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This article reports on a pilot study of the "Integrated Literacy Study Group," a digitally delivered professional learning intervention to prepare elementary school teachers to provide evidence-based reading instruction and behavioral strategies to students with or are at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Using broadcast methods, we recruited 72 teachers across five states in the western United States to participate in the randomized controlled trial. Intervention teachers, relative to controls, made significant gains in self-efficacy and use of the reading and behavioral strategies learned in the professional learning program. Students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders served by participating teachers made significant improvements in academic competence and engagement. Teacher professional learning can improve teacher knowledge of evidence-based reading and behavioral strategies for students with (or at risk for) emotional and behavioral disorders, teacher self-efficacy, and teacher practice, with positive impacts on student early literacy and academic competence.

The concept of the undercommons offers a lens for complicating the discourse of conviviality in education. In this paper, the authors draw on learning experiences opened through black feminisms, decoloniality and anti-coloniality, and new materialisms in an experimental graduate course. Presenting stories drawn from a shared educational space, they theorise "fugitive convivial praxis" and elucidate insurgent opportunities for intellectual study that nurture decolonial undercurrents of the university apparatus. Such engagements allowed for radical vulnerability in coming together through processes of ethical care, place-making, and counter-expressive thinking especially when coded formations of diversity insist on colonial logics and modes of operation in higher education. With curiosities and questions emerging in the undercommons, the authors also consider remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic toward future possibilities.

Most students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have significant reading difficulties, but educators have few in-service professional learning opportunities geared to reading instruction for these students. The "Integrated Literacy Study Group" was developed as an online professional development program to prepare elementary teachers to meet the literacy needs of students with or at risk of EBD. In this study, the authors use a within-subjects design to evaluate the feasibility of the 10-week digital program with 13 elementary teachers. From pretest to posttest, teachers made statistically and educationally significant gains in knowledge of evidence-based social and emotional learning and reading strategies for students with EBD, as well as significant improvements in general teacher self-efficacy, reading self-efficacy, and social and emotional self-efficacy. Pretest-to-posttest change in teacher burnout and classroom management was educationally significant, but statistically nonsignificant. Most teachers perceived the program content as relevant to their needs and those of their students.

Digital storytelling as part of study creates an opening for reworking ideas. It marks an instance of recognition to access alternative ways of knowing, thinking, and doing. Guided by radical black studies and decolonizing methodologies, the authors draw on insights from digital storytelling to extend current understandings of educational research, theory, and practice. The connections across five digital stories are highlighted through a retrospective analysis of educational journeys to and beyond doctoral study. The digital stories are presented in a series of plateaus to (1) challenge the constraints of academic writing and (2) signal methodological openings in collective restorying. To that end, the authors unravel processes of becoming, trouble the pedagogical encounters in their work, and push for otherwise possibilities to make room for the not-yet.

States are increasingly recommending that districts and schools use multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to improve reading outcomes for all students. States have also suggested MTSS is a viable service delivery model in response to new state legislation to screen, identify, and treat students with word-level reading disability (i.e., dyslexia). One model of MTSS that utilizes Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI MTSS), has demonstrated significant increases in students' early acquisition of foundational reading skills (Smith et al., 2016). The purpose of this study was to conduct a conceptual replication of the Smith's (2016) original impact study. In a cluster-randomized controlled trial, 44 schools were randomly assigned to the ECRI MTSS treatment or a business-as-usual (BAU) MTSS control condition. Across conditions, 754 students were assigned to receive Tier 2 intervention in addition to Tier 1 instruction. Impact data indicate moderate to strong effects on student decoding, word reading, and fluency skills for students in the ECRI MTSS schools. Results suggest that schools can use ECRI MTSS to improve foundational reading skills for struggling early readers, including students with or at risk for word-level reading disabilities (i.e., dyslexia).

