In this research, we sought to replicate findings of our previous research examining the efficacy of 1st-Grade Peer-Assisted Literacy Strategies (1st-Grade PALS) with children of different achievement levels in naturally constituted general education classrooms. We also examined the impact of adding skills-focused mini-lessons conducted along with 1st-Grade PALS with the 3 lowest-achieving readers in some of these classrooms. First-Grade PALS sessions were conducted for 30-minutes session 3 times a week for 14 weeks. Mini-lessons were also conducted 3 times per week for 15 to 20 minute sessions during the final 6 weeks of 1st-Grade PALS implementation. During 1st-Grade PALS, all students within a class were paired with other students from within the same class (1) to practice phonological awareness, phonological recoding, and reading of connected text built on previously mastered phonological elements, and (2) to make predictions about a book prior to reading it, share the experience of reading a story with a peer, have repeated exposure to text, and summarize the story through verbal retelling. The skills-focused mini-lessons mirrored the content of 1st-Grade PALS and were designed to provide additional instruction and integrated practice of the orthophonemic elements of English text. Results indicate that 1st-Grade PALS, on average, enhanced reading performance of students both in terms of statistical significance and in terms of educational relevance, although not equally for all learner types, closely replicating findings from our previous studies. Results also suggest that there was some benefit to students who participated in the small-group mini-lessons. However, conclusions about the true impact of the mini-lessons are limited because teachers resisted implementing these lessons.

A repeated measures multiple baseline across subjects design was used to evaluate the effects of story mapping instruction on the reading comprehension of four upper-elementary school students with behavioral disorders. Individually administered story mapping instruction focused on teaching students to identify the characters, setting, problems, events, and outcomes inherent in narrative text. Over all, story mapping instruction improved students' abilities to comprehend narrative text. Performance on comprehension questions related to story settings, problems, and major events showed the greatest improvement, although proficiency in identifying story settings for all students and problems for two of the four was not demonstrated. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This cross-sectional study used random sampling procedures to (a) establish proportions of K–12 students meeting borderline and clinical cut scores on the Teacher Report Form (TRF) of the Child Behavior Checklist, (b) examine age and gender differences in distributions of students meeting borderline or clinical levels of problem behavior, and (c) determine proportions of students displaying comorbid problem behaviors. Overall, our findings indicate that (a) more students met borderline or clinical cut scores on the Total and Externalizing broad band scales than on the Internalizing scale, (b) larger proportions of children met the cut scores on the TRF Total, Externalizing, and Internalizing broad bands and a majority of narrow band scales than adolescents, (c) larger proportions of girls than boys met cut scores on the three broad band and four narrow band scales (i.e., Aggressive Behavior, Withdrawn, Social Problems, Attention Problems), and (d) larger proportions of children exhibited clinical levels of comorbidity on the TRF broad and narrow bands than adolescents. The results, limitations, and implications are discussed.

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