Instruction in regular letter-sound relationships is a key element of teaching children to read. However, in the English language, many words have irregular spellings (e.g. "said," "are," "yacht"). What is the best way to help children learn to read these words? To date, a number of different viewpoints have been put…

Drawing on the literature on infrastructure for implementing instructional improvement, the authors explain the role of three infrastructural pillars for reading instruction. They discuss how curriculum, professional development, and leadership are mutually supportive, thus illuminating the pillars for reading reform at the classroom, school, and…

This essay explores three practices commonly discussed in relation to each other: slow writing, slow reading and slow philosophy. These have close connections, and all of these are joined by practices of philosophical teaching and dialogue, which can also be carried out in a 'slow' manner. 'Slow' here means careful, deliberate and…

Research is needed to address the possible benefits of blended learning as a form of reading instruction in elementary schools. Blended learning combines teacher-led instruction with digital technology. We had an opportunity to evaluate the effects of blended learning for students in kindergarten through fifth grade within a charter school…

Reading is a crucial skill for students to develop, not only as they enter school but also as they continue throughout K-12 education. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) is one means of providing supplemental support for students to build the foundational key areas of reading--so they can use reading to learn in later schooling years. One such…

A group of words, labeled the core vocabulary, can be expected to be prominent across all texts. Scholarship made possible by digital databases of words and new analytic systems has shown that approximately 2,500 morphological families account for most of the words in texts--an average of 91.5% of all words in the Common Core State Standards…

This dissertation is comprised of five distinct chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to Direct Instruction reading interventions as well as an explanation of the challenges experienced by struggling readers identified with emotional disturbances. The next three chapters serve as standalone papers. Chapter 2 is a systematic literature…

We introduce a novel method to test a classic idea in developmental science that children's attention to a stimulus is driven by how much they can learn from it. Preschoolers (4-6 years, M=4.6) watched a video where a distracting animation accompanied static, page-by-page illustrations of a storybook. The audio narration for each storybook page…

This article describes experiences of a literary coach working with a first-grade teacher to make Pro-Black culturally relevant pedagogy foundational to the coaching relationship. Responding to the failure of mandated programs to support Black students' literacy proficiency and the success of culturally relevant pedagogies, they addressed the…

For educational research findings to impact educational practice, effective communication is essential. One communication device is a summary that consolidates research literature and presents it in a practitioner-friendly format. There has been little research on how to design educational research summaries effectively, especially not for early…

This study aimed to design and validate the Teacher-Reported Reading Engagement Survey (TRRES) to complement self-reported measures and comprehensively assess reading engagement among adolescents. Drawing insights from literature and expert feedback, a new 10-item Likert scale instrument was created, capturing three facets of reading engagement:…

Explain-in-Plain-English (EiPE) questions are used by some researchers and educators to assess code reading skills. EiPE questions require students to briefly explain (in plain English) the purpose of a given piece of code, without restating what the code does line-by-line. The premise is that novices who can explain the purpose of a piece of code…

Introduction: As technology progresses, individuals will be increasingly expected to solve digital tasks. At the same time, many worry that a high use of connected devices will reduce young people's ability to perform with accuracy long cognitively challenging tasks online. Methods: We examine whether 15-year-old students' ability to accurately…

Neuroanatomy education has evolved and improved over the years, driven by advances in technology that have led to the development of innovative interactive digital and immersive learning resources. While neuroanatomy educators have been keeping pace with and harnessing these technology advances, many medical students still struggle to apply their…

In consideration of the international landscape relating to pathways to higher education and college admissions systems, an increased focus has been placed on college readiness within the discourse pertaining to this area in recent years. Academic success in secondary school is critical for college readiness and progression to higher education,…