Aims: The purpose of this review was to identify and describe the evidence about children and youth engagement during equine-assisted services (EAS). Methods: Five databases (Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and MEDLINE) were systematically searched. Included studies reported research about EAS conducted in children and youth and presented findings about in-session engagement or associated concepts such as motivation, involvement, and participation. Extracted data (study type, equine intervention, population, and the studies' key focus) were summarized descriptively, followed by inductive content analysis of the main mechanisms proposed to influence engagement. Results: In total, 30 studies were identified; however, only three centered on rider engagement as the primary focus of research. Other publications addressed in-session engagement within service descriptions or results and discussion sections. Three mechanisms that influence engagement within EAS were derived: (1) the unique EAS landscape, (2) the horse–child relationship and (3) the provider–child relationship. The literature primarily referred to horses as the most important factor influencing child and youth engagement in EAS sessions. Little attention was given to the influence of service providers', parents', or child preferences on engagement. Conclusions: The child/youth–parent–provider relational triad and specific strategies to improve rider engagement within EAS sessions warrants further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to describe a multicomponent intervention developed and implemented by a consortium of districts in the Pacific Northwest through a researcher-practitioner partnership and the process used for collaboration. The intervention was designed to increase reading proficiency and school engagement for struggling readers in middle school in order to prevent eventual school dropout; however, a rigorous evaluation of intervention impact revealed null effects. The authors provide context for the dropout crisis, describe the partnership that led to the development of the multicomponent intervention framework, and instantiate similarities and differences in districts' implementation of the multicomponent intervention. Project data indicate schools and districts planned to customize interventions to support student success, and schools' selection of specific interventions and practices varied. Results of the collaboration highlight district and school demand for formative data that can be used to improve interventions, including implementation data. The described districts' selected intervention practices and the researcher-practitioner framework provide important information for others seeking to embark on these partnerships and for administrators leading systemic implementation efforts.

The purpose of this research brief is to present results from a study investigating the relation between word reading fluency (both initial level and fall-winter gain scores), passage reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Word reading fluency data were collected in the fall and winter; outcome measures were administered in the spring of Grade 1 (N = 150 students). We found that both initial level and gains on the word reading fluency measure predicted important reading outcomes in Grade 1 and that the impact of gains was attenuated for students with strong initial skills. These findings are consistent with previous research on fluency-based measures of early reading skill.

Progress monitoring has been adopted as an integral part of multi-tiered support systems. Oral reading fluency (ORF) is the most established assessment for progress-monitoring purposes. To generate valid trend lines or slopes, ORF passages must be of equivalent difficulty. Recently, however, evidence indicates that ORF passages are not equivalent, potentially hindering our ability to generate valid student trend lines for decision making. This study examines passage and order effects on the estimation of ORF scores using a set of second-grade passages. A single group with counterbalancing design was employed to randomly assign 156 second-grade students to three different orders of passages. Scores from the passages were examined using growth curve modeling and empirical Bayes estimates. Results indicate that passage effects were substantial, but order effects were small but significant. The impact of passage and order effects on research design, equating methods, and measure development is considered.

A primary aim of mathematics programs is to accelerate the achievement of all students, including students with or at risk for learning disabilities (LD) in mathematics. Yet research suggests that many programs fail to incorporate the instructional design and delivery principles that have been validated to meet the learning needs of students with or at risk for LD in mathematics. This article provides special education teachers with a practical guide for assessing and evaluating the extent to which mathematics programs contain validated principles of explicit mathematics instruction. An example illustrates how teachers can apply the evaluation guide and use the results to address potential instructional shortfalls of mathematics programs.

This study reports the results of a cluster RCT evaluating the impact of Enhanced Core Reading Instruction on reading achievement of grade 1 at-risk readers. Forty-four elementary schools, blocked by district, were randomly assigned to condition. In both conditions, at-risk readers received 90 minutes of whole-group instruction (Tier 1) plus an additional 30 minutes of daily, small-group intervention (Tier 2). In the treatment condition, Tier 1 instruction included enhancements to the core program and Tier 2 intervention was highly aligned with the core program. In the comparison condition, Tier 1 instruction used the same core program as treatment schools in the district and Tier 2 intervention followed standard district protocol. Significant treatment effects were found on measures of phonemic decoding and oral reading fluency from fall to winter and word reading from fall to spring. Student- and classroom-level variables predicted student response to instruction differentially by condition.