Fewer than half of all students across the nation qualify as proficient readers. Compounding this problem are the underlying challenges to students and their teachers of learning disabilities and dyslexia. Professional development courses can help teachers address these deficiencies. The purpose of this study was to determine how graduates of the…

Despite ongoing efforts to reform schools, the longstanding racial/ethnic achievement gap still persists, particularly for boys of color; in many cases, the gap is widening, particularly for students transitioning from elementary to middle school. The focus of this study was to examine the impact of effective instructional practices for struggling…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of iPad-assisted reading instruction for fourth-grade students' oral reading fluency and their attitudes towards reading. Three fourth-grade students at-risk for reading disabilities participated in an iPad-assisted repeated reading programme that integrated repeated reading, vocabulary…

Current reading assessments put emphasis in the five components of reading competency, neglecting the self-efficacy needs of students. When students struggle with one of or all five components of reading competency, they could have negative feelings about themselves as a reader. This article offers teachers and effective user friendly assessment…

This paper looks at the effects of an intervention, based on fluency oriented reading instruction (FORI), on the motivation for reading among struggling readers in First Class in Irish primary schools. The intervention took place in learning support settings in three primary schools located in urban educationally disadvantaged communities in North…

To inform the development of gamified assessments, this study explored how students with or at risk for reading difficulties in Grades 6-8 (N = 202) perceived and interacted with a decoding assessment designed with gamification characteristics. Three data sources enhanced the methodological triangulation: observations and scores from testing,…

This study investigates students' fear in academic reading as well as the influence of perceived difficulties in their reading comprehension. The paper aims to study the level of anxiety as experienced by undergraduate students in academic reading. Data from 25 respondents were analyzed quantitatively using Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) developed…

Most people have struggled with reading in one situation or another, depending on their appreciation for the content, their prior experiences, and the texts. This department column shares ways for educators to help literacy learners unlock their potential with instruction anchored in their skills, knowledge, ways of learning, interests, and…

This article offers teacher educators' practical methods for, and shares findings from a study of, developing teacher candidate dispositions for inclusive literacy. Based on the extensive teacher disposition literature, the authors discern that dispositions for inclusive literacy include the "belief" that all students have valid ways of…

Almost 20% of English pupils still experience difficulties with reading despite the use of a predominantly phonics-based approach that works well for most children, but not for all; therefore, other approaches need to be explored. The Integrated Group Reading (IGR) programme involves an inclusive approach to targeted teaching led by class teachers…

Recently, education and literacy researchers have acknowledged educational merit in guided reading that incorporates interactive and authentic reading texts, such as graphic novels, which meet the needs of today's predominantly multimodal learners ( Jennings, Rule, & Zanden, 2014; Kist & Pytash, 2015). This qualitative study explores…

Background: Predicated on Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD), dynamic assessment (DA) integrates teaching with assessment in a single activity by providing mediation to help learners perform beyond their independent functioning and simultaneously promote learner development. It advantages over traditional psychometric tests in that DA…

This descriptive case study examines preservice teachers' beliefs about themselves as teachers of reading as they develop identities for teaching through experiences in a Foundations of Literacy course and their tutoring relationships with elementary students during an accompanying practicum. As the preservice teachers learned about foundational…

Many students of color who are also identified as "struggling" readers are likely to have negative experiences in school. In this article, I discuss the findings of a case study examining how reader identities emerged in and through language for such students. The discourse data analyzed here concern an interactional pattern in which the…

Framed by a sociocultural understanding of literacy acquisition and learning, this research study investigates methods content area teachers can use to meet the needs of adolescent English language learners and native English speakers who struggle to read texts in school. The interventions were designed to both expand students' concepts of…