Many students have difficulty in educational and employment settings because they have failed to master basic writing skills. Multiple-baseline across-tasks designs were used to evaluate the effects of the Comprehensive Writing Program (CWP), a multicomponent intervention, on the writing performance of all students (n = 17) from 3 9th-grade special education classrooms. The CWP included direct instruction, assignment choice, increased practice, group rewards, and individual feedback. Assessment procedures were used to collect data on 3 target skills: percentage of sentences that (a) were complete sentences, (b) contained adjectives, and (c) were compound sentences. Results suggest that the CWP increased students' performance on recently taught or retaught skills; however, not all increases were maintained. Discussion focuses on future applied and theoretical research designed to address limitations of the current study and to enhance the effectiveness of the CWP.

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) has evolved as a reliable and valid method for measuring and monitoring student performance in basic academic skills. While the efficacy of CBM for assessing reading skills is not in question, issues remain regarding whether or not a difference exists between CBM probes derived directly from the instructional curriculum and generic probes. The current study extends previous research comparing the utility of two types of CBM reading probe materials. Both types of probes were administered to 13 second grade students twice weekly for 5 weeks. No significant differences were found between the two probe types' measurement of performance or progress over time, which suggests that school psychologists and educational professionals can use generic or curriculum-dependent probes in curriculum-based measurement. (C) 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.