Syntactic knowledge, the implicit and explicit knowledge of syntax, is a necessary--but often overlooked--component of proficient reading (e.g., Deacon & Kieffer, 2018). Though some research exists on effective syntactic instruction, such as sentence combining (Neville & Searls, 1985; Wilkinson & Patty, 1993), researchers have called…

Proficient reading requires the ability to analyze words for various properties, including pronunciation, meaning, and syntactical function. However, most instruction in word analysis is limited to phonics instruction provided in the early elementary grades. For older students, whose words largely center units of meaning, or morphemes, early…

Adolescence is a critical time period when it comes to fostering lifelong interest and practices in reading, yet a decreasing number of middle school students are performing at Proficient and Advanced levels in reading. The purpose of this study was to examine whether providing middle school students with an increased level of choice in their…

Proficiency with sentence-level features of language is essential for reading comprehension of academic texts, especially for early adolescents who face increasingly complex, discipline-specific texts as they enter upper elementary and middle school. However, little research has been done to explore instruction in sentence-level features. This…

As STEM initiatives increase throughout elementary schools, literacy teachers need help finding their role in school-wide implementation. This qualitative case study explored the perceptions and willingness of sixteen literacy teachers to integrate engineering practices with children's texts. Through the lens of Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory,…

Because reading comprehension is an important skill that many students struggle with, there is an urgent need to foster it. Few studies have investigated effective comprehension practices within a response-to-intervention design. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of a Tier 1 intervention implemented for 10 weeks on 491 Flemish fifth…

This study aimed to investigate whether elementary school students have different reading strategies based on various levels of text-diagram integrative processing and whether these reading strategies remain consistent or change over a three-year period. The study followed 176 students from grades four to six and observed their eye movements while…

This study explored the influence of using Curriculum-Based Readers Theater (CBRT) on promoting 12 sixth graders' oceanic knowledge and vocabulary learning in an elementary school in Taiwan. Based on the analysis of both quantitative (oceanic knowledge tests and vocabulary knowledge tests) and qualitative data (interviews, videos, and…

Students struggling with reading in secondary school are between "learning to read" and "reading to learn." Struggling readers require metacognitive and cognitive reading skills to tackle the complexities of reading. Combining the research of worked-examples and think-aloud shaped the instructional intervention in this study.…

Open discussion of text promotes students' reading achievement, yet classroom discussion is rare. The present study investigates whether teachers' knowledge for literacy teaching relates to their enactment of class discussion in the context of a high-quality literacy curriculum. Two sixth grade teachers (one who demonstrated high levels of…

Reading aloud to students is a common practice among teachers of young children. While reading aloud is a research-based instructional strategy with many potential benefits, studies show that not all teachers read aloud to their students, and read-aloud use tends to decline as students age. The purpose of this study was to explore the current…

The COVID-19 pandemic affected schools worldwide. When schools shut down, teachers and students had no choice but to go to remote learning. A school in a rural setting participated in blended learning where students did a combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning. The subject of this study was two sixth grade groups of students with the…

This rubric was developed for the analysis of intervention programs against the criteria of implementing the four recommendations and accompanying action steps presented in the IES Practice Guide "Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4-9" for the Adolescent Literacy Intervention Selection Tool (A-LIST). Each item in…

Middle school students with social and behavioral concerns need additional support. The current study investigated the effects of Class-Wide Function-related intervention teams adapted for middle school contexts (CW-FIT MS) and self-management (SM) in a sixth-grade reading class. CW-FIT MS was implemented, subsequently, for students with data…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantial unfinished learning for U.S. students, but to differing degrees for various subgroups. Students of color, from low-income families, or who attended high-poverty schools experienced greater unfinished learning. In this study, we examined the degree of unfinished learning for students who went into the…