Tammy L. Stephens

Educational Diagnosticians’ Understanding of Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness, and Reading Fluency:

This article summarizes the results of a study involving 42 educational diagnosticians from North Texas. The study was conducted to determine diagnosticians’ perceived understanding of early literacy development and their ability to effectively choose and interpret assessments of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and reading fluency. The results suggested that the educational diagnosticians who participated in the study were not sufficiently knowledgeable in identifying the numerous components of reading (e.g., phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and fluency); nor were they prepared to choose appropriate assessment instruments to assess selected components of reading.

Implementation of a Response-to-Intervention System in General Physical Education.

JOPERD • Volume 81 No. 9 • November/December 2010 T he Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEIA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001) brought many challenges for individuals working in education. Although many researchers have written about the implications of IDEIA for teachers, specifically the implication that response-to-intervention (RTI) has for general and special educators in academic classrooms (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2005; Stephens, Kinnison, Naquin, & Rueter, 2007), general physical educators have been mostly ignored (Sherrill, 2008). However, the RTI framework also affects how general physical education (GPE) teachers conduct their classes (Silliman-French, French, Stephens, & Kinnison, 2008).