This article summarizes the findings of research studies designed to improve the comprehension of expository text for students with learning disabilities. Twenty-nine studies were located that met the inclusion criteria. Interventions gleaned from the review were categorized as content enhancement (i.e., advance and graphic organizers, visual displays, mnemonic illustrations, and computer-assisted instruction) or cognitive strategy instruction (i.e., text structure, main idea identification, summarization, questioning, cognitive mapping, reciprocal teaching). Treatment outcomes are discussed in relation to the various instructional approaches, student characteristics (e.g., grade, IQ), instructional features (e.g., materials, treatment length), methodological features, strategy maintenance, and generalization components. Implications for classroom practice and future research directions are provided.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of an instructional intervention (schema-based instruction, SBI) that was designed to meet the diverse needs of middle school students by addressing the research literatures from both special education and mathematics education.Specifically, SBI emphasizes the role of the mathematical structure of problems and also provides students with a heuristic to aid and self-monitor problem solving. Further, SBI addresses well-articulated problem solving strategies and supports flexible use of the strategies based on the problem situation. One hundred forty eight seventh-grade students and their teachers participated in a 10-day intervention on learning to solve ratio and proportion word problems, with classrooms randomly assigned to SBI or a control condition. Results suggested that students in SBI treatment classes outperformed students in control classes on a problem solving measure, both at posttest and on a delayed posttest administered four months later.However, the two groups' performance was comparable on a state standardized mathematics achievement test. KEYWORDS: word problem solving, ratio and proportion, middle school students, schema- One of the major difficulties noted in this domain is that students tend to use additive rather than multiplicative solution methods (e.g., "to solve 6:14 = ?:35, they find the difference between 6 and 14 and subtract it from 35 to find 27:35 rather than seek multiplicative relationships," Fuson & Abrahamson, 2002, p. 213). Research in this domain has examined how children reason in various proportionality tasks and the extent to which developmental or SCHEMA-BASED INSTRUCTION 4 instructional factors influence proportional reasoning (e.g., Bright, Joyner, & Wallis, 2003;Lamon, 1993Lamon, , 2002Lo & Watanabe, 1997;Post et al., 1988). Proportional reasoning develops over time and "understanding at one level forms a foundation for higher levels of understanding" (Lamon, 2007, p. 637). Recommendations outlined in the research for developing children's proportional thought processes have included providing ratio and proportion tasks in a wide range of contexts (e.g., measurements, prices, rates) and ensuring that students have experienced conceptual methods before presenting symbolic methods such as cross-product algorithm for solving proportional problems (Lamon, 1999;Van de Walle, 2007).The topics of ratio and proportion are frequently encountered in elementary and middle schools in the form of word problems. Traditionally, word problems are used to teach "mathematical modeling and applied problem solving" (Van Dooren, De Bock, Hessels, Janssens, & Verschaffel, 2005, p. 58). That is, the word problem context provides a description of a problem-solving situation that requires responding to a question by executing "one or more operations (+, -, x, ÷) on the quantities in the problem" (Van Dooren et al., 2005, p. 58).However, word problem solving has proved to be a significant challenge for students, in part because it requires s...

This study compared number sense instruction in three first-grade traditional mathematics textbooks and one reform-based textbook ( Everyday Mathematics [EM]). Textbooks were evaluated with regard to their adherence to principles of effective instruction (e.g., big ideas, conspicuous instruction). The results indicated that traditional textbooks included more opportunities for number relationship tasks than did EM; in contrast, EM emphasized more real-world connections than did traditional textbooks. However, EM did better than traditional textbooks in (a) promoting relational understanding and (b) integrating spatial relationship tasks with other more complex skills. Whereas instruction was more direct and explicit and feedback was more common in traditional textbooks than it was in EM, there were differences among traditional textbooks with respect to these two criteria. Although EM excelled in scaffolding instruction by devoting more lessons to concrete and semiconcrete activities, traditional textbooks provided more opportunities for engaging in all three representations. However, EM emphasized (a) a variety of models to develop number sense concepts, (b) a concrete, or semiconcrete, to symbolic representational sequence, and (c) hands-on activities using real-world objects to enhance learner engagement. Finally, even though traditional textbooks excelled over EM in providing more opportunities to practice number sense skills, this finding may be an artifact of the worksheet format employed in traditional textbooks. At the same time, adequate distribution of review in subsequent lessons was evident in EM and in only one of the traditional textbooks. Implications for practice in accessing the general education curriculum for students with learning problems are discussed.

The purpose of this synthesis is to summarize the effectiveness of peer-mediated interventions on the mathematics performance of both students with disabilities and those at risk for mathematics disabilities. Meta-analytic techniques were used to calculate mean effect sizes for 17 studies that met inclusion criteria. Results indicate that peer-mediated interventions in mathematics are moderately effective for improving students' mathematics performance. Also, findings are strongest for students at risk for mathematics disabilities, elementary-aged participants, and mathematics computation content. Recommendations for future research and practical implications are discussed.

This study examined the effectiveness of a number sense program on kindergarten students' number proficiency and responsiveness to treatment as a function of students' risk for mathematics difficulties. The program targeted development of relationships among numbers (e.g., spatial, more and less). A total of 101 kindergarten students (not at risk: 22 control and 36 experimental; at risk: 18 and 25) from five classrooms in a high-poverty elementary school participated in the study. Using a quasi-experimental design, classrooms were randomly assigned to either the intervention (number sense instruction, NSI) or control condition. Results indicated significant differences favoring the treatment students on all measures of number sense (e.g., spatial relationships, more and less relationships, benchmarks of five and ten, nonverbal calculations) at posttest and on a 3-week retention test. Furthermore, the effects were not mediated by at-risk status, suggesting that NSI may benefit a wide range of students. Implications in terms of preventing early mathematical learning difficulties are discussed.