Vaughn, S., Simmons, D., Wanzek, J., & Society for Research on, Educational Effectiveness.(2013). Using design experiments to understand secondary classroom comprehensionpractices. ().Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. Retrieved from http://proxy1.ncu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true. &db=eric&AN=ED564079&site=eds-live Type and PurposeThe purpose of this mixed methods study was to discover if interventions of team-basedlearning in social studies and critical reading methods in English language arts could enhancestudent content knowledge and reading comprehension.  These studies focused on the following questions: (a) what are the potential and achievability of the two interventions, (b) what are the intervention refinements, and (c) to what length are the willingness and perceptions of the users? Methodology?There were three phases of critical reading practices developed for the study.  Phase onetapped into the students’ background knowledge of key concepts, vocabulary, text structure andfeatures.  Phase two included activities that forced the students to discuss their results with peersto clarify their understanding.  Phase three was text generation in which the students outlinedmajor concepts from text and recorded them on graphic organizers for use throughout the year.  ?The quantitative data analysis included the number of frequency and averages from the collection of data from observations, lesson feedback forms, and audio taped observations.  ?The qualitative data collection included teacher feedback from questionnaires and observations of the classroom atmosphere.    Findings and Conclusion?The study found that succinct methods and scaffolds were required for teachers to successfully promote the of reading difficult text within their content curriculum.  It also emphasized the need for development of vocabulary terms. Evaluation?This study required extra preparation time for the teachers included in the study.  The comprehension practices must be flexible and adaptable as there is no set standard scope or sequence for when the text types are introduced.?I would be able to use this in my classroom and would be useful in biology.  The time it would take to set up might be an issue if time was not allotted during the day for planning. Hawkins, R. O., Hale, A., Sheeley, W., & Ling, S. (2011). Repeated reading and vocabulary-previewing interventions to improve fluency and comprehension for struggling high-school readers. Psychology in the Schools, 48(1), 59-77. doi:10.1002/pits.20545Type and Purpose?The purpose of this mixed methods study was to compare the effects of two intervention preparations on the comprehension, rate, and fluency, comprehension of reading.  Students were recurrently exposed to three measures:   repeated reading (RR), repeated reading and vocabulary previewing (RR +VR), and no intervention control conditions.  There were two research questions that this study expected to answer: 1) Does RR increase comprehension, oral reading comprehension rate, and fluency for students reading below grade level in high school? and 2) Does the addition of a VP component to RR interventions procedures increase levels in comprehension, comprehension rate, and fluency?  This study hypothesized that both interventions would have significant effects on reading aptitude, but the RR + VP intervention would lead to the greatest effect.Methodology?The study added gave great insight for the best methods for reading interventions for high-school students.  The first method analyzed struggling high-school readers and the effects of an RR with error correction intervention. Researchers decided to have the students read longertexts of more words twice.  The second method determined the impact of adding VP activities to RR procedures to increase comprehension.  This study’s dependent variable was the oral reading comprehension rate.  ?The population sample included six special education students with a learning disability in reading whom were currently taking 10th and 11th grade classes, but were on a fourth- through eighth-grade reading level. These students were identified to be good candidates for this study by a special education teacher.  To determine the students’ reading level, the students had to complete three reading tasks.  Depending on the number of words correct for each task, they were moved down to the appropriate grade level for reading.  The student had to read with 70 to 100 words error-free per minute with less than seven mistakes.Findings and Conclusions ?Data for all dependent variables were graphed for each student. Visual analysis was the main method for the result’s explanation. For reading fluency, the RR +R implementation seemed to result in the greatest gain. The implementation of the RR + VP resulted in the highest reading comprehension level in three students, and the RR + VP and RR conditions generatedcomparable comprehension levels for the other three students.  For five of the students, their reading comprehension rate under the RR + VP implementation was the best.  Evaluation?This study’s intervention lasted 10 to 20 minutes per session, three to five days per week.  According to Hawkins, et al., greater benefits could have resulted but the sessions would have had to been longer, more frequent, and longer time frame.  This study coincides with many of the other studies that are being currently done by Kuhn and Stahl, LaBerge and Samuels, etc.  ?This study would be very useful for my purpose.   I also would have easy access to grade level reading skills and helpful special education teachers.  Dutke, S., Grefe, A. C., & Leopold, C. (2016). Learning from scientific texts: Personalizing the text increases transfer performance and task involvement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 31(4), 499-513. Retrieved from http://proxy1.ncu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true=eric=EJ1113934=eds-live http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10212-015-0281-6Type and PurposeThe purpose of this quantitative study was to see if personalizing the text in scientific texts increased performances and involvement.  