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As a language teacher, teacher educator and researcher, to me the name Rebecca Oxford has always been synonymous with language learning strategies across the world and specifically the theme of its teachability. Rebecca has always stated that the language teacher's role includes strategy instruction even if it achieves only partial success. Research has focused almost exclusively on how reading comprehension strategies, the focus of this study, can be taught to learners, but the preparedness of pre-service teachers to teach reading strategies has seldom been the focus within initial teacher education programs. The purpose of this study was to determine participants' perceptions of teaching within a mixed reality simulation environment with a specific focus on the explicit instruction of reading comprehension strategies. A case study approach was utilized, and ten second-year pre-service teachers enrolled for the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree as well as one mentor teacher and one teacher educator were purposefully selected to participate in the study. The results indicated that the themes corresponded with the activities during the different stages of a mixed reality simulation action review cycle and included show and tell, collaborative brainstorming, deconstruction of the core teaching practice, anxiety and disbelief, pause and redo, coaching and feedback and focused reflection.

Background: The teaching of reading or reading instruction has largely been carried out in terms of well-developed pedagogies in the field. These pedagogical approaches are, however, derived from research and development in a broad international context, and are often adopted by and implemented in various country settings. Given the contextual variation and resource disparities in South Africa, we feel such settings where approaches are adopted and used to represent a 'one size fits all' approach can be less than ideal. Aim: To explore scientific approaches to reading instruction as alternative approaches that are context specific. Setting: This article questions reading instruction as prescribed in the National Curriculum of South Africa. Methods: A conceptual review of literature was conducted to distil and propose alternatives to the dominant discourses for reading instruction. Results: Given the resource disparities and contextual variations, we argue for and propose a structured approach to reading instruction. Conclusion: Such an alternative should consider scientific evidence, and the teaching of reading needs to be explicit and systematic as well as contextually relevant. We believe it holds promise for improvement in literacy rates as it provides flexible and adaptable approaches. Contribution: We advocate for an alternative approach to reading instruction that is grounded in scientific evidence and emphasises explicit, systematic, and contextually relevant instruction.

As evidenced by national data, a large proportion of students in middle school, content area classrooms in the United States (U.S.) may be considered developing readers. Evidence-based literacy practices and explicit instructional practices can support these students' literacy development. Yet, research suggests that teachers often miss opportunities to integrate evidence-based literacy practices to support students' access to text, and little is known about middle school teachers' use of explicit instructional practices. In this observation study, we document 17 U.S. middle school teachers' use of both explicit instructional practices and evidence-based literacy practices across 51 lessons in general education language arts, science, and social studies classrooms. We find that most explicit instructional practices and literacy practices were infrequently utilized across all content areas; within some content areas, some of these important practices were not used at all. We discuss the contexts in which explicit instruction and/or evidenced-based literacy instruction did occur, and the importance of school-wide literacy models and related professional learning opportunities to increase middle school content-area teachers' ability to support developing readers.

Explicit instruction is a high-leverage practice for special education and is associated with improved learning for students with disabilities (Hughes et al., 2019). The high-leverage practices are 22 critical practices in special education that are effective for improving outcomes for a broad range of students with and at risk for disabilities (Hughes et al., 2019). Reading interventions that use explicit instruction are effective for improving both younger and older students' reading skills (Flynn et al., 2012; Gersten et al., 2020; Herrera et al., 2016). Explicit instruction is an approach to teaching that is focused around a specific learning goal; to meet this goal, skills are clearly explained and demonstrated, and then students are guided through practice with support and feedback until they can perform the skill independently (Archer & Hughes, 2011). Intervention adaptations, such as making instruction more explicit, are embedded within a larger system of data-based individualization (DBI). DBI is a problem-solving process for intensifying interventions through the systematic use of data and intervention adaptations that has been shown effective for improving students outcomes across academic areas (Jung et al., 2018).

More than two-thirds of middle school students do not read proficiently. Research has shown that targeted interventions using explicit instruction methods can improve reading outcomes for struggling readers. A central feature of explicit instruction is the systematic implementation of instructional interactions, but it is not clear what specific instructional interaction practices lead to stronger outcomes for middle school readers. This study used a regression discontinuity design to compare the frequency and impact of instructional interactions experienced by U.S. eighth-grade students who received a targeted reading intervention (n = 1,461) with those who did not (n = 4,292). Results indicated that students who received intervention experienced far more instructional interactions with their teachers than did students who did not. However, the association between rates of interaction and student need in the intervention group was minimal, and the relationship between the rate of instructional interactions and reading growth was mixed. Implications for intervening with struggling students in the middle grades are discussed.

