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The purpose of the study was to assess early literacy skills and examine the presence and stability of challenging behaviors across the critical threshold of the kindergarten school year. Students' (n = 337) literacy performance (letter sound fluency, word attack, and phonological awareness) and challenging behaviors (teacher ratings of inattention/hyperactivity, mood/affect, and defiance/aggression) were measured in the fall and spring. Changes in student behaviors were classified as "(a) Elevated Stable", "(b) Average Stable", "(c) Increased", or "(d) Decreased", based on the relation of scores to normative and clinical cutpoints and to changes observed from fall to spring. Students' literacy growth patterns varied by type of behavior. In terms of defiance/aggression, students classified as "Decreased" demonstrated the strongest growth. By contrast, the level of challenging behavior was most relevant for inattention/hyperactivity, and behavioral stability was most relevant for mood/affect. After describing major implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

As part of standards-based reforms, there is increasing emphasis on ensuring that students with moderate intellectual disabilities (ID), including students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), learn to read. There is also converging evidence that explicit teaching of letter sounds, phonics, and sight words is effective for this population, but that students' responsiveness varies. A critical part of individualizing reading instruction for students with disabilities is the reliable assessment of progress and mastery of reading skills. However, assessment of many students with ID and students with ASD is challenging because of attention, behavioral, and communication issues related to testing situation; therefore, obtaining consistent results often proves to be a difficult task. We hypothesized that alternate assessment presentation formats, as a testing accommodation, would improve the reliability, validity, and consistency of assessment performance. In this study, three different presentation formats--word lists, flash cards, and PowerPoint presentation--were used when administering proximal, curriculum-based reading assessments to determine whether a particular format increased student engagement, reduced the need for prompts, and increased accuracy of identifying known items on the test. While statistical analyses did not support the hypothesis of a format by student effect, visual analysis of the data did suggest that the number of prompts required varied by student as a function of assessment format. Most noteworthy, assessment reliability, estimated with generalizability theory, indicated that reliability increased as a function of format by student. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED586421.]

The purpose of this study was to examine the promise and feasibility of a newly developed curriculum to teach early literacy skills to students with intellectual disability (ID) and students with low IQs. The curriculum texts were written to include familiar settings, high frequency words, natural syntax, and cumulative practice. A single-case design was used with multiple baseline across levels of instruction and included eight participants who had IQs spanning from 40 to 63. The study was conducted across one academic year in two private schools for students with special needs. Results showed that all eight students demonstrated significant growth on proximal measures of taught words, as well as growth on at least some curriculum-based distal measures. Additionally, the program was demonstrated to be feasible; the teachers implemented the intervention with high degrees of fidelity and expressed satisfaction with the effectiveness and practicality of the program.

Research examining effective reading interventions for students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades is limited relative to the information available for the early elementary grades. In the current study, we examined the effects of a multicomponent reading intervention for students with reading comprehension difficulties. We used a partially nested analysis with latent variables to adequately match the design of the study and provide the necessary precision of intervention effects. We examined the effects of the intervention on students' latent word reading, latent vocabulary, and latent reading comprehension. In addition, we examined whether these effects differed for students of varying levels of reading or English language proficiency. Findings indicated the treatment significantly outperformed the comparison on reading comprehension (Effect Size = 0.38), but no overall group differences were noted on word reading or vocabulary. Students' initial word reading scores moderated this effect. Reading comprehension effects were similar for English learner and non-English learner students.

The present study used a randomized control trial to examine the effects of a widely used multicomponent Tier 2-type intervention, Passport to Literacy, on the reading ability of 221 fourth graders who initially scored at or below the 30th percentile in reading comprehension. Intervention was provided by research staff to groups of 4-7 students for 30 min, 4 days a week throughout the school year (M = 90.45 lessons). Tier 1 instruction was observed to be of generally high quality and intervention fidelity was strong. Findings revealed small, average effects (ES = -0.14-0.28) in favor of intervention students on standardized measures of comprehension, but no effects on word reading or fluency measures. Exploratory analyses indicated that intervention effects may differ by students' comprehension abilities. Implications for intervention implementation and directions for future research are discussed.

