Elementary school students are often placed into groups with peers of similar reading ability for leveled guided reading instruction. Through this practice, students are differentially exposed to reading skills, strategies, and texts that are presumed to match their reading ability. This widespread practice is problematic given that (1) current…

This study aimed to explore instructional practices used to teach words with irregular spelling patterns by Spanish-speaking teachers in 2nd and 3rd grade of elementary school. A sample of 320 teachers from Guatemala, Ecuador, and Spain answered an online survey, which included the Spelling Instructional Practices Scale. Item Response Theory and…

Students with disabilities (SWDs) are being educated in the general education classroom more than ever before. As the nation moves toward increasing science education, more must be understood about how science teachers are supporting SWDs in their classrooms. The present study analyzed the responses of five middle school science teachers on how…

As K-12 classrooms in the U.S. grow in linguistic diversity, there is a need to develop and evaluate the effects of instructional approaches that build knowledge of academic vocabulary for multilingual learners. While multimedia vocabulary instruction may represent a promising avenue for improving word learning for linguistically diverse…

Supporting the wide range of readers in secondary disciplinary classrooms can involve a number of helpful scaffolds and instructional routines, and the role of "reading purpose" may be particularly important. Research suggests that reading purposes impact reading processes and outcomes, and also that disciplinary experts have…

This evaluation study explored a two-year literacy reform effort in a school district with 10 of its 13 elementary schools in the improvement process. Schools were placed in three groups. Group 1 (four schools, 80 teachers) implemented new instructional practices in Year 1 and then added a new curriculum. Group 2 (four schools, 102 teachers)…

Recent media reports suggest that teachers and teacher educators are using the three-cueing system model to justify an overemphasis on context to help students read unfamiliar words. In this conceptual article, the authors argue that although these critiques are exaggerated, the current climate provides an opportunity for teacher educators to…

The main purpose of this research was to examine how the Argument-Based Inquiry (ABI) approach affects students' science achievement, inquiry skills, and scientific writing skills and to determine what the students thought about the ABI. This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods design using a quasi-experimental research method…

This case study of teacher research explores the utility of framing the writing development of adolescent writers in terms of their discursive identities and strategic behaviors. By merging our understandings of these frameworks, I argue that we can examine how adolescents' goals, values, and beliefs associated with writing inform the strategic…

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a multi-component homograph processing intervention complemented by Executive Function (EF) skills on the performance of struggling readers. The researchers focused on measuring improvements in literacy, metalinguistic abilities, cognitive/EF skills acquired during the intervention, and…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a brief experimental intervention that integrated spelling practice into a systematic phonics approach to initial reading instruction for at-risk children. The effects of this intervention were studied by means of a randomized controlled trial design that compared the experimental…

Writing is a critical literacy skill that emerges in kindergarten. The research literature has only addressed transcription skills of kindergarteners and has failed to address text generation. The purpose of this action-research study was to investigate the effect of oral language instruction that focused on narrative text structures on…

Early writing is a critical factor in children's literacy development and academic success. This study observed and analyzed videos from twenty-eight teachers working in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and first-grade classrooms in under-resourced schools. The coding process focused on categorizing the type (language- and code-based) and demand…

The purpose of this systematic observation study was to improve our understanding of small-group reading instruction for kindergarten students at risk for reading difficulties (RDs). We aimed to observe and document activity types addressed as well as instructional practices and materials employed during small-group instruction, with a particular…

We investigated the effectiveness and social validity of a 17-week teacher-implemented whole-class Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) story writing intervention with 6-7-year-old students in New Zealand. We used a mixed methods intervention design. In the quantitative strand, we conducted a quasi-experiment in which students either…