction considers the instructional strategies and foundational teaching components utilized by effective and highly effective teachers during literacy in classrooms of high academic growth. The…

This paper reports the effects on children, teacher candidates, and classroom teachers of a PDS-based initial certification course in the teaching of literacy. In this course, teacher candidates work with individual struggling readers on a range of literacy tasks, and the classroom teacher and university faculty member serve as course…

Teacher candidates in one Professional Development School did make a difference in children's academic growth. This paper describes a mixed-methods study that investigated student achievement of elementary children after receiving interventions from teacher candidates and identified the perceived benefits and challenges of a new Professional…

This mixed methods study explores the pilot implementation of a Response to Intervention framework in the first grade classrooms in three urban schools. Two schools in a fully implemented condition (FI) with a facilitator and a partially implemented condition (PI) without a facilitator were investigated using student achievement data, field notes,…

Staff development training is a method many public schools employ in an effort to prepare their teaching staff to better meet the demands of effectively educating district students. In this mixed methods case study quantitative and qualitative data was incorporated to answer four research questions: (1) How accurately do scores achieved by…

Research has found that a solid foundation of early literacy skills is a necessity for later reading and academic success. One such skill that contributes to a strong foundation is phonemic awareness. This study has explained the importance of a phonemic awareness curriculum for kindergarten and first grade special education and at-risk reading…

There is a critical need, according to national policy statements in the United States, to integrate information and communication technologies into instruction, and yet research about the effect of such integration on the literacy learning of at-risk populations is scant. In addition, barriers exist that prevent teachers from realizing the goal…

This report summarizes evaluation results for an efficacy study of the Leveled Literacy Intervention system (LLI) implemented in Tift County Schools (TCS) in Georgia and the Enlarged City School District of Middletown (ECSDM) in New York during the 2009-2010 school year. Developed by Fountas & Pinnell (2009) and published by Heinemann, LLI is…