The primary purpose of our research was to determine if a comprehensive, phonics-based, direct instruction reading program would be effective in teaching early reading and language skills to students with moderate intellectual disabilities (ID). Participants were 28 elementary students from 10 public schools in an urban school district and one urban private school who were randomly placed into treatment and contrast groups. Students in the treatment condition received daily, comprehensive reading instruction in small groups of 1-4 students for approximately 40 minutes per session. A broad array of measures was studied, including phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, comprehension, and oral language. Means favored the intervention group on all measures, with moderate to strong effect sizes. Statistically significant differences were found on most measures, including phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension. These findings demonstrated that students with moderate ID can learn basic reading skills given consistent, explicit, and comprehensive reading instruction across an extended period of time. (Contains 6 tables and 2 figures.)

Jacob, Bart, and Carl are children with intellectual disabilities (ID; i.e., mental retardation) who experience significant difficulty in learning to read. In the past, most research about reading methods for students with ID focused on teaching students to memorize sight words, a method that is clearly effective. Memorization of sight words is definitely useful and is an important part of reading; however, reading is more than memorizing sight words. Educators often assume that children with ID are not capable of learning to read beyond memorizing a limited corpus of sight words. The result is that educators often make little effort to teach students with ID to become fully literate, and only one in five children with mild or moderate ID achieves even minimal literacy skills. This article presents the stories of Jacob, Bart, and Carl which highlight both the potential for students with ID to become more fully developed readers and the challenges that they face during research-based reading instruction. Three centers, recently funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, are conducting studies to explore methods for teaching students with ID to read. Jacob, Bart, and Carl have been participating in a study that seeks to determine whether methods that are effective with at-risk students with average IQs are also effective for students like Jacob, Bart, and Carl. All three made great strides in their reading abilities because of intense, individualized daily instruction. All three made important progress on phonemic awareness and basic phonics skills. They are currently able to read very simple text independently and are on their way to becoming more fluent readers. However, achieving this success has taken a long time and has required persistent, careful instruction tailored to individual student progress and needs. Common instructional needs included struggles with memory, application of skills, mastery, and language. Behaviorally, modifications increased attention, promoted positive peer relationships, and maximized compliance. Responding effectively to individual challenges required the work of the entire team of educators, coaches, and researchers. With daily implementation of the research-based curriculum tailored to individual progress and needs, the students continued to grow toward acquiring first-grade-level benchmarks. The stories of these students confirm that teachers need to maintain high expectations and continue to provide high-quality research-based reading instruction for all students. Current research demonstrates the potential for reading ability in all students, including those with ID. (Contains 1 figure.)

As part of standards-based reforms, there is increasing emphasis on ensuring that students with moderate intellectual disabilities (ID), including students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), learn to read. There is also converging evidence that explicit teaching of letter sounds, phonics, and sight words is effective for this population, but that students' responsiveness varies. A critical part of individualizing reading instruction for students with disabilities is the reliable assessment of progress and mastery of reading skills. However, assessment of many students with ID and students with ASD is challenging because of attention, behavioral, and communication issues related to testing situation; therefore, obtaining consistent results often proves to be a difficult task. We hypothesized that alternate assessment presentation formats, as a testing accommodation, would improve the reliability, validity, and consistency of assessment performance. In this study, three different presentation formats—word lists, flash cards, and PowerPoint presentation—were used when administering proximal, curriculum-based reading assessments to determine whether a particular format increased student engagement, reduced the need for prompts, and increased accuracy of identifying known items on the test. While statistical analyses did not support the hypothesis of a format by student effect, visual analysis of the data did suggest that the number of prompts required varied by student as a function of assessment format. Most noteworthy, assessment reliability, estimated with generalizability theory, indicated that reliability increased as a function of format by student. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]