The rhetoric of the reading wars has become more than just an armchair academic debate, but is encoded now in the very laws, house and senate bills, and legislative policies of the majority of the states. In turn, these policies are powered by staggering sums of money such as the 90-million-dollar investment of Fulton County, Georgia in a revamp…

To support reading comprehension and content acquisition among middle school students with reading disabilities and difficulties, content area teachers must employ evidence-based literacy instruction. This type of instruction is especially crucial in the content areas because the majority of students with disabilities--those who typically struggle…

While the effect of Readers Theater (RT) on English oral reading fluency has been extensively investigated, research on the effect of RT on adolescents' English reading and listening comprehension was scant and yielded different results. This research aimed to explore how RT instruction influenced English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students,…

In response to McLean (2021), Laufer (2021) makes three claims which are either not supported by research or are based on studies with important limitations. First is that a vocabulary size, instead of a level, can be used to match learners with lexically appropriate materials despite test creators and research not supporting this. Second is that…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of providing mindset intervention in addition to reading intervention compared with only reading intervention for fourth graders with reading difficulties. Reading intervention was provided daily in 45 min sessions throughout the school year. Mindset intervention occurred in small groups…

Monolingual oriented practices that largely dominated reading instruction in most multilingual African contexts in the twentieth century are increasingly being challenged in this century. Despite this, there remains a dearth of research on the concurrent use of more than one language during reading instruction in these contexts. In this…

Background: Reading is one of the most complex and exclusively human mental activities. It is a foundational skill for all learning, whether at primary, secondary or tertiary levels. If students do not master effective strategies for reading, they may not be successful independent learners. The ability to comprehend written texts and answer…

Research regarding the role of reading fluency for middle school-aged students with disabilities is limited, particularly for students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study compares the roles--repeated silent reading (RSR), oral reading (OR), and repeated oral reading (ROR)--on grade-level comprehension for students…

Responding to the need for educational stakeholders to be equipped to plan for constantly evolving developments in policy and practice for learners with learning and behavioral disabilities, this edited collection collates contributions from authors who predict what the next big things in the field will be, and offer recommendations on how to…

While teaching summer school may require similar skills as reading intervention during the year, rarely are summer school instructors reading specialists. To support these instructors providing high quality instruction, this research study examined the impact of the 95 Phonics Booster Bundle: Summer School Edition (SSE). The SSE is a set of 25…

The purpose of this action research was to address the issue of first-grade students being unengaged and unmotivated to read independently for the recommended 20-minute block of time in class. Students were also not electing to read independently during any free time they had in class. This research was designed to investigate how implementing a…

Background/Context: Literacy skills are critical to understanding information presented in written or oral formats and communicating effectively with others. These skills are important to students' success in school and later in life, including improved individual health and economic outcomes, increased civic engagement, and enhanced community…

Some students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD), specifically conduct disorder (CD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), characteristically display oppositional behaviors that adversely affect their academic performance and cause gaps in their learning. The problem studied was negative behaviors exhibited by students with EBD,…

This study explored special education teachers' experiences in using interactive technology to teach reading comprehension to students with Autism through an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The research question that guided this study was: How do special education teachers perceive the usefulness of interactive technology in reading…

With the vast increase of English learner populations enrolled in schools across the United States, there has been significant attention being placed on educational practices to best serve the needs of EL students. This awareness has been due to the widening proficiency gap between EL students compared to their native English-speaking peers.…