We present an aggregation scheme that increases power in randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments when the intervention possesses a robust and well-articulated theory of change. Intervention studies using longitudinal data often include multiple observations on individuals, some of which may be more likely to manifest a treatment effect…

Extensive reading has been continuously studied as a promising instructional method for improving students' language proficiency, including reading proficiency, vocabulary acquisition, and grammar awareness. The present study is a meta-analysis, which synthesized the data of 21 empirical studies (N = 1268). It was designed to explore whether…

This five-year study focused on school processes that promoted the scaling-up of a high school academic literacy framework, Reading Apprenticeship, developed by WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI). Implementing an innovative strategy for scaling-up involving school-based cross-disciplinary teacher teams, SLI brought the framework to 274…

Fifty 2nd- and 3rd-grade students identified as experiencing difficulty reading were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. In the experimental group, students received a reading intervention called Read Two Impress for a total of 360 min. Students in the control continued to receive regular instruction from their teacher. A 2 × 3…

Reading difficulties may have multiple causes. Effective approaches to reading intervention need to target the specific causes for individual readers. The Early Reading Intervention Knowledge program comprises three intervention pathways: a phonological-phonemic pathway, a phonic-orthographic pathway, and an oral language pathway. This study…

Student achievement in reading comprehension has been an important topic for the past several years due to the importance of reading in education. School districts in South Carolina have had enormous amounts of pressure put on them to increase student reading comprehension through the implementation of SLOs and the Read to Succeed initiative. The…

An initiative in which therapy dogs were integrated into a school-wide reading curriculum was analyzed to determine the effect on student reading in the program's second year. Prior research on the first year of this specific program (Kirnan et al. in "Early Child Educ J" 44(6):637-651) demonstrated improvement in reading scores only for…

The problem investigated in this quantitative study was that schools in a small, rural East Texas town were falling below acceptable ratings in reading on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) and the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR). Researchers have found that constructive-based learning environments (CBLEs)…

In a common approach for scaling up effective educational practice, schools adopt evidence-based programs to be implemented with fidelity. An alternative approach assumes that programs should be adapted to local contexts. In this randomized trial of a reading intervention, we study a scaffolded sequence of implementation in which schools first…

As federal mandates continue to emphasize the use of standardized tests, academic research is needed to determine if reading intervention programs are helping to close the achievement gap between struggling readers and their grade level peers. Although previous research indicated that reading intervention can be an effective tool for increasing…

Summer reading loss is a prevalent problem that occurs primarily for students who are not exposed to or encouraged to read at home or in summer programs when school is out. This problem prevails among early readers from low-income backgrounds. This study provided 31 six and seven-year-old children with a structured guided reading program through…

National assessments have shown that the majority of students in the United States cannot read at grade level by fourth grade. These results are alarming because students who are not proficient readers by third grade suffer long-term consequences and are more likely to drop out of high school. Feeling pressure to improve reading outcomes, schools…

Background/Context: In a recent review of culturally relevant instruction and reading comprehension, Fairbanks, Cooper, Masterson, and Webb (2009) highlighted the paucity of research available to support the widespread claim in the literacy field that "students' social and cultural practices are deeply intertwined with literacy learning"…

This study presents findings from a survey of secondary special education teachers who teach reading. Respondents were 577 special education teachers from a large Midwestern state who completed an online or mail survey. Results based on quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate predominant foci of secondary special education teachers' reading…

This study seeks to explain what first- and second-grade African American, urban students who participated in an explicit comprehension strategy instruction (ECSI) program learned about comprehension strategies and how this knowledge supports self-regulated strategy use. The study was also designed to compare these students' knowledge with those…