A daily 5- to 6-minute individual reading fluency intervention with 49 middle school students with learning disabilities used repeated readings focused on phonics, sight phrases, and oral reading. Intervention was for 6-9 months, 10-18 months, or 19-25 months. Significant growth in reading level and reading rate was found for all three of the…

This introduction to a series of articles on the scaffolding metaphor in learning disabilities research introduces each article and raises two main concerns: the lack of careful delineation of how scaffolding becomes operational in research studies and constraints in the use of scaffolding arising from communication problems. (DB)

This critical analysis of the scaffolding metaphor for the field of learning disabilities first reviews the origins and early applications of the metaphor and criticisms of the metaphor raised by others. It proposes an enriched version of the metaphor which emphasizes the communicational dynamics and conceptual reorganization involved in…

Studied the stability of scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) over a 3-year period for 54 rural school students with learning disabilities. Mean full scale IQ scores did not change significantly between the measurement periods, but 20% of students showed significant change, and 33% of the sample showed…

In this study of concept mapping and expository writing, 12 eighth-grade students with reading difficulties composed descriptive essays under three conditions: no-map support, hand-map support, and computer-map support. Both hand-maps and computer-maps resulted in increases in number of words, number of T-units, and holistic writing scores.…

This article discusses how to teach children with mild disabilities to identify the five different types of expository text structures: main idea, list, order, compare/contrast, and classification. It then explains a strategy for each text structure type that can be taught to children to improve comprehension in content area classes. (Contains…

This article chronicles a teacher's journey from resource teacher for students with learning disabilities (LD) to novice inclusion teacher and then expert inclusion specialist over a 7-year period. It concludes that the teacher's interpersonal and communication skills are most important, although skill at anticipating student difficulties and…

This article summarizes viewpoints expressed at a British special education conference on whether it matters if children acquire a standard pencil grip. Some participants felt children should be encouraged to use the standard tripod grip, while others believed children should be allowed to choose their own style of grip. (CR)

Four middle school students with learning disabilities and low mathematics performance received schema strategy training in problem schemata (conceptual understanding) and problem solution (procedural understanding). Results indicated that the schema-based strategy was effective in substantially increasing the number of correctly solved word…

A study involving 111 secondary students with learning disabilities investigated differential reading performance on narrative versus expository text. Students had more difficulty with expository text than with narrative text in terms of reading fluency and comprehension. However, effects for comprehension were mediated by the type of question…

Relations among social status, current service delivery, and service delivery preferences were examined in 42 students with learning disabilities (LD), 40 low-achieving, and 42 average/high-achieving students in grades 2-4 and 6-7. Most students preferred pullout service to in-class service. Only among LD students were self- and peer-rated social…

Describes a multisensory approach to making science accessible to students with profound learning disabilities. (WRM)

Twenty students with learning disabilities in inclusive fourth and fifth grades were interviewed to determine their experience with school-related loneliness and coping strategies. Most students felt lonely at school when they were bored or lacked a companion and coped by engaging in a solitary activity or seeking companionship. (Contains…

This study surveyed 162 faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, concerning instructional accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Respondents' beliefs about the helpfulness of and need for instructional accommodations were associated with the faculty provision of accommodations. Also, a perception of support from the…

Forty Spanish-speaking children with reading disability (RD) were matched for age and reading level with normal readers. Since RD children performed more poorly than younger normal readers on a word/nonword naming task in orthographically transparent Spanish, results suggest their poor phonological skills were due to a deficit in phonological…