Improving Instruction in Co-Taught Classrooms to Support Reading Comprehension

This unique special issue features five articles that provide guidance for middle school special education and general education content-area co-teachers on how to implement enhanced co-teaching models including specialized literacy instruction and best practices for co-teachers (e.g., co-planning; using station teaching to differentiate instruction). The authors of each article were part of a research team that conducted a 2015–2018 development and innovation professional development project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Project CALI (Content Area Literacy Instruction). Project CALI resulted in the development of the CALI professional development designed to provide co-teachers guidance on how to implement a set of evidence-based literacy practices (i.e., the CALI instructional framework) to improve outcomes for students with learning disabilities (LD) in co-taught classes. Authors in this special issue use examples from the CALI professional development to illustrate each practice.

Preparing to Implement Evidence-Based Literacy Practices in the Co-taught Classroom

It is essential that middle school content-area and special education co-teachers adopt evidence-based literacy practices that they can integrate into their content-area instruction to address the needs of all of the students in their classes. This article provides co-teachers with four planning tips to improve implementation of the practices they adopt. The planning tips are organized using the acronym FIRST: (a) monitor Fidelity of implementation of the adopted practices, (b) Integrate the practices into daily content-area instruction and across the year, (c) determine the Roles of each co-teacher when planning for and implementing instruction in the adopted practices, and (d) consider specific guidelines to Select Texts for each literacy-focused lesson. The planning tips are illustrated using examples related to the content-area literacy instruction (CALI) instructional framework, which is a set of evidence-based literacy practices and procedures designed to improve the literacy instruction middle school coteachers implement in their content-area classes.

Individualizing Literacy Instruction in Co-Taught Classrooms Through a Station Teaching Model

The Project CALI (Content Area Literacy Instruction) instructional framework is designed to enhance reading comprehension for all students, those with disabilities as well as their typically developing peers, in inclusive co-taught middle school content-area classrooms. For students with and at-risk for disabilities, even well-designed, research-based, and whole-class instruction often leads to inadequate improvement in reading comprehension and thus learning of content material. In CALI, teachers use student data to determine which students need more support and targeted, individualized instruction, and by contrast, which students may benefit from opportunities to extend their learning with more challenging texts and student-managed work. This article provides guidance for designing and implementing customizable lessons using station-teaching to individualize instruction. The Project CALI student support model is the final instructional piece of the CALI instructional framework.

Entrevista a Maria de Lourdes Dionísio

Maria de Lourdes Dionísio foi a terceira diretora da Revista Portuguesa de Educação, de 2003 a 2014. É docente do Departamento de Estudos Integrados de Literacia, Didática e Supervisão do Instituto de Educação da Universidade do Minho. Os principais interesses científicos centram-se nas áreas de ensino de português, leitura e literacias na educação de jovens e adultos, em contextos académicos e informais. Tem participado e coordenado projetos de investigação, nomeadamente, no âmbito da literacia: “Changing Lives. Literacy in Adult Education”, ELINET (European Literacy Network), e Ble*Teach - Developing a Blended Learning Course in Content Area Literacy for Secondary Teachers. Tem publicado regularmente em revistas e livros, e tem sido membro de inúmeros conselhos editoriais de revistas científicas, em contextos nacionais e internacionais.