Improvements in students' learning achievement have lagged behind in low-and middle-income countries despite significant progress in school enrollment numbers. Large-scale early grade reading assessments (e.g., "Annual Status of Education Report" [ASER], 2013; EdData II, n.d.) have shown low reading rates and worryingly high…

Many American students struggle to perform even basic comprehension of text, such as locating information, determining the main idea, or supporting details of a story. Even more students are inadequately prepared to complete more complex tasks, such as critically or analytically interpreting information in text or making reasoned decisions from…

It is in the best interest of the American educational system that novice reading teachers be provided with the opportunity for ownership of their pedagogy and be enabled to forge an identity that legitimatize them as an integral part of the educational arena. Nurturing a teacher's critical self and critical pedagogy will address the needs of the…

The author proposes that teachers of critical literacy must not only decenter texts as infallible authorities, but also decenter teachers as infallible (textual) authorities. She outlines problematic aspects of pursuing critical literacy as outcome, where there is heavy emphasis on having students parrot the teacher's viewpoint, and of pursuing…

Among the types of assessment the closest to daily reading instruction is formative assessment. In contrast to summative assessment, which occurs after instruction, formative assessment involves forming judgments frequently in the flow of instruction. Key features of formative assessment include identifying gaps between where students are and…

This study aimed to discover semantic and syntactic problems Persian native speakers might have while reading English and Persian texts and different strategies they use to overcome those problems. To this end, a convenient sample of 40 intermediate students studying English Literature at Shiraz University was selected. Twenty of them were asked…

In this single-case design study, we examined the effects of an adapted dialogic reading intervention on the oral language and vocabulary skills of four Latino preschool children who were at risk for English language delays. We used adapted dialogic reading strategies in English and two literacy games that included a rapid naming activity and…

Teaching children to inquire, discuss ideas, and defend thinking about a literary text is a key aim of the common core state standards (CCSS). This article describes how four third-grade, male struggling readers successfully co-constructed meaning during a discussion based reading intervention rooted in philosophical inquiry. Three elements that…

Reading difficulties are experienced by children either because they fail to decode the words and thus are unable to comprehend the text or simply fail to comprehend the text even if they are able to decode the words and read them out. Failure in word decoding results from a failure in phonological coding of written information, whereas, reading…

This study employed a sample of 60 pre-service teachers to examine the guiding effects of understanding critical reading theories on using external reading strategies such as note-taking and underlining when confronting an ironical literary text. The study broke down the teachers into one control group of 30 teachers and one experimental group of…

Early literacy skills are critical for success in school, yet many children fail to obtain these skills in a timely manner leaving them unable to perform at minimal academic expectations. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of word box instruction, a research-based intervention designed to promote phonemic awareness, on the…

We used a multiple baseline across word lists design nested within a multiple baseline across participants design to examine the effects of instruction delivered using an iPad® app on sight word fluency and oral reading fluency of six first graders identified as at risk for reading failure. In Study 1, three students participated in…

In 2013, the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program identified Manitoba as the province having the lowest reading achievement scores of grade 8 students across Canada. These poor results serve as an indicator that changes to the way teachers support struggling readers in the classroom and beyond its walls are essential. Struggling readers require…

We all want children to become engaged and enthusiastic readers. Yet teachers are often challenged by students who, because of histories with a standardized and irrelevant curriculum, poor pedagogy, or unique learning styles, have become alienated from the written word. Impatient with teachers' ignorance and desiring to be liberated from…

Based on the Lexile® Framework, a scientific approach to reading and text measurement backed by more than two decades of ongoing research, Achieve3000®, a web-based differentiated reading program used by HISD [Houston Independent School District], is designed to improve student reading ability and comprehension of increasingly complex texts by…