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Reading fluency, which is critical for developing reading comprehension, is a fundamental skill in both school and life. However, many students with learning and behavioral disabilities are disfluent readers. To improve reading performance for these learners, educators should implement practices shown by reliable research to cause improved reading fluency. In this chapter, following a discussion of reading fluency and its importance, we describe two instructional practices that educators might use to improve students’ reading fluency: colored filters and repeated reading. The research on the colored filters is, at best, inconclusive, whereas the research literature suggests that repeated reading is an effective practice. To bridge the gap between research and practice and improve the reading fluency of students with learning and behavioral disabilities, educators and other stakeholders should prioritize the use of research-based practices (e.g., repeated reading) but avoid practices without clear research support (e.g., colored filters).

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.

This chapter provides a descriptive review of recent intervention research practices intended to improve the literacy skills of students with emotional or behavioral disabilities (EBD). A systematic search procedure identified 21 investigations that had been published in the past five years. These studies are described within the categories of peer-mediated literacy interventions, reading interventions, and writing interventions. Generally, it has been found that such practices as peer mediation, direct instruction (DI), cognitive text mapping, and writing strategy instruction including the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model have led to substantial improvement in the literacy skills of students with EBD. These strategies were apparently successful because they served generally to focus student attention and to provide cognitive models for executing literacy tasks. Implications for practice and future research are provided.

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.

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.

Purpose – To provide classroom teachers with an overview of a range of assessments that can be administered either individually or to a group.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter is organized from early literacy skill assessments (both individual and group based) to comprehension and standardized tests.

Findings – Provides detailed information on skills required for each element of reading, design of assessment, intended purpose, and process of administration.

Research limitations/implications – This is not an exhaustive list, the authors strove to highlight the most reliable and practical assessments from a large body of possible choices.

Practical implications – This is a valuable source for classroom teachers who are provided with a wide-range of assessment choices covering the breadth of reading skills with extensive details on each.

Originality/value of paper – Teachers need a range of assessments to choose from to make decisions at the individual, class and school level.

Purpose – This chapter profiles a summer reading clinic that utilizes graduate students (clinicians) to provide diagnostic literacy intervention for students in grades one through six who struggle with reading and writing. The chapter asserts that struggling readers can become successful when instruction is designed around research-based principles of teaching and learning. A description is provided of the instructional routine employed at the clinic that focuses on fluency and has been shown to assist students in making significant improvements in their literacy progress.

Methodology/approach – The authors describe how teachers and intervention specialists work together to provide an effective intervention to the students that emphasizes a specific guided oral fluency routine known as the Fluency Development Lesson (FDL). Each step in the FDL is explained. Prior to instruction, clinicians administered an informal reading inventory to gain baseline data about the students in the areas of word recognition, fluency, and comprehension and to subsequently inform instruction. During the fifth and final week of the program, posttests were administered. T-Tests indicated that students made significant progress (p <.001) from pretest to posttest in all areas measured.

Limitations – The authors acknowledge that the study is small in scale, the intervention period was limited, and the results may have been influenced by outside factors beyond their control.

Research implications – The study's primary purpose was to improve the reading outcomes of the students involved. The reading clinic setting is ideal for further FDL research including its impact on older students and the incorporation of digital texts on student performance. Additionally, readers of the chapter are encouraged to apply the methods and processes to their own classrooms.

Originality/value – This chapter shows how a summer reading clinic strives to apply research-based, common sense factors that matter most in teaching struggling students to read in intervention and classroom settings. Some of the factors such as the importance of instructional routine, time-on-task, text selection, targeted teaching, and instructional talk are considered key to the successful implementation of the FDL and the clinical experience.

Increasing reading achievement has become a nationwide priority resulting from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2005 (Dole, 2004). Due to this emphasis, coupled with the fact that an elementary school’s success is generally not correlated with test scores in social studies, teachers of the elementary grades find limited time to teach the social studies curriculum. However, in effort to combat this tragedy, elementary educators should be taught and encouraged to integrate content area teaching with literacy strategies. Using the appropriate.

To examine the utility of multiple reading speeds during rereadings toward enhancing comprehension and application of subsequently gained knowledge.

Representations of slow, mindful reading as well as analyses of eye training and speed reading techniques are described to serve as the theoretical foundation for the meta-strategy – read fast, read slow (RF/RS).

This meta-strategy encompasses aspects of rereading, eye training exercises, and speed reading; it is derived from a cognitive concept that a blueprint can be formed from reading at an increased speed from one’s normal speed. Further, the gaps along with that information which was not fully understood from the initial reading can be secured by following the initial fast read with a slower than normal reading of the text. The idea is to refine that which is important versus unimportant (main idea vs. details), and enhance the surface level of understanding into one that is critical and analytical after having been confronted against existing schematic notions.

Concepts of text structure, word reading automaticity, and content interest are natural by-products of using the RF/RS strategy. Together, these benefits allow for holistic growth and moreover, provide successful reading experiences. Successful reading prompts additional reading, as it has been widely established that better readers read more often and more widely.

The impact of different screen-based typography styles on individuals’ cognitive processing of information has not been given much consideration in the literature, though such differences would imply different learning outcomes. This study aims to enrich the current understanding of the impact of reading in single- and multiple-column types on students’ cognitive processing.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) was used to record and analyze the brain signals of 27 students while reading from single- and multiple- column layouts.

The results showed a significant difference in students’ cognitive load when reading text from different types of columns. All students exerted less processing efforts when text was presented in two-column format, thus experiencing less cognitive load.

Using EEG, this study examined the neural consequences of reading in single- and multiple-column types on cognitive load during reading. The findings can be used to enrich the current instructional design practices on how different typographical formats facilitate learners’ cognitive performance.