The study aimed to investigate cognitive and metacognitive strategies and products of cognitive and metacognitive processes that preservice science teachers engaged in while reading heat-temperature text after being exposed to no reading strategy instruction, explicit reading strategy instruction,and peer tutoring reading strategy instruction. This study differs from other strategy teaching studies in terms of determining the cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies used by individuals after being exposed to different types of reading strategy instruction, which which was specifically designed to improve conceptual understanding. This study employed holistic multiplecase study wherein preservice teachers were assigned to one of the three groups that received no reading strategy instruction (n = 9), explicit reading strategy instruction (n = 10), and peer tutoring (n = 10) based on their scores on Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory and good communication among them. The content of strategy instruction included various domain-specific reading comprehension strategies used for activating cognitive and metacognitive processes that contribute to improving conceptual understanding and conceptual change. It was found that the diversity and frequency of using cognitive strategies and products of cognitive processes were the highest in the explicit strategy instruction group, and the metacognitive strategies and products of metacognitive processes were more diverse and frequent in reading strategy instruction groups compared to no strategy instruction group. [Paper presented at the National Science and Mathematics Education Congress (13th, Denizli, Turkey).]

Background: Teachers are important role players in improving literacy; however, they lack the expertise to explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies. Studies have showed that when teachers are motivated to explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies in their classrooms, learners' comprehension is improved. Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate what motivates teachers to explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies in their classrooms after a workshop. Method: Purposive sampling was used and 20 teachers took part in this study. The research followed a qualitative approach, and the data were obtained from teachers' responses to an open-ended questionnaire. Thematic analysis using concepts from Shulman's 'Pedagogical Content Knowledge', Vygotsky's 'Social Constructivism', Bundura's 'Self-efficacy' and Chalmers and Gardiner's 'Academic Professional Development Effectiveness Framework' was conducted. Results: One key finding was that teachers developed competence through effective pedagogical practices used by facilitators of the workshop; this boosted their confidence. Conclusion: The findings suggest that professional development training plays an important role in making teachers aware of reading comprehension strategies, equipping them with skills that will enable them to guide learners to become proficient readers. Contribution: The uniqueness of this study is that it hinged on collecting empirical evidence, within a South African context, on what motivates teachers to explicitly teach reading comprehension in their professional practice after being exposed to a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies during a workshop.

English language learners (ELLs) need to build competency with the English language quickly, in order to benefit from classroom instruction. Reading Recovery offers theoretical underpinnings which support accelerated language acquisition with valuable applications in a classroom setting. Teachers need to develop language as a meaningful whole, making connections between speaking, reading, and writing. By carefully observing a child's use of language, teachers can design instruction to build on the child's current language strengths. Learning a new language is complex and teachers must support ELLs by providing explicit teaching and massive opportunities to practise speaking, reading, and writing.

Some children come to school with a smaller vocabulary than their peers. If children do not have knowledge of the meaning of the words they read in texts, they will fail to comprehend those texts and struggle to keep up with their peers. This is critical because the link between vocabulary and comprehension is very clear (Sticht et al., 1974, as cited in Vadasy & Nelson, 2012). If teachers do not intervene when students are in the early grades, we see that those children who know more words learn additional words more quickly, and subsequently, other children could continue to struggle with reading (Stanovich, 1986). Consequently, some children struggle with reading even more when they enter the upper elementary grades where they can fall into what is referred to as the "fourth-grade slump" when children are beginning to encounter words and word meanings that are increasingly challenging (Chall et al., 1990, p. 1). The author discusses the importance of teaching vocabulary and what vocabulary instruction can look like in the early grades to combat this challenge.

Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require schools to use curricula and instructional techniques that are deemed "evidence-based." Such reading programs include direct instruction in phonics and reading comprehension skills, such as finding the main idea of a paragraph, and efforts to accelerate learning tend to double down on more of the same skill-building practice. The authors conduct the first-ever experimental study of this topic, based on randomized kindergarten-enrollment lotteries in nine Colorado charter schools that use an interdisciplinary knowledge-based curriculum called Core Knowledge.

