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Purpose – This chapter argues that classroom teachers need to be more effective and efficient in order to meet the needs of all students and support their grade-level achievement. Given the challenges of contemporary schools – mandated curricula, intensive monitoring and intervention, high-stakes testing, and increased student diversity – teachers are expected to incorporate research-based practices in sophisticated ways. This chapter challenges teachers to assess and enhance their instructional effectiveness.

Approach – This chapter explores ways for teachers to make literacy assessment and instruction more appropriate, productive, and successful, which requires that teachers expand their repertoire of methods and consider ways to deliver instruction expeditiously.

Content – Examples of inefficient practices preface a discussion of some common hindrances to more streamlined instruction. The chapter demonstrates the use of literacy assessment to support more flexible instructional activities, focusing on literacy delivery modes that align with increasingly more difficult text. Subsequent discussion details numerous literacy experiences, including variations of teacher-led, collaborative, guided, partner, and student-led reading. Seven guidelines are presented. The conclusion summarizes an example of how a reading coach used assessment to synthesize an effective intervention to support the marked improvement of a third-grade reader.

Implications – The chapter's goal is that teachers consider ways to combine experiences that increase effectiveness, efficiency, and engagement. Readers can explore ways to use assessment to improve their instruction. Numerous suggestions and activities accompany the discussion.

Value – The chapter content challenges teachers to streamline and sophisticate their literacy instruction and demonstrates ways to combine literacy experiences that foster student achievement and engagement.

Successful implementation of Response to Intervention frameworks in schools requires general and special education teachers to have well-integrated knowledge bases for providing instruction and intervention in reading and behavior. Implementation-focused approaches to changing teacher behavior, favored traditionally in special education, however, are unlikely to help teachers acquire such knowledge. In this chapter, we discuss the knowledge and practice that defines expert teachers in reading and behavior and how such expertise might be achieved through practice-focused approaches to initial teacher education and professional development.

Students with learning disabilities (LD) have a wide range of academic needs. Since the passing of P.L. 94-142, significant research has been done on effective interventions for this group of students. Starting with the Learning Disabilities Research Institutes through the recent Handbook of Learning Disabilities, reviews of lines of research make several broad ideas about interventions clear. Primary among these is that students with LD can learn if provided with appropriate, effective instruction. Specifics about this idea and its implications are discussed in the following chapter.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to describe a synergistic “hybrid” model of Response to Intervention (RtI) that combines individualized effective Tier 1 classroom instruction with powerful early intervening services. First, we provide an overview and explain how RtI traditionally has been conceptualized. Next, we illustrate how to implement a hybrid model that focuses on beginning reading instruction and also incorporates additional school-level resources. Finally, we will discuss implementation issues related to identifying children who need additional intervention and propose directions for future research.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information about each source is provided. The paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Research over the last decade or so has made it clear that quality teachers matter to student achievement. What is less clear is the ways in which they matter and how we can prepare such high-quality teachers. Nowhere is this lack of clarity more evident than in special education, where we have few studies on teacher quality and even fewer studies on the type of preparation opportunities that would lead to high quality. Thus, it is difficult to make evidence-based decisions about how quality special education teachers should be defined and prepared. As a field, we have to turn to research in general education to provide a sense of some of the dimensions of teacher quality and effective teacher education. In this chapter, we provide a summary of the research on characteristics of highly qualified teachers and what we know from the research on teacher education and professional development that might foster these qualities, both in general and in special education. Part of our discussion centers on the concerns surrounding this body of research and the challenges of applying the findings to the field of special education. Although these challenges pose considerable problems, we are optimistic that potential solutions exist and can be reached through an alignment of initial teacher education and induction.

Purpose – To identify effective literacy instructional strategies and methods based on assessment. Also, to provide information on literacy experts that teachers may seek advice from as they work with striving readers.

Approach – A review of literature and the research on teaching striving readers were examined.

Practical implications – Reading is an important determining factor in efficacious learning and overall literacy; students must possess the necessary literacy skills to become successful and productive citizens in an information age. Throughout the chapter, a striving reader is presented while offering the reader an authentic example of a striving reader. The strategies, methods, and experts offer best practices; these will enhance the student(s) literacy skills.

Originality/value of paper – Educators utilizing the information provided in this chapter will be enhanced in their ability to effectively teach their students.

Young children write to learn the alphabetic code, take notes to help them remember, and provide meaningful text to others. These are cognitively and linguistically complex processes. Reciprocal relationships among the development of writing, the purposes of writing, and the learners of interest impact instructional approaches and student outcomes. Teachers can increase success when they provide explicit and systematic self-regulation and writing instruction, view children as collaborators in the process, provide scaffolding that gradually shifts the responsibility to the children, and adapt instruction to meet the abilities and interests of the children. Effective instructional practices for young children with disabilities or who are at risk, are presented, for example, scaffolded writing, the use of graphic organizers, and self-regulated strategy development.