Problem. From all of the findings gleaned from research and scholarly opinion dealing with gifted education, it seems desirable to have special programs for these students. However, contradictions have appeared among educators concerning programs for the gifted. Teaching specific skills and the relationship of these skills to test scores has not yet been established for gifted children. Research in this area is sparce. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of the Benen Reading Skills Instructional Approach with gifted students to determine the desirability of special programs of this type for gifted students, and if such instruction increased the scores in vocabulary skills, comprehension skills, syllabication skills, sound discrimination skills and blending skills for these students. Procedures. The research undertaken for this study utilized fourth grade gifted students found in ten gifted centers in Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax County, Virginia. Four schools were randomly selected from the ten gifted centers, two being assigned as control groups and two as experimental groups. Fifty-one students were in the control group and forty-nine were in the experimental group. Both groups received the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, Forms W and X as a pre-test and posttest. The two control groups were taught the traditional reading program by their classroom teacher. The two experimental groups were taught the BRSIA by their classroom teacher one period a day, five days a week, for the period of four weeks. The analysis of covariance procedures were used to measure gains in vocabulary achievement, comprehension achievement, syllabication achievement, sound discrimination achievement and blending achievement. Conclusions. The experimental group had significantly higher gains than the control group on all five subtests of the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test. The results revealed significant differences in achievement gains between the experimental and control groups at the .10 level of significance. Recommendations. Further study is recommended in the field of reading programs for the gifted. It is also recommended that further research be performed to see what other diagnostic measures are available for testing gifted students. Other research studies in the field of reading programs for the gifted are recommended, such as using another trade book at the fourth grade level, research conducted using the same teacher from both the experimental and control groups, and longitudinal studies to note if gains made will last over a period of years.

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This qualitative exploratory study aims to investigate the relationship between student self-efficacy and close reading strategies implemented in the researcher's classroom. The purpose of this qualitative study is to determine whether close reading strategies are informing 9th self-grader's efficacy in a 9th grade ELA (English Language Arts) classroom, and to determine the relationship between close reading and student self-efficacy in a classroom with CRM's (curriculum resource materials). Students' self-efficacy levels were determined on Robert Stavin's exploratory research; an altered exploratory survey was provided to determine results. This thesis explores the following research questions (RQ): (RQ1) How do students' responses of the text in the close reading process affect student self-efficacy? (RQ2) How, if at all, do the implementations of CRM stem-questions aid all learners in the understanding of texts in the classroom? The study concluded that participants' beliefs and how they correlate directly with their lived experiences inside and outside of the classroom and the researcher is also aware that the inconsistencies may also reflect the global pandemic, COVID-19. The qualitative study delegates this information throughout the following major parts: first, an in-depth literature review was conducted on close reading, self-efficacy, and any evidence correlating the two. Second, the researcher collected data from 9th grade ELA students virtually via Google Forms. Next, a descriptive analysis revealed the relationship between student self-efficacy and close reading. Lastly, the qualitative research study discusses the results and the implications for society, educators, policy makers, and research to be conducted in the future.

This study explores the relationship between student personality, student choice in novel selection in the high school language arts classroom, and student reading self-efficacy and enjoyment. Throughout a student's educational journey, from elementary school to high school, it is typical to see a decrease in student choice regarding the literature they read. In elementary grades, students learn about the parts of a book, are frequently read to with animated voices, and look forward to shelves of choice on library trips. Yet as students move into their middle and high school years, the excitement often dwindles. Choice is removed, for a myriad of reasons, and students begin to face reading with dread and associate their grades with their ability to read, comprehend, and enjoy literary texts. This study uses the qualitative ethnographic methodology of Shirley Brice Heath and Brian V. Street to explore the impact of using personality as a lens for culturally sustaining pedagogy as is defined by Django Paris and H. Samy Alim. The researcher posits that analysis of novel characters using the nine Enneagram personality types assists the educator in making more informed, differentiated literature selections which, by extension, aids students in more successful and enjoyable reading experiences which improve their reading self-efficacy and champion their diverse ways of being.

This research case study was conducted to determine how, if at all, the purposeful pairing of reading and writing activities helped students construct a writer's identity. As reading and writing are both skills separately taught, it is useful to explore the outcomes when pairing them together. This research study addresses how students can transact with texts, build upon their own ideas through a sociocultural lens, to create written products that will foster their identity as a writer. This case study relies on pattern matching to examine the extent to which students from an honors level junior English course perceived themselves as writers after the year-long course was completed. This study utilized a Google Forms survey along with an interview as a means of data collection in order to analyze whether or not students self-identified as a writer. This research is significant because it provides an account of eleventh grade students who were subjected to a hybrid year of learning due to COVID-19 and the outcomes of a classic American Literature curriculum that was modified to help them cultivate their own identity including one as a writer.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Cognitive Process of Instruction (CPOI), a cognitive strategy approach to writing instruction. An important emphasis o f the CPOI approach was a strategy designed to help students build a conceptual framework for the main idea paragraph as a means of improving composing skill.;The sample included 121 fifth grade elementary school students. Intact classes were assigned to the treatment or comparison group. The nonequivalent comparison-group design was used, and data were examined using analysis of covariance. The dependent variable was composing skill as measured by holistic and domain scoring. One null hypothesis was tested to determine whether differences between the experimental and comparison groups were significant at the.05 level of confidence.;The data analysis found that students in the cognitive strategy treatment showed significant difference when compared to comparison group students who were exposed to a modified writing process approach. However, this difference was in a different direction than predicted. Students in the cognitive strategy treatment experienced a decrease in composing score while students in the comparison treatments improved in composing skill. Length of treatment time and cognitive overload were seen as the most plausible explanation.;Recommendations include additional research to determine effect of length of time of treatment on (1) length of composition, (2) number of paragraphs written, and (3) composing skill for low, average, and high achieving students.