This study was designed to increase student empowerment through the use of formative assessment. The targeted population consisted of first and fifth grade students in the same school. Evidence for the existence of the problem included teacher observation, students' lack of knowledge and skills to complete classroom assignments, and low test…

Facing mounting evidence that California has fallen behind on many key indicators of educational performance, policymakers and the public share considerable interest in exploring whether California should expand public funding for preschool education. This expanded funding will be most effective if resources can be directed to their most efficient…

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these…

Gaps in academic achievement between students from various racial and ethnic groups and from low-income families are a cause for national concern. The advent of high stakes testing and the increased awareness of high dropout rates have rekindled the search for ways to help all children succeed in school. Many strategies to address lagging…

"Integrating Writing, Academic Discourses, and Service Learning: Project Renaissance and School/College Literacy Collaborations" discusses a year-long general education program for first-year students that integrated disciplinary learning with a pen pal project in light of the goals of critical pedagogy and service-learning. The program aimed at…

The effectiveness of an explicit, systematic reading intervention for first-grade students whose home language was Spanish and who were at risk for reading difficulties was examined. Participants were 69 students in 20 classrooms in 7 schools from 3 districts who initially did not pass the screening in Spanish and were randomly assigned within…

For every teacher who has been at a loss to help the student who seemed helpless, this is a resource that cannot be missed. In this book, the author details instructional principles to help educators model and mentor effective life skills behaviors for their students. For the child who doesn't have friends, does poorly in sports, has difficulty…

Goal: Educators believe that parents can help their children learn to read. But what evidence supports this belief? And if parent involvement does matter, what kinds of parent involvement are most efficient? The goal of this report was to review the scientific literature on parent involvement in the acquisition of reading from kindergarten to…

This longitudinal study assessed the role of afterschool program (ASP) participation in the development of child obesity and peer acceptance in a sample of 439 children. Most participants lived in poverty and were Hispanic or African American. Measurements of height and weight determined obesity status and peer acceptance was assessed through…

The Office of Civil Rights (2001) and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Antunez, 2003) mandate that language proficiency and academic achievement be measured in order to provide equal educational opportunities to English language learners and have an accountability system for their language and academic growth. The Cognitive Academic Language…

The purpose of the federal Title VI, Class Size Reduction program is to reduce class sizes in grades K-3 to 18 or fewer students. In AISD, these funds were used for recruiting, hiring, and training highly qualified teachers to raise student achievement through increased personal attention. This report summarizes evaluation results of AISD's Title…

Kindergarten children at risk of developing language problems were administered the Florida Kindergarten Screening Battery. A principal components analysis revealed a verbal and a visual-spatial component and subsequent discriminant function analyses a high verbal/low visual-spatial group (LAL: Latent L) and a high visual-spatial flow verbal group…

The District of Columbia Public Schools has adopted new learning standards for core subjects, including reading/English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. The new standards show what students should know and be able to do: (1) in each subject; (2) at each grade level; and (3) in every school. This publication guides parents…

This study attempts to identify different patterns of cognitive growth in kindergarten and first grade associated with selected subpopulations. The results are based upon a nationally representative sample of fall kindergartners who were retested in the spring of their kindergarten year and then again in the fall and spring of their first grade…

Reading First is a federal initiative authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act. The U.S. Department of Education provides Reading First grants to states, which, in turn, award subgrants to eligible school districts that submit approved proposals for how they will apply scientifically based reading research to improve reading instruction and…