AN OBSERVATION STUDY OF READING INSTRUCTION PROVIDED TO ELEMENTARY STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES IN THE RESOURCE ROOM

This study documents the amount and quality of reading instruction provided to second-through fifth-grade students with learning disabilities provided resource-room services. Reading instruction provided by 10 special education resource-room teachers was observed. Findings reveal that teachers and students were on task during instructional time that included phonological awareness, word study, comprehension, reading fluency, and vocabulary instruction of average to high average quality. Although class size was small overall, whole-group instructional delivery was most common. Students made statistically significant gains in oral reading fluency but did not increase their standard scores on measures of comprehension or word reading. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.