Previous research has shown that students with special educational needs (SEN) have fewer friendships than their peers without SEN. In this longitudinal study, 545 students from primary and secondary schools, including 106 students with SEN, were surveyed at the beginning and the end of the school year. The results show that students with SEN…

Adolescents with disabilities have great difficulty with academic content in middle school, and their teachers have difficulty teaching them to understand and use academic language. We taught teachers of 6th grade students with Learning Disabilities, over half of whom were also English Language Learners (ELL), to implement about 15 minutes of…

There has been a long-standing history of segregation and exclusion of students with disabilities from receiving a quality education in public school districts throughout the country. In response to the growing outcry for equal opportunities for students with and without special needs, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act…

In this article, the author proposes that students who led their Individual Education Program (IEP) meetings were better informed about their own disabilities, rights, and accommodations, and that the act of leading the meeting resulted in improved self-advocacy and self-confidence. Also, in understanding their list of accommodations and…

With the rapid growth in the number of English learner students served by schools in the United States, educators are increasingly concerned with how these students progress toward proficiency in English. The large and diverse English learner student population in New York City public schools, where more than 41 percent of students speak a…

To provide timely and effective supports for students reading below grade level, schools require methods for quickly and accurately identifying those students in need. One method for identifying those students is through universal screening. Assessments such as oral reading fluency (ORF) and Maze reading comprehension are commonly used as…

After the passing of the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004, many schools began to use a Response to Intervention (RtI) model instead of the discrepancy model when identifying students with specific learning disabilities (National Center on Response to Intervention, 2011). When elementary schools adopted the RtI model, it was shown to be…

Numerous research studies (e.g., Anderson, Kutash, & Duchnowski, 2001; Lane, Carter, Pierson, & Glaeser, 2006; Volpe, Dupaul, Jitendra, & Tresco, 2009; Wei, Blackorby, & Schiller, 2011) have shown that students with disabilities generally exhibit lower reading scores than their peers without disabilities. However, questions remain…

Noting that 60 percent of both fourth and eighth graders currently struggle with reading, this report urges the U.S. Congress to focus on students' literacy development from early childhood through grade twelve as it works to rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In…

This study demonstrates the importance of a critical lens on disability in mathematics educational research. This ethnographic and interview study investigated how ability and disability were constructed over 1 year in a middle school mathematics classroom. Children participated in two kinds of mathematical pedagogy that positioned children…

This study explored perceptions of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers on the prereferral process for Latino English language learners (ELLs). Using Colaizzi's (1978) phenomenological approach, qualitative data were collected through interviews with four ESL teachers. Analyses of the data indicated that the ESL teachers used research-based…

The research base on how to effectively intervene to improve the reading fluency of students with academic and behavioral disabilities at the middle school level does not provide a strong support for evidence- based practices with this age group. The purpose of this study was to extend the body of research on reading fluency interventions to…

Students with disabilities are disproportionately represented within the bullying dynamic. However, few studies have investigated the interaction between disability identification and special education services. The current study evaluated bullying involvement (direct victimization, relational victimization, cybervictimization, bullying, fighting,…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics will place more pressure on special education and math teachers to raise the skill levels of all students, especially those with disabilities in math (MD). The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of enhanced anchored instruction (EAI) on students with and without MD in co-taught general…

The Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004 allowed schools to use a Response to Intervention (RtI) model as opposed to the discrepancy model to qualify students as learning disabled. The incorporation of the RtI model provided earlier interventions for students and reduced avoidance of special services and false diagnosis. With the success of…