Using sociocultural concepts of authoritative and dialogic discourse, I sought to examine 5th-grade teachers' questioning practices during small-group reading instruction to understand the differences between groups reading text on grade level and groups reading texts below grade level. The purpose was also to examine how questions functioned for…

Reading comprehension is a significant concern for adolescents with learning disabilities (LD), particularly in secondary schools in the United States (US) where content is taught primarily through textbooks. Surprisingly little is known about the actual reading instruction for students with LD in secondary classrooms. Thus, the purpose of this…

It is evident from reading research that students with learning disabilities (LD) greatly benefit from teacher-student interactions during small group comprehension instruction (e.g., Berkeley, Scruggs, & Mastropieri, 2010). Given that questioning takes up the vast majority of instructional interactions between teachers and students (Chin,…

This paper evaluates the impact of Lexia Reading software on the progress of children experiencing reading difficulties in four Northern Ireland Schools. The program is designed to raise reading standards through a phonics-based approach to learning to read. A key feature of the software is the use of an "assessment without testing"…

Research suggests that children's understanding of text can be improved by the explicit teaching of those comprehension strategies that are used implicitly by skilled readers, particularly the use of self-regulating strategies to generate questions about text. This study of the teaching of comprehension in 51 London Key Stage 2 classrooms explores…