The English Language and Literacy Acquisition--Validation (ELLA-V) study was a five-year evaluation of a program that provided professional development, coaching, and curricula that targeted English-as-a-second-language (ESL) instruction for teachers of K-3 English learners (ELs). ELLA-V was implemented in 10 school districts in Texas in the…

The English Language and Literacy Acquisition--Validation (ELLA-V) study was a five-year evaluation of a program that provided professional development, coaching, and curricula that targeted English-as-a-second-language (ESL) instruction for teachers of K-3 English learners (ELs). The project was federally funded by a grant from the U.S.…

Assessing and monitoring student progress is becoming increasingly important in classrooms and for accountability purposes. Yet, in order to interpret changes in assessment results from one year to the next as reflecting differences in underlying ability rather than as variations in the measurement, the assessments used should be measuring the…

There is growing evidence that schools are not meeting the needs of emergent bilinguals who are falling behind in both academic language development and content knowledge learning. In response to this concern, this article proposes five research-based guidelines for promoting effective instruction for emergent bilinguals. In order to connect…

The current literature indicates a need for quality studies on how best to close the achievement gap between elementary English language learners (ELLs) and their English speaking peers. The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed methods research study was to determine the relationship between standards-based differentiated instructional…

The authors reported findings from 3 studies examining the efficacy of Five Standards pedagogy in raising student achievement. Studies 1 and 2 were randomized designs; Study 3 was a quasi-experimental design. Samples included 53 teachers and 622 predominantly low-income Latino students in Grades 1-4. Studies assessed model fidelity with the…

The authors examined the relationship between pedagogy, classroom organization, and student achievement gains. Participants in this nonequivalent pretest and posttest control-group design were 23 teachers and 394 students (Grades 3 to 5) in 2 public elementary schools serving predominantly low-income Latino English learners. The authors found that…