The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey revealed that 90 million adults performed at the two lowest levels of literacy (U.S. Department of Education, 2003). As legislation advances the mandate for greater accountability in adult education programs, it is paramount that research is conducted that identifies programs that align with the federal…

Independent Reading (IR) is a reading intervention that many schools implement to help students develop essential reading skills and improve academic achievement on various standardized assessments. However, recent IR studies have yielded mixed findings on the effectiveness of IR as a reading intervention to help struggling students increase…

Responding to the need to prepare elementary teachers for the increasing linguistic diversity in schools, this book presents key foundational principles in language and literacy development for linguistically diverse students. Readers see these ideas enacted through the journeys of real students as they progress from 1st through 6th grade. What…

Research has consistently demonstrated that literacy skills are associated with a host of benefits that are both substantial and long lasting. Given the implications of reading skill development, efforts to understand the most effective methods of teaching students how to read are consequential. Fortunately, substantial research has been conducted…

This study examined the effects of Reading Recovery on children's motivational levels, and how motivation may contribute to the effect of the intervention on literacy achievement. Prior studies concluded that Reading Recovery was positively associated with increased student motivation levels, but most of those studies were limited…

The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of the reading fluency program Read Naturally®. This program employs passage reading and comprehension questions. These are graded at various instructional levels (kg. to adult). The program employs several practice procedures such as passage reading along with a pre-recorded audiotape,…

In the past, neurobiology for reading was identical with neuropathology. Today, however, the advancement of modern neuroimaging techniques has contributed to the understanding of the reading processes of normal individuals. Neurobiology findings today have uncovered and illuminated the fundamental neural mechanism of reading. The findings have…

The purpose of this intervention study was to examine the use of a metacognitive strategy--the Comprehension, Check, and Repair Strategy--on strategic reading behavior, nonstrategic reading behavior, and reading comprehension of students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH). A multiple baseline design was used across 3 teacher-student dyads.…

This article explores a variety of contemporary picturebooks that offer the picturebook as an object of construction, as a character, and as portals to other narrative levels. These metafictive devices break the traditional boundaries between fictional and real worlds by involving the reader in the narrative, talking to them directly, and…

Over the past 50 years, substantial changes have occurred in the texts used for beginning reading instruction. This article analyzes four perspectives that have most influenced these texts in the United States over this period and the changes in these texts in relation to those in the nation's demographics and young children's literacy-related…

This study describes an intervention that uses morphology to support word learning within comprehension instruction of content-specific texts. The intervention is detailed such that the morphological understandings used to support word choice and word learning activities are clear and can be replicated by researchers and educators. Six main…

Parental involvement in their children's schooling is in recognition that establishing the context in which a child attends school is important. Reading to Learn (RtL)was implemented in two districts of Kwale and Kinango in Kenya and of Amolatar and Dokolo in Uganda. This paper looks at parental involvement and their experiences with RtL. Data are…

The purpose of this study was to examine the existing research on early literacy and the types of approaches used in schools at the time of this writing. Although researchers could not agree on which types of reading programs are the most effective, there was a large amount of research supporting the work done in 2000 from the National Reading…

The authors reflect on findings from three studies of different approaches to reading intervention (Al Otaiba et al., Denton et al., and Miller et al., all found in this issue). It is argued that the science of interventions for reading disorders is advanced and that these and other related studies provide a strong evidence base for guiding…

Individual reading conferences with students are an integral part of the reader's workshop format. Conferring provides the opportunity for students to reveal their thinking and reading processes to the teacher. However, to gain an in-depth understanding of students, teachers need to focus more on what the student can teach them during the…