With the onset and implementation of No Child Left Behind legislation almost two decades ago, coupled with declining performance by U.S. students compared with other developed countries, public education in our country has been under constant scrutiny from all fronts and continues to be there today. Much of the recent emphasis in educational…

Determining what elementary teacher candidates need to know to effectively teach reading will aid in how preparation programs prepare future teachers. To understand state legislation targeting early reading instruction, this study compared the tenets of structured literacy, the reading method used in dyslexia programs, to scientific reading…

Up until 2020, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores had increased only slightly since the early 1990s with large achievement gaps for students of color and students living in poverty. Modest gains in fourth grade reading proficiency since 1992 were erased during the pandemic. The insufficient progress in reading even…

The Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) was grappling with several issues including: (1) A respectable rate of growth in student achievement for both fourth- and eighth-grade math in the state of Alabama, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), but below the national average; and (2) A growing concern about…

Our district reading data at the secondary level has remained stagnant over the last decade with respect to grade-level reading ability. We knew we wanted to find a way to engage students in reading and strengthen their literacy skills. In response to this, we sought to examine if we were hindering literacy development through our instructional…