This exploratory study was designed to evaluate the interplay of students' rate and comprehension in independent silent reading of accessible text, within the frameworks of the Simple View of Reading and the RAND Reading Study Group. In the first phase, 61 sixth graders were given a reading test (GRADE), a motivation questionnaire, and an…

Academic vocabulary is the specialized language used to communicate within academic settings. The Coxhead (2000) taxonomy is one such list that identifies 570 headwords representing academic vocabulary. Researchers have hypothesized that students possessing greater fluent reading skills are more likely to benefit from exposure to vocabulary due to…

The purpose of this study was to determine the reading achievement effects of a school-year-long program of sustained silent reading in a middle school. Students' scores on the Stanford Achievement Test, Ninth Edition across three years (2006, 2007, and 2008) were analyzed to test eleven null hypotheses. A 3 x 3 repeated measures factorial ANOVA…

Response to intervention (RTI) has received considerable attention from both researchers and practitioners as a schoolwide model for service delivery. However, research is limited on RTI applications in middle and high schools. The purpose of this article is to describe the outcomes of an experimental examination of a secondary (Tier 2) literacy…

E-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook are beginning to make their way into school libraries and classrooms. It's about time. E-readers have tremendous potential to entice reluctant readers to read more. A study that the authors recently conducted among low-reading-ability middle school students demonstrated that potential.…

The positive effects of read-alouds and storytelling on literacy development and second-language acquisition have been confirmed many times in the research literature. In addition, there is consistent evidence that in-school free voluntary reading (sustained silent reading) is effective for both first- and second-language acquisition. Trelease…