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This chapter provides an overview of the current state of reading performance for adolescents. First, a review of empirical findings investigating different theoretical models is provided. Second, a summary of research regarding intensive reading interventions for adolescents that provide 80 or more instructional sessions is described. Finally, we summarize findings from both longitudinal studies of middle-school students with reading difficulties and reading and behavior interventions to address comorbidity of reading difficulties with challenging behavior.

A substantial number of students read significantly below grade level, and students with disabilities perform far below their non-disabled peers. Reading achievement data indicate that many students with and at-risk for reading disabilities require more intensive reading interventions. This chapter utilizes the theoretical model of the Simple View of Reading to describe the benefit of early reading instruction, targeting both word reading and word meaning. In addition, evidence is presented supporting the use of word meaning instruction to improve accurate and efficient word reading for students who have failed to respond to explicit decoding instruction.

Students with learning disabilities characteristically demonstrate unexpected underachievement and continued learning challenges in spite of appropriate instruction. Because reading is fundamental to competency of all future endeavors, reading interventions have been the focus of considerable public and professional attention. Intensive interventions that reflect students’ cognitive processing challenges, address the need for feedback, and take into consideration the learning environment have been associated with improved student learning outcomes.

While elementary and secondary struggling readers differ, the targeted reading skills are the same. At all levels, fundamental skills such as phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and comprehension are crucial to reading success. At the elementary level, phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle are best taught through direct and explicit instruction; vocabulary instruction emphasizes word recognition. Fluency problems can be addressed through such activities as repeated or timed readings.

As students progress to the secondary levels, vocabulary demands become increasingly related to content acquisition, and a combination of generative and non-generative approaches to vocabulary instruction is recommended. At the secondary level, fluency practice is best coupled with comprehension instruction, which can include the explicit teaching of strategies and opportunities for students to work collaboratively. While there are no simple solutions to the challenges experienced by struggling learners, appropriate, differentiated, and intensive interventions can increase the likelihood of improved learning outcomes for these students.

In the United States, a significant number of primary grade students struggle to achieve fluency in reading. Research indicates that achieving proficiency in the foundational reading competencies is a common difficulty manifested in a majority of these students. We will explore approaches for helping younger students develop proficiency in word recognition, reading fluency, and ultimately comprehension. A number of the research-based strategies can be used with the whole class which creates a context for inclusive literacy education.

Academic outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain poor, especially in the area of reading, in particular, reading comprehension. In recent years, researchers have begun to investigate subcomponent skills of reading comprehension for children with ASD in order to better understand its development and potential interventions to enhance outcomes. This chapter highlights the current knowledge in the field in regards to the key cognitive and language skills associated with reading development for individuals with ASD. These include emergent-literacy skills, word-reading and decoding, reading fluency, oral language, and social cognition. Additionally, the chapter makes suggestions for future research in this area, in particular the need to conduct research to establish evidence-based practices to better support the syndrome-specific reading needs for this population.

Response to Intervention (RtI) models require valid assessments for decisions regarding whether a student should receive more intensive intervention, whether interventions improve performance, whether a student has improved sufficiently to no longer need intervention, or whether a student should be considered for a formal evaluation for special education. We describe assessment tools used currently in RtI models in reading in kindergarten through third grade, along with how these tools function in multiyear implementations of RtI. In addition to the measurement tools, we describe concerns regarding when RtI models are judged for their effects on reading improvement and the attrition that may inflate these results.

Purpose – This chapter describes an assessment tool that not only contains all of the good qualities of formative assessments, in that it informs teaching and is based on systematic observation of the learner engaged in reading and writing, but also possesses the same good qualities as standardized assessments, in that a student's performance can be compared to other students over time.

Methodology/approach – The chapter begins with an overview of Clay's interactive literacy processing theory. The value of using observation is discussed and a case is made that when observations are conducted in a systematic way, the assessment can possess all the same qualities of a good standardized instrument. Two first-grade students' assessment data from the Observation Survey (OS), one a struggling reader and the other working at low-average level, are shared in order to demonstrate how to interpret the assessment data using Clay's literacy processing theory and how to use those interpretations to inform teaching.

Practical implications – Systematic observation of children engaged in reading, and writing continuous text, allows the teacher to observe behaviors that can be used to infer what a reader is using and doing while reading.

Value – This assessment information can be used to effectively scaffold literacy instruction and a child's reading performance.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to synthesize the existing research that describes children who are unresponsive to generally effective early literacy interventions. Studies were selected in which: (a) children ranged from preschoolers to third graders and were at-risk for reading disabilities; (b) treatments targeted early literacy; (c) outcomes reflected reading development; and (d) students’ unresponsiveness to intervention was described. The search yielded 23 studies, eight of which were designed primarily to identify characteristics of unresponsive students; the remaining 15 studies focused on treatment effectiveness, but also identified and described unresponsive students. A majority of unresponsive students had phonological awareness deficits; additional characteristics included phonological retrieval or encoding deficits, low verbal ability, behavior problems, and developmental delays. Methodological issues are discussed that complicate comparisons of non-responders across studies. A secondary purpose of this chapter is to describe findings from recent longitudinal studies that support the hypothesis that non-responders may be the truly reading disabled. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

More than ever before, researchers and policymakers expect general education classroom to be the first line of defense in efforts to prevent reading difficulties. Preventing reading difficulties through evidence-based beginning reading instruction research features prominently in the 2002 No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB; P. L. 107-110) and in the 2004 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The purpose of this chapter is to describe the experimental and quasi-experimental methodological approaches that have been used to examine the effects of professional development in reading on teachers’ instructional practices and students’ reading outcomes and to evaluate the chain of causal linkage in the more recent studies. The first section of the chapter provides a brief history of relevant research. The second section summarizes findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) Report and those of a recent review of the literature (Clancy-Menchetti & Al Otaiba, 2006). The final section synthesizes what we have learned from the research.

Purpose – The chapter provides the reader with an overview of the major components of informal reading inventories (IRIs) and how they can be administered to answer specific questions about students’ reading behaviors. The focus then shifts to how IRIs can be used to help teachers target instruction to better meet students’ instructional needs.

Methodology/approach – The authors describe how educators can use the results of IRIs to analyze a student's strengths and areas of need, align those findings with research about six types (clusters) of readers (Valencia & Buly, 2004), and select one or more of the strategies recommended in the chapter to provide instruction related to that student's specific areas of need.

Practical implications – In addition to the numerous instructional recommendations provided for the six clusters of readers, the chapter includes a detailed scenario of how one teacher used the results of an IRI to plan instruction for a struggling reader, a process that could be replicated by educators who read the chapter.

Social implications – The chapter suggests how small groups of educators could work together to determine which of their students to assess with an IRI and, after assessing, to discuss how they will use the results to target instruction for those students.