The purpose of this study was to determine current kindergarten teacher understandings of early phonics instruction and how teachers are meeting readers' early phonics needs during guided reading instruction. Using Vygotsky's (1979) social constructivist theory and Ehri's (1995) connectionist theory and by focusing on age-appropriate instruction,…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine elementary teachers' understanding of guided reading within a first-year implementation. The researcher conducted a survey and employed both a qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The convergent parallel design of this study allowed for a simultaneous analysis of qualitative and…

English learners (ELs) make up a significant portion of the nation's K-12 student population who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. ELs bring a wealth of diversity to the United States' education system; however, teachers' limited knowledge and practices that integrate ELs' cultural, linguistic, and prior educational…

This study examines the effect of a comprehensive literacy-coaching program focused on enacting a discussion-based approach to reading comprehension instruction (content-focused coaching [CFC]) on the quality of classroom text discussions over 2 years. The study used a cluster-randomized trial in which schools were assigned to either CFC or…

This qualitative case study uses observations and interviews to examine the practice of differentiation by twelve collaborative middle school reading teachers in a school that has shown a decrease in the achievement gap for students with disabilities on end of year tests on state standards. Observations and interviews were analyzed to determine…

A survey of 549 kindergarten and first grade teachers examined attitudes toward, and knowledge of, beginning reading practices that have been shown to prevent reading failure, including explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and word identification skills. Teachers generally had positive attitudes toward explicit reading approaches, especially…