The hypothesis stated the researchers believed if teachers personalized the students’ learning materials, it would increase their performance and motivation.Methodology?Two groups consisting of a total of 65 randomly selected 11th grade students were tested:  ones with personalized text and ones with non-personalized text.  The study measured whether or not students performed better with the different texts. The control variable for this study wasthe scores for prior knowledge.  The scores for text comprehension, performance, motivation, and time spent restudying text acted as the dependent variables.The personalized version included the personal pronouns such as “your” eye, instead of the non-personalized version of “the” eye.   The students were asked to complete a series of questions from the reading.  Then a week later, they were asked to complete a true/false test and assign a particular statement, devised by the researchers, of how they felt about how they answered the question.  A numeric value was assigned to each statement.  Depending on thestudents’ final score, the researchers could calculate the values.Findings and Conclusions?The students performed very well with the personalized text.  However, the number of questions answered in the personalized text did not show any significant increase when compared to the non-personalized text test takers.  So while the students may have enjoyed reading the personalized material more, it did not particularly show that it had significant value.Evaluation?The limitations observed by the researchers suggests that while this study confirmed that motivation may increase, there are more variables that need to be explored.  Further research need to consider non-motivational explanations of text personalization.  Studies by Rogers,Symons, and Johnson suggest that personal text is easier to recall than text that was processed without personal reference to the student.  While the findings did not conclusively accept the hypothesis, I would have to agree that reading about something personal would be more enjoyable to the student and therefore, he may want to continue reading further into the topic.  This study is still of interest to me. Hebert, M., Bohaty, J. J., Nelson, J. R., & Brown, J. (2016). The effects of text structure instruction on expository reading comprehension: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(5), 609-629. doi:10.1037/edu0000082Type and Purpose?The purpose of this mixed methods study was determine the effects of text structure on expository reading comprehension.  Two question were posed in this study:  1) Does textstructure instruction (TSI) improve students’ understanding of expository text? 2) Do the effects of instruction in expository text structures shift to external measures of comprehension?Methodology?For this study a search an electronic search was conducted in order to find manuscripts pertaining to the focus questions.  Ninety-nine searches were run across six electronic databases. Forty-five of the 307 manuscripts met the requirements of the focus questions.  After selection, the manuscript looked for variables in three classifications:  study descriptors, quality indicators, and variables required to calculate result sizes.  The results of each study were statistically analyzed and then exposed to a meta regression analysis.Findings and Conclusions?The results concluded that text structure instruction did improve expository reading comprehension.  Two moderators, teaching more text structures and writing in the instruction, were found to increase effect sizes.Evaluation?There were three limitations discussed by the authors.  The first limitation found that there were many variables the current researchers could not control from previous research. Another concern was how comparable were the results from the initial study to the current study. Finally, there was concern over the differences in the text structure management. While this study demonstrated the accuracy of the focus questions, the authors believed that more research was needed to focus on incorporation of different text structure interventions.   ?Since I teach biology, this article was very interesting and I will definitely need to re-examine it for a potential basis for my dissertation. Santoso, E. (2015). Improving students’ reading comprehension through interactive read-aloud technique. Premise Journal, Vol 4, Iss 2 (2015), (2) doi:10.24127/pj.v4i2.305  Type and Purpose?The purpose and focus question of this mixed methods study was to determine if reading comprehension would improve through interactive read-aloud techniques.  Methodology?This study’s design was carried out in steps.   Each step had four actions.  The first step chose an appropriate book at the student’s reading level.  The second step pre-read the selectionand planned discussion interactions using sticky notes to mark the text.  Step three involved the act of stopping for interactions.  Every 10-15 minutes of reading had an interaction point with the student.  The final step is evaluated the student’s progress and comprehension.  The student needed to recall the events in the story.  The four actions for each step were planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.    Findings and Conclusions ?The findings showed that the students’ reading improved through the interactive reading from cycle 1 to cycle 3.  The mean score of cycle 1 was 71.1, the mean score of cycle 2 was 72.9, and cycle 3’s mean score was 75.7.  Evaluation?Some limitations arose during this study.  First, it was stated that English teachers must be kept up-to-date on the newest teaching trends.  Next, the teacher must continue student interest and motivation by knowing the student’s interests.  Lastly, the administration must be in support of the teacher’s efforts and needs. ?This is a technique that I use in my classroom.  The students read for a little while out loud and then we discuss what we have read.  The students must paraphrase the material into their own words for credit.