The purpose of this mixed-methods sequential explanatory study was to investigate the effects of watching text-relevant video segments on reading comprehension of a culturally unfamiliar text when technical words are present or absent. Therefore, 44 adult English Language Learners (ELLs) with higher-intermediate to advanced English language…

Students needed to be able to read in elementary school to be successful in school and in life. Meanwhile, teachers graduated from teacher preparation colleges and not able to teach reading once they were in their own classrooms. Teachers who developed self-efficacy in the teaching of reading were the best teachers to teach reading. The purpose of…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to raise awareness of the effects of soft school closures on student reading fluency in traditional, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-related, or Dual Language Immersion (DLI) schools. There is little research on which type of school, whether traditional,…

In this paper, we explore how a group of 10 and 11-year-old primary school children engage with a picture book about a refugee boy from Somalia. As we examine in some detail a video-recording of the children's discussion, we suggest that the children's emotional engagement with the story was pivotal to not only their making sense of the book, but…

This study investigated the impact the Achieve3000 program had on reading growth and reading proficiency of 1,531 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students from four Title 1 middle schools in Florida who were enrolled in remedial reading classes. Archival data from the Florida Standards Assessment English language arts provided pre-and-post data…

Reading achievement at the junior high level continues to be a concern in the United States and research has indicated that decreased reading motivation is one possible reason. Researchers have established that the use of authentic audiences leads to increased motivation and achievement at the elementary, high school, and college levels but have…

Culturally Relevant Pedagogical (CRP; Ladson-Billings, 1995) and textual strategic approaches to reading development are gaining acceptance and broader usage among students of all ages and walks of life. With this shift, quantitative measures of efficacy can confirm, bolster, and source new policies and strategies for implementation in new and…

With the inclusion of internet-based educational tools in the classroom, students are now required to comprehend online, which is different than comprehending in print. Educators are realizing that comprehension gaps are compounded when students are required to develop 21st literacies, like analysis and synthesis, especially when encountering a…

This study examined the effects of rich vocabulary instruction (RVI) on reading comprehension in a second-grade classroom by comparing the RVI model with the non-rich vocabulary instruction (NRVI) model. The effects of RVI and NRVI on reading comprehension were analyzed by examining for a significant association between the RVI model or NRVI model…

The principal of a southern Arizona elementary school, to be referred to as SMD Elementary School, had seen a drop in the standardized test scores for reading among the fourth and fifth graders, and she wanted to enable the students to improve their reading achievement. The goal of this study was to determine if New Century Reading, a…

The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to explore how pre-service elementary teacher education students form their reader identity, specifically how their reading identity is socially constructed by school literacy contexts and relationships. Social constructionism provided a theoretical framework for investigating how pre-service…

The much-criticized Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) is not aligned with current Common Core literacy standards, is expensive, has a low pass rate on the first try of 66%, and keeps People of Color from joining the profession (California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2019). The test maybe replaced with coursework. Critics…

In a mideastern US school district, culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students were not meeting proficiency on the state reading assessments. Elementary teachers in the district were expected to use culturally relevant teaching (CRT) strategies during literacy instruction to help engage and motivate culturally and linguistically…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to determine if there were statistically significant differences between 3rd-, 4th-, and 5th-grade reading teachers in the Northeast Unites States, defined as participants and nonparticipants in the LETRS® professional development, in terms of teachers' self-efficacy in student…

Literacy supports every aspect of daily life, from learning new academic knowledge to active citizenship to finding and maintaining employment, not to mention the satisfaction and pleasure that can be experienced through using literacy to participate in leisure and recreation. Recognizing the vital nature of literacy, Toews and Kurth (2019) call…