As an instructor of the developmental reading and writing course at Texas State University, Barrie McGee is required per state mandate to design a course as an accelerated version of an integrated reading and writing (IRW) course. Furthermore, she is uniquely positioned as a student enrolled in the program in developmental education to access…

More U.S. community college students are enrolling without the requisite reading skills to be successful. Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students are following a similar pattern with a little less than half requiring remedial instruction when entering college. College-age readers were the first population that we studied to learn about reading and…

Student's low reading and writing proficiency in higher education has been the subject of a large body of research (e.g., Bahr, 2011; Bailey, 2010; Carlino, 2005, 2010, 2012; Flink, 2017; Jaggars, 2014 Pacello, 2014; Perin, 2011; Perin et al., 2013). The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how students in a first-year developmental…

While there exists substantial research on struggling and developmental readers, few research-practitioners have sought to examine the histories and circumstances that result in strong readers. This study drew upon the reading autobiographies of doctoral students in an English Education program at an Ivy League institution, in order to discover…

Acceleration reduces the time and/or course sequence in developmental education (DE), allowing students to enroll in gateway courses more quickly and/or co-enroll in the first college-level English course while taking the remedial course (Venezia & Hughes, 2013). Texarkana College (TC) piloted an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) with a 12:1…

The recent focus on improving college completion rates has resulted in the paring down--or complete removal--of semester-long developmental education courses. Considering the magnitude these policies have on placement, teaching, and learning outcomes, this study examined faculty observations (N=420) about students' current and longitudinal college…

Katie Hern is an English Instructor at Chabot College and Co-Founder of the California Acceleration Project (CAP), a professional development network that supports the state's 113 community colleges to transform remediation and increase student completion and equity. Hern speaks nationally on remediation reform and integrated reading and writing.…

Only 25% to 38% of secondary education graduates in the United States are proficient readers or writers but many continue to postsecondary education, where they take developmental education courses designed to help them improve their basic academic skills. However, outcomes are poor for this population, and one problem may be that approaches to…

Having access to research-based materials is an essential component for designing effective interventions for low-achieving and disadvantaged students. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two types of reading material intervention for low-achieving and disadvantaged students. The students were divided into experimental…

Rigorous evidence from around the world has shown that significant improvements in learning can be obtained at comparatively low cost by spending more, focused time ensuring that the bottom half of the class in the early grades does not get left behind. The authors present results from the Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI) that tests…

The research on Response to Intervention (RtI) with secondary students is scant; however, a recently conducted, multiyear, large-scale implementation of RtI with middle-school students provides findings that inform practices and future directions for research. This article provides an overview of the findings from each of the 3 years of an…

This system summary highlights the high school graduates who attended a community or technical college in the year following graduation (Part A and B). Part C provides information on the students who delayed enrollment at the college for one or two years after high school graduation. Part D describes the expenditures for pre-college courses.…

Presents suggestions which can serve as guidelines for the secondary level principal when a remedial reading program is being set up. (JM)

Offers guidelines for establishing a remedial reading program that will be useful and innovative and will meet the exact instructional needs of those students who need prescriptive help for overcoming deficiencies in areas such as word attack, comprehension, and study skills. (HOD)

More than five years of research offers little evidence that students who attend federally funded remedial and learning disabled reading programs improve their reading skills. The three assumptions underlying these programs are discussed. Ways teachers and schools can evaluate their programs are listed. (MT)