A solid understanding of fractions is the cornerstone for acquiring proficiency with rational numbers and paves the way for learning advanced mathematical concepts, such as algebra. Fraction difficulties limit not only students' educational and vocational opportunities but also their ability to solve everyday problems. Students who exit 6th grade…

This article summarizes findings from a two-year randomized control trial, focusing on a subset of 194 fourth graders with reading comprehension scores at or below the 15th percentile. Students in the treatment condition received an average of 94 daily 30-min sessions of small group intervention implemented with fidelity by well-trained research…

An impediment to conducting high-quality quantitative research studies in education is the paucity of valid measures of learning gains. Studies often seek to investigate students' deep, conceptual understanding yet many measures assess only surface, procedural understanding. One reason is that the development of validated measures of conceptual…

This study utilized secondary analyses of a randomized controlled trial and investigated the extent to which prestest word identification efficiency, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge moderated the effects of an intervention on reading comprehension outcomes for struggling readers in sixth through eighth grades. Given that the experimental…

The present paper examines if developmental pathways for students at risk for academic failure can be improved through social and emotional learning (SEL). Specifically, we test this hypothesis by accounting for shifts in student engagement, a highly studied and malleable construct often inclusive of SEL interventions, as the pathway by which to…

In each issue of the "Journal of Staff Development" ("JSD"), senior advisor to Learning Forward author Joellen Killion explores a recent research study to help practitioners understand the impact of particular professional learning practices on student outcomes. Detailed in this issue is a randomized control study in which…

This study sought to better understand the prevalence of concurrent and specific difficulties in reading fluency and vocabulary among adolescents with low reading comprehension. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify a sample of 180 students in sixth through eighth grades with reading comprehension difficulties. A subsequent LCA…

An appropriate estimate of statistical power is critical for the design of intervention studies. Although the inclusion of a pretest covariate in the test of the primary outcome can increase statistical power, samples selected on the basis of pretest performance may demonstrate range restriction on the selection measure and other correlated…

This randomized controlled trial focused on 59 struggling readers in the third and fourth grades (30 female, 29 male) and examined the efficacy of an intervention aimed at increasing students' multisyllabic word reading (MWR). The study also explored the relative effects of an embedded motivational beliefs (MB) training component. Struggling…

In this article, the authors summarize results from 5 randomized controlled trials assessing the effects of intervention to improve the fraction performance of fourth-grade students at risk for difficulty in learning about fractions. The authors begin by explaining the importance of competence with fractions and why an instructional focus on…

The purpose of this article was to summarize results from 5 randomized control trials assessing the effects of intervention to improve the fraction performance of 4th-grade students at-risk for difficulty in learning about fractions. We begin by explaining the importance of competence with fractions and why an instructional focus on fractions…

We present main effects of treatment and moderating effects of student background on science and engineering outcomes for grades 3-5 children participating in an engineering intervention. Data is from a large-scale randomized-controlled trial of two matched pairs (intervention and comparison) of engineering units. The intervention curriculum…

This experimental study examined the effectiveness of a text-based reading and vocabulary intervention with self-regulatory supports for 4th graders with low reading comprehension. Students with standard scores on the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test between 1.0 standard deviation (SD) and 0.5 SD below the normative sample were included (N=44) and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the findings of an intervention program built on the concept of children's health literacy, particularly on its citizenship component. This intervention program employed the Investigation-Vision-Action-Change model for action-oriented teaching, where children were supported to investigate different…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of using group story-mapping on ESL students with a learning disability in reading comprehension. The researcher focused on a specific graphic organizer in this study, called Group Story-Mapping. This strategy required students with learning disabilities involving reading comprehension to…