Reading is the most valuable skill children must master early in schooling. Unfortunately, many students struggle to read and may be identified as having a Reading Disability (RD). In this dissertation, I explored the usefulness of the Response-to-Intervention (RtI) framework for identifying children with RD by examining the use of 1st and 2nd…

More and more, schools are considering the use of progress monitoring data for high-stakes decisions such as special education eligibility, program changes to more restrictive environments, and major changes in educational goals. Those high-stakes types of data-based decisions will need methodological defensibility. Current practice for…

This study reports the findings of a six-week summer literacy program conducted at a transitional housing facility for homeless families in the Southwestern region of the U.S. This study is grounded on the body of knowledge on students' literacy and homelessness. The intervention included one-on-one instruction by tutors. This study examined…

"Time to Read" is a volunteer mentoring program that recruits volunteers from the local business community to spend one hour of company time each week working on a one-to-one basis with primary school children aged 8 to 9 years with the aim of improving reading skills. The authors first evaluated the program in 2006-8 using a randomized…

Organized around 10 key areas for teaching and learning literacy--phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, story comprehension, comprehension of informational text, questioning for understanding, discussion for understanding, narrative writing, and writing to learn--"Promoting Literacy Development" offers 50 clearly written,…

Within a response to intervention (RTI) framework, students are typically identified as "academically at-risk" if they score below a specified cut-point on a benchmark screener. Students identified as at-risk are provided with an intervention intended to increase achievement. In the following technical report, we describe a process for…

Within a response to intervention (RTI) framework, students are typically identified as "academically at-risk" if they score below a specified cut-point on a benchmark screener. Students identified as at-risk are provided with an intervention intended to increase achievement. In the following technical report, we describe a process for…

This technical report presents results from a cross-validation study designed to identify optimal cut scores when using easyCBM[R] reading tests in Washington state. The cross-validation study analyzes data from the 2009-2010 academic year for easyCBM[R] reading measures. A sample of approximately 900 students per grade, randomly split into two…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were a significant difference in math and reading academic achievement scores between eighth-grade students attending year-round calendar schools and eighth-grade students attending traditional calendar schools based on the TCAP. In addition, this study investigated math and reading achievement…

Background: Early prediction of reading disabilities in Chinese is important for early remediation efforts. In this 6-year longitudinal study, we investigated the early cognitive predictors of reading skill in a statistically representative sample of Chinese children from Beijing. Method: Two hundred sixty-one (261) native Chinese children were…

We trained parents to tutor their child through implementing a repeated reading procedure designed to increase oral reading fluency. Our study was conducted over a two-week winter break at the homes of the parent and child. Baseline data for each child were collected using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to determine an instructional reading…

The influential report "Teaching Children to Read: An Evidenced-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction," published by the National Reading Panel in 2000, presented recommendations for daily literacy instruction in five key areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,…

Two versions of RAVE-O, a fluency-based reading intervention were examined over a 2-intervention period: a 9-month, 44-hour afterschool intervention program, and a month long, 44-hour summer intervention program. 80 children in grades 1-3 were tested on the two subtests of the Test of Word-Reading Efficiency and were assigned to one of 6 groups…

Turning around chronically low-performing schools requires a multifaceted school-wide, systematic effort that includes strong leadership and data-based decision making. School-wide efforts to turn-around low-performing schools should address the academic, social, and behavioral needs of all students. One evidence-based, systematic school-wide…

The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) assessed the English literacy of adults in the United States for the first time since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey. The assessment was administered to more than 19,000 adults (ages 16 and older) in households and prisons. The tasks included on the assessment were designed to measure…