Disproportionality in the identification of disabilities among children who are culturally and linguistically diverse is an ongoing challenge for educators. A practice that may help address issues of disproportionality is the use of universal screening and progress monitoring data for academic skills as well as English language proficiency data to…

The role of executive function (EF) in the reading process, and in those with reading difficulties, remains unclear. As members of the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, we review multiple perspectives regarding EF in reading and then summarize some of our recent studies of struggling and typical readers in grades 3-5. Study 1a found that a…

In this article, we discuss tensions that emerged as we collaborated with teachers to iteratively design and refine an afterschool reading intervention approach that emphasizes inquiry and disciplinary learning for upper elementary readers positioned as struggling in school. Our findings are organized around four design tensions that help us…

This meta-analysis systematically reviewed the most up-to-date literature to determine the effectiveness of reading interventions on measures of word and pseudoword reading, reading comprehension, and passage fluency, and to determine the role intervention and study variables play in moderating the impacts for students at risk for reading…

This study compared the reading growth of students with and without learning disabilities, and students with and without reading deficits in response to tier 2 reading interventions within a response-to-intervention framework. Participants were 499 second- and third-grade students in six urban schools. Students who scored at or below the 10th…

The purpose of this brief is to present an overall picture of how well early reading interventions are working for students in Grades 1-3. Using a meta-analytic approach, this paper combines findings from several studies to determine the effectiveness of early reading interventions for students who are struggling with learning to read.

Although research suggests that certain cognitive functions predict the likelihood of intervention response for students who receive Tier 2 instruction through a response to intervention framework, researchers know less about cognitive predictors of response to Tier 3 instruction. This study measured 2nd and 3rd graders' performance on 7 cognitive…

The theoretical framework for this study was Michael Polanyi's concept of tacit knowing, that a professional's knowledge is composed of both the things he or she can describe explicitly and a tacit component that is difficult, if not impossible, to define or describe. In the national context of an increasing emphasis on accountability, the use of…

Changes in policy and practice that originated with the 2004 Reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA], US Department of Education) created systems that exposed students to earlier and more consistent research-based intervention (Fuchs & Vaughn, 2012) thereby reducing the rate and increasing the mean age of…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a comprehensive early detection and prevention strategy used to identify and support struggling students before they fall behind. An RTI model usually has three tiers or levels of support. Tier 1 is generally defined as classroom instruction provided to all students, tier 2 is typically a preventive intervention…

A large body of research supports the efficacy of small group reading interventions for students in Grades K through 3. However, there are few studies evaluating the effects of supplemental Tier-2 intervention implemented within a response to intervention (RTI) or multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework. The purpose of this study was to…

Low reading skills constitute a serious achievement problem. Although there are remedial support in schools, between 2% and 6% of the student population continues to show persistent reading difficulties despite intensive intervention. The research problem in this study addressed the lack of effective reading interventions for students who were in…

Many students in third, fourth and fifth grades struggle at the lowest levels of reading proficiency. In fact, fewer than 40% of fourth graders in the United States read at or above the "proficient" level on state standardized tests in 2009 (D'Ardenne, Barnes, Hightower, Lamason, Mason, Patterson, Stephens, Wilson, Smith & Erickson,…

A fairly recent definition of reading disability (RD) is that in the form of a hybrid model. The model views RD as a latent construct that is manifested through various observable unexpected impairments in reading-related skills and through inadequate response to intervention. The current report evaluated this new conceptualization of RD from an…

We conducted a meta-analysis of 28 studies comprising 39 samples to ask the question, "What is the magnitude of the association between various baseline child cognitive characteristics and response to reading intervention?" Studies were located via literature searches, contact with researchers in the field, and review of references from…