We report on a school-based randomized control trial study comparing two morphological interventions with untaught controls: one focusing on direct instruction targeting print morphological decoding (direct decoding condition) and the other on inquiry-focused pedagogy using oral morphological analysis (inquiry-analysis condition). We identified 63 Grade 3 children with below-average morphological awareness following screening (from N = 163). This sub-sample showed average pseudoword decoding but poor language and word reading abilities. Following a 13-week supplemental intervention randomized within the 63 children, results showed a statistically significant main effect of intervention on standardized reading vocabulary measures at immediate post-test in the direct decoding condition. Pre-test morphological awareness moderated reading vocabulary effects for the untaught control group. Statistically significant moderation of growth in sentence comprehension at post- by pre-test morphological awareness was also evident in the inquiry-analysis condition. Universal screening for below-average morphological awareness followed by inquiry-based or direct instruction interventions focusing on the meaning dimensions of morphemes may be modestly efficacious for supporting reading vocabulary and sentence comprehension in such at risk learners, potentially aiding school-wide literacy improvement.

Background: Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills a learner needs for academic achievement and is something which many South African learners lack. Studies suggest that explicit teaching of comprehension strategies has the potential to improve literacy. Aim: The aim of this article is to determine the role of explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies to an English as a second language (ESL) learner. Setting: This study was conducted at a dual-medium quintile 5 primary school in the Western Cape. Quintile 5 are affluent schools (fee-paying schools) which receive less funding from the government. This is a single case study with a Grade 4 ESL learner. The medium of instruction was English. Methods: This is a qualitative interpretive study in which the researcher used an observation and interview schedules to collect data. Pre- and post-tests were conducted before and after the intervention programme (IP). Results: It was evident from the findings that the explicit teaching of three reading comprehension strategies and one-on-one interactions and guidance from the teacher enabled the learner, who is in Grade 4, to acquire critical thinking skills. The learner's literacy improved, which boosted her self-confidence. Conclusion: As the three reading comprehension strategies were constantly and explicitly taught throughout the IP, these collaborative, multitiered approaches began to develop the learner's habit of thinking in a higher-order manner. She began to develop a mindset of critical thinking, even in her second language.

This study, using pretest-intervention-posttest, investigated whether instructing English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' in the use of reading strategies when they read English passages affects their English reading performances. The participants were 51 Turkish learners of English, who were at elementary level of language proficiency, based on the results of the Oxford Quick Placement Test. The whole treatment/control period lasted for 20 sessions during 10 weeks on a Reading course. The experimental group (n = 26) received instruction in reading strategies (i.e., previewing, finding the main idea, scanning, identifying examples, identifying definitions, identifying time and sequence words, reading numerical tables, making inferences, reading statistical tables, distinguishing fact from opinion) and the control group (n = 25) received instruction based on traditional teaching methods (i.e., reading, paraphrasing, translating, and answering the exercises). Data were collected via a reading proficiency test. The result of the independent samples t-test showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one.

Phonological awareness (PA) is defined as a child's ability to hear and manipulate parts of spoken language (National Early Literacy Panel [NELP], 2009; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000). Ensuring that children develop PA increases the likelihood that they are successful with later reading instruction. Two types of PA skills are most important to future reading readiness (NICHD, 2000). These include the ability to "blend" smaller sound units into words (/b/ /a/ /t/ [right arrow] "bat") and "segment" spoken words into smaller sound units ("milk" [right arrow] /m/ /ilk/). Young children with Down Syndrome (DS) often struggle to develop PA skills, particularly in comparison with peers without disabilities (Lemons & Fuchs, 2010; Martin, Klusek, Estigarribia, & Roberts, 2009; Naess, 2016). Nonetheless, there is a significant relation between PA, current reading abilities, and later reading skills for children with DS (Lemons & Fuchs, 2010). This makes early PA interventions especially important. Furthermore, many children with DS exhibit potentially problematic behaviors, such as work avoidance (Fidler & Nadel, 2007). Therefore, early childhood educators must consider comprehensive PA interventions that address the academic and behavioral needs of their children with DS. Explicit instruction is especially important for children with DS who often demonstrate deficits in PA-related concepts and are at risk for later reading difficulties (Lemons & Fuchs, 2010; Martin et al., 2009; Naess, 2016). With explicit instruction, children with disabilities broadly (see Gillon, 2000) and DS specifically (see Lemons & Fuchs, 2010; van Bysterveldt, Gillon, & Foster-Cohen, 2010) show improved PA skills, which support later reading development. This article describes "Boost," a brief, explicit PA intervention designed for preschoolers with DS.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) model for instructional delivery is well supported by research evidence and is often identified as a critical element of instruction for students with learning difficulties. However, there are challenges associated with effectively releasing responsibility to students. This may be especially true during instruction for primary-grade students with or at risk for learning disabilities. In general, educators want to provide a high level of support to young, struggling students in order to ensure that they feel successful and bolster their confidence. However, too much support means that students are not provided with opportunities for independent practice or independent mastery of content being taught. This article describes the GRR model of instruction and provides specific guidance and resources to support special education teachers in implementing the GRR model during small-group reading instruction in primary-grade classrooms, with a particular emphasis on facilitating group and independent practice. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED611740.]

