Education reform has been on a new path over the last 15 years; a path that leads to more accountability, more choice for students and parents, highly qualified teachers, as well as, best practices in instruction. In an effort to move along the path of reform and as a result of previous reform, the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA reviewed the field…

Since 2005, the National Indian Education Study (NIES) has provided educators, policymakers, and the public with information about the background and academic performance of fourth- and eighth-grade American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in the United States. NIES was administered in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 as part of the National…

This study attempted to provide a systematic framework for phonics instruction for beginning readers in literature-based classrooms based on relative frequency of phoneme-grapheme occurrences found in three distinct corpora. The first corpus contained an academic word list. The second corpus contained the running text from 363 books identified as…

As teachers, administrators, and members of intervention teams use student performance data to inform instructional decisions and monitor implementation of tiered instruction in a Response to Intervention (RTI) model, assuring fidelity of implementation or treatment integrity continues to be a challenge. This article describes how one school…

Schools have a legitimate and vital role in providing Americans with a better and more accurate understanding of the Muslim world. Given the cultural and ideological issues at play in any understanding of Islam, the theories and practices of critical literacy can provide useful guidance to teachers. The purposes of this article are to counteract…

This qualitative study analyzed preservice teachers' literacy memories. Each literate person has a history of becoming literate. As university students who plan to be future teachers think about their own literate histories, they begin to construct their own beliefs about learning to read and the teaching of reading and writing. These beliefs may…

In an attempt to bring readers "on-the-ground" insights about effective urban literacy instruction, the authors interviewed three literacy educators who have extensive experience with learners in urban school environments. Each of them has taught literacy and developed teaching practices for urban schools, as well as conducted action research to…

This study analyzed characteristics of classrooms where recreational reading is being implemented. It scrutinized those classrooms that housed successful programs and looked for common elements among them. Specifically, we explored the physical, teacher, student, and program factors within these classrooms that contributed toward their success.…

Debates persist over the knowledge needed to teach elementary reading effectively. In one commonly held view verbal ability is what matters most and the best approach to improving teacher quality is to recruit teachers who themselves are good readers. Others argue that teachers need special forms of professional knowledge that differ substantially…

Current legislation has exerted tremendous influence on the instructional methods used by reading teachers. Historically, however, neither mandated curriculum nor forced change has proven consistently successful in helping sustain long-term change in teachers' instructional practices or student achievement gains. Using theories of motivation and…

The teaching of reading is a critical element of elementary education. Educators are divided about how to prepare reading teachers. This qualitative case study contributes to understanding the phenomena of reading teacher preparation. Descriptive research methodology and NVivo software was used to systematically examine the nature and content of…

While the overall school-age population grew by only 2.6 percent between 1995 and 2005, the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) grew by 56 percent--a number that can only be expected to grow considerably in the near future. Mainstream literacy professionals across the country, typically monolingual European American women, struggle to…

In this article, we describe and report on the results of a study in Texas that tested 2 models of professional development for classroom teachers as a way of improving their practices and increasing the reading achievement of their students. To meet this goal, 44 participating teachers in grades 2-8 learned to teach their students cognitive…

In this article, we describe and report on the results of a study in Texas that tested 2 models of professional development for classroom teachers as a way of improving their practices and increasing the reading achievement of their students. To meet this goal, 44 participating teachers in grades 2-8 learned to teach their students cognitive…

This study traced changes of epistemology over six weeks as seven undergraduate university students tutored young readers in a university-based reading clinic. Three research questions provided guidance for this study--(a) What dimensions are predominant in undergraduate preservice teachers' initial ideas about literacy instruction, (b) what…