Effective Models of In-Class Remedial Reading Instruction

Abstract

In light of No Child Left Behind, state assessments, and the pressure to serve children in the least restrictive environment, the methods used to meet student needs are changing considerably. Academic Intervention Services, Title I programs, and special education have all been impacted. This paper will discuss the role of a reading specialist today and how students can receive remedial reading instruction in the regular classroom setting. This topic was selected due to observations of the difficulty my school based literacy educator (SBLE) faces in trying to implement a push-in model of instruction. The purpose of this research is to help the school develop a repertoire of effective co-teaching strategies to ease the implementation of a push-in model. This research then will use previous studies in special education and co-teaching to develop strategies for reading instruction in the classroom. The previous work of Rita Bean dealing with effective reading specialists will be the backbone of the classroom observations that will take place throughout the study. At the end of the research the goal is to have identified the strategies that are already in use at the school and discover several effective collaborative strategies for the reading specialist and classroom teachers to begin to use more often to improve the current program. Ultimately the researcher hopes that these methods will continue to be utilized in the future, both in the school being used for the study and shared with other schools implementing the push-in model.