Teaching writing well poses several challenges in today's diverse classrooms. Despite a growing research base on teaching writing, outcomes for students with disabilities in secondary schools continue to be disappointing. Research in the naturalistic tradition that would help educators understand the knowledge and beliefs that influence teachers'…

Four male 9th-grade students with mild to moderate disabilities participated in a single case design that compared choral responding (CR) and a choral responding plus mnemonic device (CR+) during geography lessons. The authors used an alternating treatments design to evaluate the effects of the two strategies on students' on-task behavior and…

Learning in general education contexts enhances access to general curriculum content for students with disabilities. However, few intervention studies focused on general education content have been conducted in general education settings. The current study provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of a literacy intervention using…

The person-centred review (PCR) is a model for the review of a student's special educational needs (SEN) which places the young person and their family at the centre of the process. This mixed-methods, exploratory study investigated the views of 16 students with SEN aged between 10-11 years (Year 6) and 13-14 years (Year 9), and their…

Proficiency in writing increases opportunities in higher education, employment, and social relationships. Many students in the United States, however, are struggling writers. In particular, the writing performance of students with disabilities in secondary grades continues to lag behind grade level peers. The purpose of this article was to review…

This study examined the academic performance and preference of students with disabilities for two types of test administration conditions, computer-based testing (CBT) and pencil-and-paper testing (PPT). Data from a large-scale assessment program were used to examine differences between CBT and PPT academic performance for third to eleventh grade…

Adolescent literacy, or adolescents' ability to read, write, and communicate about the variety of texts they encounter in and out of school, has remained inordinately, and consistently, low for the past 20 years (NCES, 2010). Self-efficacy is a widely-used construct for measuring and predicting student achievement (Pajares, Johnson, & Usher,…

Check In/Check Out (CICO) is a secondary tier intervention for those students who are not responsive to universal tier, school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports. The present study extended the implementation of CICO to six students with emotional and behavioral disorders in a residential facility whose behaviors were maintained…

Motivating adolescents to learn can be a challenge! Often distracted and easily bored, these kids are also critical thinkers capable of thriving in the classroom while learning 21st century skills. How do we hold their attention and develop their abilities? Research shows that all students--regardless of learning style, disability category, or…

Inclusion of students with disabilities in district-wide and state assessments is mandated by federal regulations, and teachers sometimes play an important role in rating these students' work. In this study, trained teachers rated student proficiency in performance assessments in language arts and mathematics in third, fifth, and ninth grades. The…

One important goal of Swedish educational policies is to integrate all pupils within regular education, irrespective of disability or difficulties in school, and to adjust education to individual needs. The aim of this paper was to explore how schools "socially construct", i.e. identify and support, pupils with special educational needs.…

The universal design for learning (UDL) approach to teaching, a method to create access for all students, can be extremely effective when adequate time, energy, and creativity are spent to apply it. The purpose of this article is to encourage the use of the universal design for learning approach to ensure the successful inclusion of all students…

The purpose of this study was to determine the most effective of three instructional methods for teaching mathematics to secondary students with emotional and behavioral disorders. A single-subject alternating-treatments research design was used to compare three instructional methods: direct teach, computer-assisted instruction, and a combination…

A pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of EnvisionIT, a 10-unit web-based curriculum designed to teach secondary students information technology (IT) skills in the context of transition-planning activities. Fifteen high schools were stratified by socioeconomic status and randomly assigned to the…

This year the Center on Education Policy analyzed data on the achievement of different groups of students in two distinct ways. First, it looked at grade 4 test results to determine whether the performance of various groups improved at three achievement levels--basic and above, proficient and above, and advanced. Second, it looked at gaps between…