This paper presents a single-site case study to explicate some of the issues that relate to developing a genuine and successful role for Indigenous education workers (IEWs) especially those who reside in remote Australian communities. It draws attention to the lost opportunities for agency and leadership in culturally relevant literacy teaching…

This study evaluated the feasibility of the Knowledge, Language, and Inquiry (K.L.I.) intervention, designed to support Grades 3-5 multilingual students classified as English learners (ML-ELs) in building content knowledge, language skills, and reading comprehension through inquiry-based small-group instruction. Feasibility was examined across…

Purpose: This study examines the impact of the Amira Learning AI-powered reading platform on literacy outcomes for elementary students in 12 school districts in Louisiana during the 2023-24 school year. Methodology: Employing a quasi-experimental design aligned with the Every Student Succeeds Act Level II (Moderate Evidence) standard, a…

This mixed-methods, quasi-experimental efficacy study evaluated Just Right Reader's Take-Everywhere Literacy Packs™ with 399 kindergarten students across six schools in a diverse Texas district during the 2024-2025 academic year. This district had a consistent curriculum and access to decodable books, however treatment students received the…

Recent research suggests that learners should be provided with opportunities to negotiate meanings with other cultures and critically evaluate and reflect on their own culture. Texts have a great potential to provide such opportunities, especially in contexts where learners do not have the chance to experience other cultures through real-time…

Some strands of research on teacher cognition have remained predominantly cognitive and overlooked the socially-mediated nature of teachers' thoughts. One such strand is the research on teachers' pedagogical knowledge base, defined as the thought units/categories underlying teachers' instructional performance. To address this gap, the present…

Background/Context: Reading achievement declined drastically during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bailey et al., 2021). One report suggests more than one-third of fourth-grade students cannot read at a basic level and access to effective literacy instruction is particularly limited for minority students and students with learning disabilities (Ellis et…

Students with disabilities, like their economically disadvantaged counterparts, experience lower expectations and less demand for academic success from teachers. Students who experience both disabilities and social and economic disabilities may experience even less rigorous expectations from their teachers who experience only one condition or the…

Purpose: This commentary responds to the implications for child language intervention of Catts and Kamhi's (2017) call to move from viewing reading comprehension as a single ability to recognizing it as a complex constellation of reader, text, and activity. Method: Reading comprehension, as Catts and Kamhi explain, is very complicated. In this…

Taking Swedish secondary school students as a point of departure, this article focuses on aspects of teaching and learning critical literacy and specifically on what students identify as argumentative text structure. Challenges connected to teaching critical literacies can be considered quite big, since studies show that students have difficulties…

Most people have struggled with reading in one situation or another, depending on their appreciation for the content, their prior experiences, and the texts. This department column shares ways for educators to help literacy learners unlock their potential with instruction anchored in their skills, knowledge, ways of learning, interests, and…

In this systematic review of the literature, reading interventions for adolescent English language learners (ELLs) were evaluated to determine the state of the existing research, identify promising practices, and to guide future research. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed to determine if they met What Works Clearinghouse…

Reading and creating stories is a longstanding pedagogical approach to literacy learning in elementary school classrooms because stories offer personal and human experiences to which students can relate and respond. Stories, including digital forms such as short films, offer accounts of what it is to belong to a community and its worldviews and…

Wide vocabulary knowledge is associated with proficiency in reading comprehension and scores on tests involving comprehension. Yet assessments show that U.S. students at various grade levels have demonstrated no improvement in their vocabulary knowledge since 2009. Literacy expert Timothy Rasinski and colleagues argue that students need improved…

Play is an important activity in young children's lives. It is how children explore their world and build knowledge. Although free play, which is play that is totally child directed, contributes to children's learning, self-regulation and motivation, adults' participation in children's play is critical in their development, especially their…