Project SAIL is a three-year development and evaluation effort of the Center for Advanced Technology in Education at the University of Oregon, the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut, and four partnering school districts. The goal of Project SAIL is to develop, revise and pilot-test technology-based reading and learning strategies designed to improve online reading and studying by secondary students with learning disabilities. Project SAIL also proposes to develop, revise and pilot-test instructional materials and video-based, interactive, online learning modules designed to teach the strategies for online reading and studying to students with learning disabilities in middle and high schools. Project SAIL is a Goal Two IES proposal to the National Center for Special Education Research addressing item two under the topic Reading, Writing, and Language Development. This item requests proposals for “developing curricula, instructional approaches or strategies for teaching reading, writing, or language skills to students with identified disabilities.”

1. To what extent and in what ways do students with learning disabilities use online reading/learning strategies that help manage the online reading environment? 
2. To what extent and in what ways do students with learning disabilities use online reading/learning strategies that promote use of eText supports? 
3. To what extent and in what ways do students with learning disabilities use online reading/learning strategies to find, evaluate, synthesize, and share information on the web? 
4. Given specific tasks for reading and using information online, what strategies or combinations of strategies for online academic reading/learning do students with learning disabilities use? 
5. What are the factors that affect student use of strategies for online academic reading/learning and do they facilitate or inhibit student ability to benefit from this intervention? 
6. Do the strategies for online academic reading/learning function as intended when used by students with learning disabilities in secondary level classrooms? 
7. Do the materials designed to teach strategies for online academic reading (e.g., onepagers and online instructional modules) function as intended (i.e. adequately prepare teachers and students to use the strategies for academic assignments)?

For information, please contact Dr. Carolyn Knox.