This teaching tip aims to build awareness of using a text's structure as a framework for building students' reading comprehension. The authors detail the Framework for Accelerating the Strategic Comprehension of Text (FASCT) to support elementary students reading comprehension abilities by explicitly teaching students to use the structure of a text to support the development of a main idea statement after every text read. FASCT then teaches students to expand this main idea statement into a summary by adding key supporting details. Furthermore, this teaching tip outlines how teachers can implement FASCT instruction using any genre of text. Although comprehension instruction, such as FASCT, is only one part of the overall literacy block, it may be essential for building a solid foundation from which students' complex comprehension skills can grow. [This article was published in "Reading Teacher" (EJ1305585).]

This case study retrospectively reflects on a self-contained teacher's decision to pair publisher-created adapted text with audio support as part of a multicomponent reading intervention. She evolved from creating her own adapted text to implementing publisher-created adapted text throughout a school year. The study analyzed students' reading comprehension test scores throughout the year to examine the influence of publisher-created adapted text embedded within a multi-component reading intervention. The Related-Samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test revealed significance (p=0.043) between students' fall and spring Reading Inventory scores, with a moderate effect size (r=0.562). The teacher made the instructional decision to implement publisher-created adapted text which eliminated time consuming self-adaptation of materials (Browder et al., 2007) and her students continued to make progress with this shift of materials with some demonstrating significant progress by the end of the school year.

Developing young children's vocabulary is essential for later reading success; thus, early childhood classrooms require a comprehensive vocabulary approach that teaches academic vocabulary. Yet even providing young children with child-friendly definitions of sophisticated words can be a challenge. First, the authors outline the components of a comprehensive vocabulary program for young children. Second, they review research evidence on the importance of direct vocabulary instruction and ways to increase children's word consciousness and interest in learning "amazing" academic words. Next, they turn to practical suggestions of ways to select and teach new vocabulary. They describe ways to increase word consciousness that extend excitement for word learning. Finally, they demonstrate that early childhood educators can improve the quantity and quality of their vocabulary instruction when using a comprehensive vocabulary program the features routine shared book reading, direct vocabulary instruction, and supports for word consciousness. [This article was published in "Reading Teacher" (EJ1290094).]

The challenges teachers face with virtual learning existed previously but were heightened by the quick move from in-person to virtual learning caused by the pandemic. Researchers have investigated virtual learning for students with disabilities and have made recommendations including supplemental online resources for individualization and incorporating what we know works for students with disabilities, such as explicit instruction and assistive technology. Another recommendation for virtual learning, and the focus of this article, is the use of scaffolding. Since we know scaffolding is a high-leverage practice for students with disabilities, we can take what we know about scaffolding in face-to-face instruction and transform it to work in virtual settings. This article offers vignettes of a science classroom as two teachers plan for scaffolded instruction to support reading, which is critical in science learning.

The term "balanced literacy" was popularized in the mid-1990s to describe a middle ground in terms of text selection, instruction, skills, and strategies. The intention was to merge the promising elements of whole language and phonics. Interactions with educators and literacy leaders across the country currently suggest that a term that had been seemingly well defined 20 years ago had become more vague. This descriptive study polled 25 veteran teachers to identify commonalities among their definitions and instructional applications.

This study examines the effectiveness of a reading comprehension strategy designed to enhance learning for participants with disabilities who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Specifically, a multiple probe design was used to examine the effects of a reading comprehension strategy on the summarization skills of English learners with disabilities at the high school level. Individualized support was provided through an intervention that utilized a modified version of the "Generating Interaction between Schemata and Text" (GIST) strategy. The intervention incorporated strategy instruction and explicit instruction in the summarization of expository passages. Visual analysis indicates that all participants improved in their ability to summarize expository passages, as demonstrated by an increased level of change between the baseline and intervention phases. Statistical analysis using NAP and TAU-U reveals all participants demonstrated improvement between the baseline and intervention phases.

