This article describes the metacognitive processes in which good readers engage before, during, and after reading and the strategies instruction that fosters these processes. Benchmark School, a school in Media, PA for struggling readers, is provided as an example of how a grades 1-8, across-the-curriculum strategies program was developed based on the research of the late 1980s and early 1990s and continues to evolve in the 21st century as an evidence-based program. Examples of present-day, across-the-curriculum strategies instruction are provided.
This is a case study of Benchmark School, which educates 6-to 15-year-olds with a history of school failure. Grounded theory methodology was employed to generate a theory about how the school promotes achievement. Many elements potentially promoting academic achievement were identified, including ones informed by psychological theory and research (e.g., evidence-based literacy instructional practices, strategies instruction, conceptually focused content instruction, many mechanisms to motivate students) but also, selective admissions, human resources (i.e., well-trained teachers, supportive parents, skilled counselors), small class size, and a supportive physical context. The theory that emerges is that many elements must be articulated to remediate struggling elementary students, although some are more important than others.
This article describes the interplay of goals, teacher development, and assessment in the context of a yearlong research and development project. The aim of the project was to integrate the teaching of science, reading, and writing processes in a conceptually based, constructivist curriculum for middle school students who read below grade level. A performance‐based assessment was designed and implemented to determine the level of student awareness and control over the processes taught during a unit of instruction. Interviews with science teachers and supervisors revealed the important interaction of curricular goals, the performance assessment, and instructional practice.
First, second, and third graders (N ¼ 102) who had completed from 1 to 3 years of literacy instruction in other schools and had experienced failure entered a private school for struggling readers and received instruction in either of 2 types of systematic phonics programs over a 4-year period. One group received a keyword analogy method (KEY) that taught them to decode words by analogy to 120 keywords. The other group received KEY enriched with instruction in grapho-phonemic analysis (KEY-PLUS). Results showed that students receiving KEY-PLUS read and spelled words significantly better during the first 2 years of instruction than students receiving the KEY method. The same differences remained evident, although not significant, during Years 3 and 4. The programs did not differentially improve reading comprehension. Some effects of IQ were found. Results are consistent with developmental theories indicating the foundational importance of graphophonemic analysis for retaining written words in memory to facilitate word reading and spelling.Learning to read is not easy for some students. Research has indicated that a major source of difficulty involves learning to decode and spell words (Siegel, 2003;Snowling, 2000). The difficulty centers on the phonological
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