Thousands and thousands of middle school students around the world participate in reading intervention programs, many that are very expensive with limited effectiveness. We wanted to know if an after-school intervention focused on close reading procedures could improve student achievement. Close reading of complex text involves annotations,…

Close reading is an instructional practice that has gained attention of late. It involves reading a complex text, annotation, and repeatedly reading to answer text-dependent questions. Although there are a number of recommendations for the use of close reading, there has not been a systematic analysis of student or teacher perceptions of this…

School improvement efforts often focus on students who perform below grade level. These improvement efforts typically focus on improving instruction, often through a framework and professional development. The question remains, how do students who are gifted and talented respond to this type of instruction? We observed 48 students in their…