The purpose of this study was to determine if cross-age peer tutoring of fifth graders with learning disabilities and kindergarten students would have an effect on reading attitudes and reading achievement. A tutoring program was designed to meet the literacy needs of fifth grade special education resource students as well as provide enriching…

Gaps in reading performance between Anglo and Latino children are associated with gaps in vocabulary knowledge. An intervention was designed to enhance fifth graders' academic vocabulary. The meanings of academically useful words were taught together with strategies for using information from context, from morphology, from knowledge about multiple…

For children whose everyday speech differs greatly from the School English (SE) they encounter in academic materials and settings, it was hypothesized that greater familiarity with SE would be associated with more successful early reading acquisition. Sentence imitation and reading skills of 217 urban African American students in kindergarten…

Researchers agree that increased parental involvement is necessary if low-SES, underrepresented student populations are to overcome a history of reading deficiencies. However, the fact remains that parental involvement alone is insufficient for achieving desired academic outcomes. Teachers must design interactive/constructivist homework…

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the average 17-year-old today is no more proficient at reading or mathematics than his counterpart in 1970. Some progress has been made by 9- and 13-year-olds, but the gains evaporate by the time these students reach the end of their K-12 experience. The average 17-year-old…

Prereferral intervention is a modification of instruction before referral to accommodate underachieving students and reduce the number of inappropriate special education placements. This article reports on evaluation of a Tier 3 responsiveness to intervention (RTI) program in an urban school district with 96% minority (mostly Hispanic) students.…

This article discusses the efforts made by the states by adding reading and math exams in previously untested grades as well as setting new performance standards. A survey conducted by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center found that at least 11 states set new achievement levels in reading/language arts. About nine states did so in…

The goal of Chapter I programs is to enable disadvantaged children to attain grade level success in school. This study attempts to determine the extent to which students in a predominantly African American school achieve grade level success as a result of their Chapter I reading supplementary participation. The reading gains of the Chapter I…

This article compares the development of print and braille reading in children who are blind and sighted in relation to Chall's stage model of reading development. Chall's model includes a prereading period, in which concepts are developed; middle stages, in which skills that are necessary for decoding text are developed; and later stages, which…

It is widely believed and lamented that U.S. students perform poorly on international comparisons of academic achievement. For example, Edward Silver reports that U.S. seventh- and eighth-grade students performed poorly on the mathematics section of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 1995) and that this indicates "a…

To engage in productive learning behaviors, students need to have a realistic understanding of their academic skills. The authors examined the perceived competence of students with different patterns of academic achievement. Four groups of 3rd graders were assessed at 2 time points: (a) children with difficulties in mathematics but not in reading…

This study found that between 2000 and 2002, the percentage of students with visual impairments in the general student population of Texas was close to a previously quoted figure of 0.15%. In addition, the percentage of students with visual impairments who were identified as totally blind was found to be 4%?5% higher than the previous estimate of…

We were asked by Merit Software to conduct a quasi-experimental research study to evaluate the effects of its reading software on middle school students. Because the No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes the importance of evidence-based interventions and has set improving students reading comprehension as a goal, we agreed to take on this project.…

This paper describes characteristics of 10-year-old children (n=422) with normal reading ability, but with some signs of dyslexia. Findings indicated these children obtained different results on five measures associated with dyslexia than did other normal achievers without such signs. Measures were underachievement at word recognition, spelling,…

This article aims to present strategies and discussion about how teachers can adapt the curriculum in order to provide authentic needs-based programmes. Identifying students' strengths and needs gave us clear directions as to what we needed to teach. In this article, the research team discuss how they successfully raised the reading achievement of…