We report on a meta-analysis designed to test the theory that instruction that involves direct teaching of academic vocabulary and teaching strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words develops students' abilities to infer new words' meanings and builds students' overall vocabulary knowledge. We meta-analyzed 39 experimental and quasi-experimental intervention studies conducted in grades K-5 to examine the effects of these instructional approaches. Results indicate that interventions that targeted word meaning instruction do not show overall positive effects on measures of breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Although strategy interventions are effective in improving word solving skills on near transfer measures, strategy interventions do not significantly impact students' overall breadth of vocabulary knowledge. These findings suggest that direct teaching of vocabulary words may not be effective for building overall vocabulary knowledge among elementary-grade students. More research is needed to examine the potential of teaching strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words.

English vowels are phonologically and orthographically more difficult than consonants when learning to map speech to print. We sought to determine if teaching young at-risk readers and spellers to use a visual vowel hand sign system to segment spoken words into their component phonemes contributed to improved grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading and spelling. Twenty-three at-risk Year 1 participants were assessed prior to receiving Crack the Code--an intervention that incorporates a visual vowel hand sign system for phoneme segmentation--and immediately after its completion on measures of segmentation, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading accuracy, word reading efficiency and spelling. Analysis of group data showed statistically significant improvement across all measures with effect sizes ranging from 0.73 to 1.83. Explicitly teaching phonemic segmentation with a visual vowel sign system may be an effective way of improving vowel knowledge, word reading and spelling skills of at-risk children.

Reading difficulties have been associated with limited academic success and related social-emotional outcomes including anxiety and low motivation. Recent research on the educational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that children with poor reading skills were disproportionally disadvantaged. This growing number of students experiencing reading difficulties will require effective implementation of strategies to prevent long-term disadvantage, including in the challenging context of secondary schools where teachers are unfamiliar with reading instruction and constrained by timetabling of subjects and teachers. This research examined whether a Direct Instruction programme could be implemented with fidelity in the real world of a secondary school over a sustained period. Reading progress was monitored using a standardised assessment. Programme implementation was monitored via interviews with staff, classroom observations, and field notes. These data revealed that, whilst fidelity of programme implementation was challenging, programme delivery and student ability and confidence in reading improved over the three years.

Read It Again! PreK (RIA) is a whole-class, teacher-implemented intervention that embeds explicit language and literacy instruction within the context of shared book reading and has prior evidence of supporting the language and literacy skills of preschool children. We conducted a conceptual replication to test its efficacy when implemented in early childhood special education classrooms relative to regular shared book reading. The randomized controlled trial involved 109 teachers and 726 children (341 with disabilities and 385 peers). Compared to the rigorous counterfactual condition, RIA significantly increased teachers' provision of explicit instruction targeting phonological awareness, print knowledge, narrative, and vocabulary during shared book readings but had limited impact on children's language and literacy skills. Findings underscore the need to conduct replication studies to identify interventions that realize effects for specific populations of interest, such as children with disabilities served in early childhood special education classrooms.

This exploratory study examines the impacts of morphological awareness on Saudi female secondary school students' reading comprehension skills. In particular, it examines the effects of increasing students' morphological awareness on their reading comprehension skills. Participants included 58 Saudi female secondary school students, who were divided into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group was taught using a morphemic analysis strategy during their reading classes, whereas the control group attended their usual reading comprehension classes. Pretests and post-tests were prepared to determine the effect of raising students' awareness of morphological knowledge on their reading comprehension skills. The results indicated a strong positive correlation between the students' morphological awareness and the improvement of their reading comprehension skills in the post-test. The study, therefore, confirms that the direct instruction of prefixes, suffixes and base words is useful and should be emphasised when teaching because it significantly increases students' morphological awareness.

This article discusses use of a multicomponent intervention to develop the reading skill and performance of grades 4 to 8 students identified with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Reading intervention targets for this population are vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Reading intervention elements involve explicit vocabulary instruction, repeated reading with sentence-level comprehension, question-answering relationships, and main idea summarization. Included in the article are explicit instructional routines and curricular materials supported by empirical evidence for the intervention elements.

