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This study examines the efficacy of using a digital gamed platform in acquiring phoneme-grapheme correspondences of closed syllables with short vowels. Fifty-five fourth-grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners navigated through five digital escape rooms where they learned, practiced, and produced target graphemes. Mixed methods analyses found that spelling competence in the intervention group as opposed to the control group improved in the post-test and continued to improve significantly in the delayed post-test. Following analysis of the participant interviews four themes emerged. Autonomous learning and self-monitoring were the dominant themes followed by engagement and motivation, self-confidence and self-esteem, and peer learning and social interaction in decreasing order of prevalence. Combining learning with play while participants navigated within the digital learning environment proved to be an effective method of teaching young EFL learners to spell. The results of this intervention contribute to recent research in the post-COVID-19 era and mirror OECD goals for the 21st century which have highlighted the need for effective digital platforms that promote independent learning while maximizing student engagement.

The number of students learning German as a second language (L2) is steadily increasing. Unfortunately, studies reveal that less-proficient school performance affects a larger proportion of these students and additional behavioral problems can create even greater learning barriers. In order to master a language, the focus is not only on vocabulary, but also on reading, and studies show that multi-component intervention in reading and L2 acquisition is particularly promising. Therefore, this multiple baseline study focuses on a multi-component storytelling intervention on vocabulary, reading, and letter sound fluency of low-achieving first graders with German as L2 with and without behavioral problems (N = 7). The intervention was implemented 3 times a week over a 6-week period. Results show significant large to very large effects on vocabulary and moderate to large effects on letter sound fluency and reading, providing indication for the positive impact of storytelling on multiple aspects simultaneously for the focused sample.

Reading difficulties that are not addressed at the primary level continue to exist at the secondary level with serious consequences. Thus, it is important to provide struggling students with specific reading support. In particular, many students with learning disabilities (LD) and emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) demonstrate reading obstacles and are at risk for motivation loss. A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of a motivational reading racetrack as peer-tutoring on the word reading skills of secondary students with LD with and without EBD. The intervention was conducted through 4–5 baseline and 16–18 reading units three times a week for 15 min over 8 weeks. The results showed positive effects indicating a highly effective treatment. In addition, follow-up results were also promising. Our findings indicate that this multicomponent intervention has a positive effect on the word fluidity of low-achieving students in secondary education with LD and/or EBD.

Educational research has shown that a high ability to use effective strategies, a broad fount of metacognitive knowledge, and fostering of adaptive beliefs about writing lead to better text production performance. Explicit instruction enhances development in each of these areas. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of a writing intervention program (based on the strategies “POW” and “WWW”) on the quality and length of stories composed by Greek grade 5 and 6 English Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The study was conducted with 177 participants from two Greek elementary schools, who were identified as below average, average, and above average writers, and who were assigned to one of two groups: the experimental group was provided with explicit instruction on narrative writing, the control group received no direct teaching and followed the guidelines outlined by a traditional writing program. It was postulated that explicit instruction would have a positive impact on students’ writing skills. Data analysis yielded statistically significant differences between experimental and control conditions. The students in the experimental group outperformed the ones in the control group in all writing assessments (pertaining to text quality and length). They also revealed a significant improvement in their writing quality and length, whereas no meaningful changes appeared in the control group. In addition, the improvement of writing quality was obvious for the below average, as well as, for the average and the above average students, supporting the notion that there was an improvement irrespective of the students’ level. These results speak to the practical effectiveness of explicit writing instruction to improve the story composition skills in grade 5 and 6 EFL learners. It is postulated and may be the subject of future research that the positive impact on students’ L2 composing skills will be transferable to their L1. Conclusions and pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

Derived math fact fluency becomes more imperative across all mathematical content areas during a students’ mathematics development. However, many of them struggle to automate the most basic math facts sufficiently and therefore are not able to deal with more complex mathematical problems. This leads to the fact that many of them are already left behind in the early years of their school careers whether they have diagnosed learning disabilities or not. In this single-case research project, we evaluated a peer-tutoring approach designed to extend the number of automated single-digit addition tasks for four struggling elementary students through a multicomponent motivational system including immediate correction of errors, graphical feedback on performance, positive reinforcement, direct instruction flashcards, and a racetrack game. A multiple-baseline design (ABE) across subjects was applied to assess the effects of the treatment. The results indicate significant and large effects of the intervention on the number of automated math facts for the participants. This substantiates the assumption that the math-fact recall performance of struggling students can be improved through the method of peer tutoring even with the limited resources available in everyday school life.