This article presents findings on the institutional logics of reading instruction in an urban school district, portraying how district leaders and coaches enacted two logics. Findings are grounded in observation, interview, and document data on district leaders and literacy coaches from a 13-month period. Using neoinstitutional theory, this…

Producing digital media is a hands-on, inquiry-based mindful process that naturally embeds Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into literacy instruction, providing options for learning and assessment for a wide array of students with diverse learning abilities. Video production learning experiences acknowledge the cognitive talents of…

Decoding deficits began in the early grades and without remediation created a subgroup of students performing below the expected level of the grade level of achievement. Examining oral reading fluency and phonics instruction provided information to the effectiveness of these reading areas taught individually or in tandem using scripted…

While existing research documents the effectiveness of summer reading programs, little is know about how and to what degree children actually read the books that are sent home or how families engage with these texts. We took this opportunity to dive in and explore what happened when books were sent home to low-income, culturally diverse families.…

This article examines how three urban elementary school teachers adapted pedagogical strategies from a school district--adopted core reading program to increase their students' access to the curriculum. Using teacher interviews and classroom observations to construct a descriptive case study of teacher adaptation, analysis reveals that the…

Studies of high school literacy intervention classes have measured reading gains through standardized assessments, but few have considered the impact on students' identities. In this embedded case study, I used theories of identity and positioning to answer two research questions: How did institutional and interpersonal acts of positioning in two…

Reading volume is an important consideration for teachers wanting to improve literacy outcomes for students. The authors begin by reviewing evidence for reading volume and the ways in which reading volume can be changed. They identify four factors--access, choice, classroom discussions of texts, and book talks--that composed an intervention…

Questions about optimal routes to becoming an effective teacher have fueled an ongoing debate for more than 50 years--also, not coincidentally, a time of increasing regulation of teacher preparation programs. A number of alternative pathways have been investigated (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, & Heilig, 2005), yet…

The purpose of this study was to understand the reasons, as perceived by elementary school teachers at the target Title I school, for low student achievement in reading. The conceptual framework that guided this study was the ecological theory that postulates that students' academic achievement is influenced by several subsystems that affect human…

Forty families with four- to five-year-old Chinese children were chosen as experiment participants and equally divided into four groups for an eight-week parent-child reading experiment in different reading modes. (1) Groups A, B, and C read one of three kinds of Chinese-English audio bilingual picture books respectively: touch reading books,…

Minnesota Reading Corps is the largest AmeriCorps State program in the country. Its mission is to help every Minnesota child become a proficient reader by the end of third grade. To meet this goal, the Minnesota Reading Corps and its host organization, ServeMinnesota Action Network, engages a diverse group of AmeriCorps members to provide…

The main goal of this study was to investigate the effects of an experimental program designed to develop the phonological awareness (PA) skills of beginning readers in Turkish, an orthographically transparent language. We administered pre-, post-, and follow-up tests to assess the PA skills of 113 first graders and kindergartners in 2…

This article presents findings on teachers' implementation of a reading reform in an urban school district. Findings are based in observation, interview, and document data related to 12 elementary teachers' responses to a new reading program, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop. Utilizing coupling theory and the concept of routines,…

This paper is based on one of the first completed studies funded by the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF). EEF was set up in response to repeated demands for clearer evidence on school improvement. The paper presents the results of an intensive 10-week literacy intervention called Switch-on Reading. This was trialled in England as part of a…

This National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) report has been produced for the Education Endowment Foundation and its evaluation of the Chatterbooks reading scheme. Chatterbooks is an extracurricular reading initiative, developed by the Reading Agency, that aims to increase a child's motivation to read by providing tools and resources…