Teaching Older Students with Reading Difficulties and Disabilities: How Do We Do RTI?
Recorded Jan 12, 2011.
Dr. Greg Roberts and Dr. Jade Wexler, both of The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk (MCPER), discuss year 2 of a 3-year, multisite (Austin and Houston, Texas) middle school reading intervention study, part of the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities. The project involved a randomized controlled trial study of a multitiered approach for middle school students with identified reading problems. The presenters discuss the study design, the standardized and individualized protocol interventions, results, conclusions, and implications.
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Presenters
Dr. Greg Roberts
Dr. Greg Roberts is director of the Vaughn Gross Center for Reading and Language Arts, and associate director and director for evaluation and analysis of MCPER, an organized research unit at The University of Texas at Austin. He is principal investigator and director of the Special Education Strand of the national Center on Instruction; principal investigator of the Dissemination Core of the research-oriented Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; and past co-director of the Central Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center. Trained as an educational research psychologist and with expertise in quantitative methods, Dr. Roberts has directed research and evaluation projects in education, social services, and health care. He has published in multidisciplinary journals articles that feature structural equation models, meta-analysis, and multilevel models.
Dr. Jade Wexler
Dr. Jade Wexler is a research assistant professor at MCPER and a director of its Dropout Prevention Institute. Dr. Wexler earned her doctoral degree in special education (learning disabilities and behavior disorders) from The University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She has extensive experience directing research related to high-quality interventions for students with significant reading difficulties and students at risk for dropping out of school. Dr. Wexler has coordinated large-scale studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Meadows Foundation, the Greater Texas Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences. She has published several papers and chapters on adolescent reading and interventions for struggling readers. Her current research includes investigating effective response to intervention practices for older students with reading difficulties and disabilities and investigating effective methods to decrease dropout rates and increase school engagement for at-risk students.