"Reading Mastery" is designed to provide explicit reading instruction to students in grades pre-K-5. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill, "Reading Mastery" is available in two versions: (1) "Reading Mastery Classic" (for grades pre-K-2) aims to help beginning readers identify letter sounds,…

Reading disability is the most common disability. At least one in five children has significant challenges learning to read. This study focused on the oral reading performance of 30 Year-Three students. The students were identified as less proficient readers from two randomly selected primary schools in Brunei Darussalam. The oral reading…

Intermediate elementary students (grades 4 and 5) frequently struggle to become scientifically literate in their general education classrooms. Scientific literacy includes knowing how to access and use information found in science texts. Unfortunately, many students struggle to read and understand science texts (Michalsky, Mevarech, & Haibi, 2009,…

This study documents the amount and quality of reading instruction provided to second- through fifth-grade students with learning disabilities provided resource-room services. Reading instruction provided by 10 special education resource-room teachers was observed. Findings reveal that teachers and students were on task during instructional time…

Prior to silently reading basal stories, 24 school-identified learning disabled children (eight to nine years old) were exposed to a plans-and-goals activity and a conceptual-overview statement activity. The plans-and-goals activity was found to affect the children's reading comprehension significantly. Results support the purported importance of…

Investigation of learning-disabled elementary school students' (N=29) ability to comprehend narrative text when important information was systematically dispersed or centralized within the text revealed no significant effect for input mode on measures of comprehension and recall. (Author/CB)

Thirty-two learning disabled and 32 average elementary students, matched by grade, read under three conditions: classroom group, individual, and individual restatement condition, requiring subjects to summarize contents during passage reading. Overall results of comprehension tests failed to confirm predicted differential effects of conditions on…

Results indicated that normally achieving children were more aware of passage organization than learning disabled elementary children. However, both groups focused on dimensions such as sentence length, decoding and vocabulary difficulty and informational load, rather than passage organization as determinants of task difficulty. (Author/CL)

The effects of illustrations on comprehension were investigated with 32 learning disabled elementary-aged students. Results showed significantly more correct responses to comprehension questions following the non-illustrated passages. (Author)

Analysis of relative effects of illustrations on oral reading in context and comprehension accuracy of five elementary-school learning disabled students showed no apparent relationship between the presence or absence of illustrations and changes in oral reading rates or response accuracy of comprehension questions. (Author/CL)

Twenty-seven low performing learning disabled fourth through sixth graders participated in two types of narrative and expository training sessions (generative-learning and scheme-based interventions). Following training, scores on comprehension measures were significantly higher. The only significant difference between treatments favored the scema…

An exploratory study involving three learning disabled students suggested that semantic maps, a visuospatial strategy in which concepts are linked, promoted reading comprehension. (CL)

When 99 elementary school learning disabled and normal children participated in one of four conditions (word identification and meaning aids, sentence aids, purpose setting aids, and prior knowledge aids), sentence aids were significantly more effective in improving comprehension than prior knowledge for both learning disabled and similarly…

The relationship of reading comprehension accuracy and a contingently administered token reinforcement program used with an elementary level learning disabled student in the classroom was examined. The S earned points for each correct answer made after oral reading sessions. At the conclusion of the class he could exchange his points for rewards.…

Effects of having 32 learning disabled elementary grade students read passages orally one, three, or seven times with instructions to work for either fluency or comprehension were analyzed. Both fluency and comprehension improved with the number of readings with the greatest improvement being between one and three readings. Attentional cues…