| The purpose of this qualitative study was to document the pedagogical practices implemented by three middle school teachers responsible for the reading instruction of three students with decoding and fluency deficits, and to describe the contexts within which this instruction occurred. Case study methodology was used including in-depth interviews, document analysis, and observations of the reading instruction in three educational environments, providing a variety of special-education support. Using the research literature as a comparative base, the three educational environments were described in terms of the content of instruction, which included areas of emphasis, connectedness of the skills and concepts taught, and the source of curriculum; instructional behaviors which included teacher-student interactions, phase and pace of instruction; and context which included group size, readability of the material, allocated time for reading instruction, and actual time spent reading. Each case study was described in terms of the above-mentioned categories and compared to the scholarly research. The findings of this study are similar to results of other studies in which special-education programs were not found to have provided specialized reading instruction. |
