Helping students engage with complex texts has been a longstanding challenge, though teachers have received little guidance about practices that help students in engaging with texts. This paper provides a range of empirical evidence about a tool designed to provide formative insight into text-focused teaching, which we used to reliably score more…

The importance of accurate reading assessment data cannot be overstated. Data is used to make decisions that directly impact student learning. The problem this study addressed was that 66% of fourth-grade students in Missouri were scoring below grade level on reading achievement assessments (NAEP, 2019). However, most high-stakes reading…

In the present study, the frequency effect was examined specifically in text reading in developing and expert readers. Third graders, fifth graders, and expert readers read the same short text containing high- and low-frequency words while their eye movements were recorded. The frequency effect was observed in temporal and spatial measures of eye…

This study aims to determine the levels of reading comprehension and morphological awareness in middle school students and to examine the dimensions of these two concepts by illustrating the existence of a relationship between them. The study group of the research conducted with the relational screening model consists of 1561 students in the 5th,…

The ultimate goal of children's reading development is the full and fluid understanding of texts. Morphological structure awareness, or children's awareness of the minimal units of meaning in language, has been identified as a key skill influencing reading comprehension. Here, we evaluate the roles of morphological structure awareness and two…

As teachers and leaders move forward in implementing the Common Core State Standards within classrooms across 46 states, it is essential to consider the question of what knowledge is included in the English Language Arts Standards, and what knowledge is not present. The authors of the Common Core delineate an increasingly complex body of knowledge…

Schools in the United States have been using the Accelerated Reader (AR) program since the mid-1980s. A search of the literature related to the effectiveness of the AR program revealed that many of the studies were conducted more than a decade ago, and a large number of those studies failed to utilize a control group to provide comparative data.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how engagement, mood and number of assignments completed on computerized differentiated homework using an iPad in a one-to-one mobile device environment influenced the growth index and normalized gain in reading literature benchmark assessments of students in grades five, six, and seven. Furthermore,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of probe variability on the ability to replicate results in brief experimental analysis (BEA) of reading. In the first phase of the study, 41 first- and second- grade students completed 16 oral reading fluency probes. Calculations of probe difficulty were used to identify Low and High Variability…

Recent studies indicate that examiners make a number of intentional and unintentional errors when administering reading assessments to students. Because these errors introduce construct-irrelevant variance in scores, the fidelity of test administrations could influence the results of evaluation studies. To determine how assessment fidelity is…

Explicit strategy instruction combined with student-directed self-regulation in conjunction with cognitive strategies has proven effective in supporting low-achieving students' reading comprehension. Experts have extended 1 such approach, self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for the expository reading comprehension Think before reading,…

The author replicated and extended a study by Flowerday, Schraw, & Stevens (2004) that examined the effects of choice, topic interest, and situational interest on reading engagement, attitude, and learning in college-age students. The study was replicated using fourth and fifth graders as subjects. The study was extended to examine the effects of…

A synthesis of the extant research on reading interventions for students with reading difficulties and disabilities in fourth and fifth grade (ages 9-11) is presented. Thirteen studies with treatment/comparison study designs and eleven single group or single subject studies were located and synthesized. Findings from the 24 studies revealed high…

This study examines a problem that many mainstream teachers face today: how to successfully improve reading comprehension for English language learners (ELLs) in an English-only environment. The researcher examines both the academic and psychosocial effects of the Transactional Literature Circles (TLC) programme on a treatment group of 75 fourth…

This Evidence Based Education (EBE) request focused on research-supported vocabulary interventions for middle elementary students. Limited vocabulary is an important factor in underachievement of children in disadvantaged homes. Children with larger vocabularies find reading easier, read more widely, and do better in school (Lubliner & Smetana,…