Teachers who seek to amplify student voice in the English Language Arts classroom must balance students' need for selfexpression with the TEKS requirement that students demonstrate command of standard English. Teachers also face a curricular landscape in which they are discouraged from teaching grammar in isolation but are held accountable for students' understanding of grammatical concepts. In this paper, we review recent research in linguistics and rhet/comp that speaks to these dilemmas. First, we explore the relationship between implicit and explicit language learning and what it means for formal grammar instruction. Second, we look at how the context of communication influences whether readers notice and are troubled by grammatical errors and consider what this means for grammar instruction. Third, we examine the grammaticality of nonstandard dialects and look for ways to bridge the gap between standard and nonstandard English. We also share research-based, classroom-tested assignments that go beyond grammar drills to raise students' metalinguistic awareness and increase their productive control of English.

This study explored whether second-language (L2) less proficient adult learners can become skilled readers by investigating the effect on students' attitudes to strategy use when explicit instruction of metacognitive reading strategies is combined with an extensive reading approach. Studies have shown that proficient learners employ a wider range of metacognitive strategies than less proficient learners and use the strategies more efficiently and frequently. Teaching metacognitive strategies explicitly develops L2 learners into independent practitioners. Yet, little is known about the extent to which L2 less proficient students can incorporate metacognitive reading strategies in their reading. This paper addresses this issue by investigating students' attitudes towards, and the use of, metacognitive strategies. The study was designed as a case study, and interview data and reflective journals were collected. The results show that L2 less proficient adult learners can become skilled readers through explicit instruction of metacognitive reading strategies combined with an extensive reading approach. The findings of the study reflect on explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies and extensive reading. The researcher suggests the value of introducing metacognitive strategies into L2 reading classrooms to broaden the learning skills of less proficient learners.

In this article, the authors encourage readers to get their minds IN the gutters--the literal gutters of graphic novels, that is. Gutters, one of many graphic novel text features, provide visual and metacognitive insight readers must use to make meaning as they read. Teachers must provide explicit instruction regarding these features and other characteristics of graphic novels to ensure student success with this popular literature format.

Reading and comprehending a text or selection in a language that is different from one's native tongue can be a daunting task to many English as a Second Language (ESL) learners due to several reasons. Hence, teachers' instructional strategies play a pivotal role in developing students' reading skills. This study used a quasi-experimental design to discover the effects of using explicit or direct teaching of metacognitive strategies on the reading skills of students--comprehension skills and vocabulary. Forty grade 11 ESL students from a Chinese-Filipino school in Manila were selected through convenience sampling to be participants of the study. The performance of the two groups in comprehension and vocabulary was compared through pre-test and post-test. Using two-tailed t-test of dependent means, the significant difference between students' performance in the reading comprehension test and the vocabulary test after the intervention was determined. Based on the results, there is no question that one's comprehension and vocabulary size could be improved using explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies. The study has practical implications to the teaching of reading among ESL learners. Recommendations for future research are also provided in this paper.

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often face significant difficulties in reading. Research has found a variety of different evidence-based practices to support the reading development of students with LD in areas such as word work, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. However, these practices are most often intended for use in traditional settings and not necessarily virtual settings. This article translates traditionally in-person instruction for students with LD to an online synchronous format through a sample lesson plan sequence for students in third through fifth grades and provides resources for teachers to support their implementation of online instruction for upper elementary students with LD.

Bowers ("Educational Psychology Review," 32, 681-705, 2020) reviewed 12 meta-analytic syntheses addressing the effects of phonics instruction, concluding that the evidence is weak to nonexistent in supporting the superiority of systematic phonics to alternative reading methods. We identify five issues that limit Bowers' conclusions: (1) definition issues; (2) what is the right question?; (3) the assumption of "phonics first"; and (4) simplification of issues around systematic versus explicit phonics. We then go on to consider (5) empirical issues in the data from meta-analyses, where Bowers misconstrues the positive effects of explicit phonics instruction. We conclude that there is consistent evidence in support of explicitly teaching phonics as part of a comprehensive approach to reading instruction that should be differentiated to individual learner needs. The appropriate question to ask of a twenty-first century science of teaching is not the superiority of phonics versus alternative reading methods, including whole language and balanced literacy, but how best to combine different components of evidence-based reading instruction into an integrated and customized approach that addresses the learning needs of each child. [For Bowers' "Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction," see EJ1263190.]