Two experimental studies at one urban middle school investigated the effects of the combination of Tier I and Tier II evidence-based reading instruction compared to Tier I alone on struggling sixth-grade readers (N = 109). All participants received free or reduced-price lunch, and 95% were considered English learners at some point in their school…

Previous research has documented a substantial decline of standardized test scores of children from low-income backgrounds, relative to more advantaged peers, in later elementary grades, the so-called "fourth-grade slump." This article examines changes in reading achievement from first to fifth grade for students in a large urban school…

Cognitive and academic behaviors promoted by an ongoing, long-term Direct Instruction preschool project for poverty level children (N=109) are described. Children who received two years of training achieved at substantially higher normative levels than children trained for only one year and this advantage continued in first and second grades.…

This study compared the "Bridge" experimental reading program and whole language instruction with 106 economically disadvantaged first graders at risk for reading difficulties. The "Bridge" program uses icons or picture symbols to facilitate print word identification. The "Bridge" group performed significantly better…

Concludes that in the first stage of reading, students appear to make relatively few nonsense errors on familiar words, whether they are taught with a meaning-based or phonics approach. However, if initial instruction emphasizes phonics, real word substitutions tend to be graphically constrained; with initial meaning-emphasis instruction,…