We investigate the impact of a relatively brief cross-curricular intervention, Word Generation, on middle school students' development of taught academic vocabulary. Students (n = 8382) in forty-four middle schools in three urban districts were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions. Treatment teachers implemented the program with…

In this study, we investigated fifth graders' (n = 52) fall literacy, academic language, and motivation and how these skills predicted fall and spring comprehension monitoring on an eye movement task. Comprehension monitoring was defined as the identification and repair of misunderstandings when reading text. In the eye movement task, children…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the EMBRACE Spanish support intervention for at-risk dual language learners and to determine which verbal and nonverbal characteristics of students were related to benefit from the intervention. The first study examined oral language and reading characteristics and the second study…

Reading instruction often does not focus on appealing to student interests, offering choice, or responding to the needs of advanced readers. In this experimental study, we examined the effects on achievement of an instructional approach involving choice, differentiated instruction, and extensive, supported, independent reading, with corresponding…

We examined classrooms as complex systems that affect students' literacy learning through interacting effects of content and amount of time individual students spent in literacy instruction along with the global quality of the classroom learning environment. We observed 27 3rd-grade classrooms serving 315 target students using 2 different…

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of team-based learning implemented within 11th-grade social studies classes. A randomized blocked design was implemented with 26 classes randomly assigned to treatment or comparison. In the treatment classes teachers implemented team-based learning practices to support students in engaging 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…

Few studies have focused specifically on the role that language plays in learning chemistry. We report here an investigation into the ability of language comprehension measures to predict performance in university introductory chemistry courses. This work is informed by theories of language comprehension, which posit that high-skilled…

This study examined teachers' language use across the school year in 6th grade urban middle-school classrooms (n = 24) and investigated the influence of this classroom-based linguistic input on the reading comprehension skills of the students (n = 851; 599 language minority learners and 252 English-only) in the participating classrooms. Analysis…

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a set of research-based strategies designed to improve reading comprehension, enhance students' content area learning, facilitate access to higher-level texts, and to promote student engagement. The present study examines how fidelity of implementation of CSR is associated with reading outcomes for students…

Achieve3000 publishes a number of online literacy programs that differentiate lessons and activities based on student performance. Magnolia Consulting--an independent, third party evaluation firm--assessed Achieve3000 Solutions' impact on student learning during the 2014-15 school year. The researchers used a randomized control trial, where…

Adolescents in the United States and their educators face an enormous challenge with respect to reading comprehension. College and career readiness standards outlined in the Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012) place increased emphasis on preparing students to read complex text across a range of content areas. At issue is how to develop…

Fourth- and fifth-grade students' motivation and engagement during classroom discussions were investigated in 2 studies. Study 1 examined students' moment-by-moment engagement during collaborative peer-managed small-group discussions in comparison to conventional teacher-managed whole-class discussions. Study 2 evaluated the long term effects of…