Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

This study addressed the effects of Strategies for Teaching Reading, Information, and Vocabulary Effectively (STRIVE), a distributed professional development (PD) model designed to help teachers implement reading comprehension and vocabulary practices in fourth grade social studies classes. Schools (n = 81 schools, n = 235 teachers, n = 4,757…

This article presents findings from a quasiexperimental study examining the effects of a Tier 2 intervention aligned to Tier 1 instruction, a nonaligned Tier 2 intervention, and a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison on the content knowledge, vocabulary, and reading outcomes of fourth-grade struggling readers. In the aligned condition, teachers were…

Understanding the efficacy of evidence-based reading practices delivered in the Tier 1 (i.e. general classroom) setting is critical to successful implementation of multi-tiered systems, meeting a diverse range of student learning needs, and providing high quality reading instruction across content areas. This meta-analysis presents evidence on the…

This study examined the differential effects of Strategies for Reading Informational Text and Vocabulary Effectively (STRIVE) on the vocabulary, reading comprehension, and content learning among 4,757 fourth-grade students with and without disabilities. Schools were assigned to one of three conditions: researcher-supported professional development…

This study examined the differential effects of Strategies for Reading Informational Text and Vocabulary Effectively (STRIVE) on the vocabulary, reading comprehension, and content learning among 4,757 fourth-grade students with and without disabilities. Schools were assigned to one of three conditions: researcher-supported professional development…

Self-explanations are commonly used to assess on-line reading comprehension processes. However, traditional methods of analysis ignore important temporal variations in these explanations. This study investigated how dynamical systems theory could be used to reveal linguistic patterns that are predictive of self-explanation quality. High school…

We examined social studies teachers' use of text and supports for reading text during their instruction as well as how their practices related to students' content acquisition. A total of 37 social studies teachers and their students (n = 572) participated and recorded their instruction during 3 instructional units. We documented the amount of…

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of a content knowledge and reading comprehension treatment implemented by 8th-grade social studies teachers over the course of 1 school year. We randomly assigned 8th-grade students with reading difficulties to the intervention treatment condition (n = 45) or the business-as-usual comparison condition…

The authors examine the results for students with disabilities from a 2-year randomized controlled trial with students identified in ninth grade and followed through 10th grade in their allotted condition group. Prior to ninth grade, students with disabilities who met criteria for low reading comprehension (i.e., through failure on the state…

Supporting the reading comprehension and content knowledge acquisition of English language learners (ELs) requires instructional practices that continue beyond developing the foundational skills of reading. In particular, the challenges ELs face highlight the importance of teaching reading comprehension practices in the middle grades through…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effects of the instructional practice "Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text" ("PACT"), an approach that aims to improve social studies content knowledge and reading comprehension. This study took place in two middle schools in a near-urban district in…

National reports reveal one third of American fourth graders read below basic level on measures of comprehension. One critical component of comprehension is fluency: rapid, accurate, expressive reading with automaticity and prosody. Many fluency studies and classroom interventions focus only on reading rate, but this alone is not sufficient. This…

A 2-year, randomized control trial with 9th to 10th grade students with significant reading problems was provided for 50 minutes a day in small groups. Comparison students were provided an elective class and treatment students the reading intervention. Students were identified as demonstrating reading difficulties through failure on their state…

In this experimental study we examined the effects of integrating teacher-directed knowledge-building and student-regulated comprehension practices in 7th- to 10th-grade English language arts classes. We also investigated the effect of instructional quality and whether integrating practices differentially benefitted students with lower entry-level…