Abstract
A large sum of reading research concludes that powerful instruction is directly instructing (Hollingsworth & Ybarra, 2009), modeling (Roehler & Cantlon, 1997), and guiding students’ practice (Carnine, Jitendra, & Silbert, 1997) of comprehension skills, and deeper levels of understanding are attained through interaction (Kuhn, Shawa, & Felton, 1997), and this proves especially true for English language learners (ELLs) (Genesse, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2005). Though there is considerable research defending the importance of directly instructing skills and providing students an opportunity to interact, teachers fall prey to their reliance on their teacher’s manual to provide students the valuable instruction required for comprehension skill development. This paper synthesizes the qualitative and quantitative data collected over a six-week period in an attempt to evidence the need to manipulate Read 180’s, a commercialized reading program, lesson design from one of student independence to that of direct and scaffolded instruction, along with opportunities for students to generate interactions with their peer based upon what they are reading. By comparing a group of students following Read 180’s prescribed lesson design to that of the current treatment, which included instruction and guidance in students’ development of comprehension skills, as well as structuring cooperative environments for small groups of students to assist the initiation of student dialogues, the data and observations correlated to much of the reading research reviewed.