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This study compared two approaches for teaching a history unit on the Civil Rights Movement (1954–1965) to middle school students with learning disabilities (LD) in general education settings. The curriculum was designed to make the content challenging, but accessible. The major text was the documentary, Eyes on the Prize (DeVinney, 1991). Readings were brief and included primary sources from the time period. Curriculum content was constant in both instruction conditions, but in the experimental condition teachers isolated the video selections into brief 2- to 3-min segments to facilitate learning and used peer dyad activities to foster active processing of content. Students with and without disabilities in the experimental condition scored significantly higher on 2 of 3 content measures.

This study explored beginning special education teacher quality and the role that knowledge and skill for teaching reading plays in defining quality. The authors examined the relationship between beginning teachers' knowledge for teaching reading and their classroom practices during reading instruction and, further, relationships between classroom practices and student achievement gains on various reading measures. Findings revealed special education beginning teachers were somewhat knowledgeable about teaching reading, but this knowledge did not contribute a significant portion of variance to classroom practice. Practices in classroom management, decoding practices, and providing explicit, engaging instruction accounted for a significant portion of variance in student reading gains. Implications for further research and the preparation and induction of beginning teachers are provided.

This paper synthesizes key findings to facilitate the translation of research into classroom practice and provides guidelines for how effective instructional practices might be implemented, supported, and sustained in schools. Excerpts from a case study are presented to show how research-based instructional approach translates into classroom practices in a local school district that tailors the approach to the realities of the local situation. Abstract. In this paper, we review what the research suggests are the functions that allow a person in a leadership role to facilitate the translation of research into classroom practice. We describe how these functions were used to translate research into classroom practice in 2 school districts that are part of the Elementary and Middle School Technical Assistance Center (EM-STAC) project, a national research-to-practice effort.Examples of how these principles were put into practice and why different technical assistance approaches were used to implement research-based practices in a primary and middle school setting are discussed. We conclude with reflections on the intricate nature of effecting change at the local level, and the progress that can be made within those intricacies.

This study compared 2 methods of teaching lowperforming ninth-grade students to comprehend short stories. One method was an interactive comprehension strategy based on schema theory and story grammar. This method focused on identifying the important story grammar elements such as problem/conflict, main character, attempts, resolution, twist, character information, reactions, and theme. The comparison condition, traditional basal instruction, lasted 4 weeks. 32 students, including 6 special education students who met the screening criteria, served as subjects. Students were paired according to pretest scores and handicapping conditions and randomly assigned to 1 of the 2 treatments. Students' performance was analyzed on 4 measures (story grammar questions, basal questions, written retells, and theme questions) drawn from curriculum-referenced tests. The results indicated that students who had story grammar instruction performed significantly better on basal, story grammar, and theme questions, and on written retells, than students who had traditional instruction. Maintenance tests indicated that the effects of the intervention lasted for 2 weeks in all areas.

Randomized field trials were used to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG), a professional development model, on first grade teachers' reading comprehension and vocabulary instruction, their knowledge of these areas, and on the comprehension and vocabulary achievement of their students. The multi-site study was conducted in three large urban school districts from three states. A total of 81 first grade teachers and their 468 students from 19 Reading First schools formed the analytic sample in the study. Classrooms observations of teaching practice showed significant improvements in TSG schools. TSG teachers also significantly outperformed control teachers on the teacher knowledge measure of vocabulary instruction. Confirmatory analysis of student outcomes indicated marginally significant effects in oral vocabulary. Impact of the Teacher Study Group 3 Teacher Study Group: Impact of the Professional Development Model on Reading Instruction and Student Outcomes in First Grade ClassroomsOver the past thirty years, a body of research on promising practices for effective professional development (PD) has slowly emerged (e.g., Berman & McLaughlin, 1978;Huberman & Miles, 1984;Ball, 1990;Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001).Although this body of research has had a profound impact on the field, a good deal of uncertainty remains. Advocated PD practices, though sensible and compelling, have rarely been widely field-tested and evaluated using rigorous research techniques (Guskey, 2003;Desimone, 2009).The majority of the studies in PD encompass a broad array of methodologies (surveys, comparative case studies, qualitative, mixed methods) that rely heavily on teacher self-report and case study analysis. We possess very little empirical evidence on the critical role these promising practices play in enhancing teacher learning of effective instructional strategies, and more importantly student learning (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008). Rarely do studies link PD to student outcomes, and the few that have attempted to do so have often yielded disappointing results. In fact, Garet et al. (2008) found that large-scale PD that included many of these practices did lead to significant increases in teachers' knowledge and observed teaching practice, but failed to enhance student reading achievement significantly.To address this need for effective PD, we developed a PD program, the Teacher Study Group, and tested its effects on teacher and student outcomes using randomized control trials. In this article we delineate the features and format of the PD program, and describe the multi-site randomized control trials study. Impact of the Teacher Study Group 4 Teacher Study GroupThe Teacher Study Group (TSG) PD program used in this study was based on our earlier research efforts to identify strengths and weaknesses of PD strategies for translating research into teaching practice in high poverty schools (Gersten, Morvant, & Brengelman, 1995;Gersten & Brengelman, 1996;Gersten, Darch, Davis, & George, 199...

The report of the national response to intervention (RTI) evaluation study, conducted during 2011–2012, was released in November 2015. Anyone who has read the lengthy report can attest to its complexity and the design used in the study. Both these factors can influence the interpretation of the results from this evaluation. In this commentary, we (a) explain what the national RTI evaluation examined and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the design, (b) clarify the results of the evaluation and highlight some key implementation issues, (c) describe how rigorous efficacy trials on reading interventions can supplement several issues left unanswered by the national evaluation, and (d) discuss implications for future research and practice based on the findings of the national evaluation and reading intervention research.