Identifying and supporting students in early elementary grades with low literacy achievement is critical to help them achieve grade-level proficiency and stay on track academically. "Reading Recovery"® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims…

Identifying and supporting students in early elementary grades with low literacy achievement is critical to help them achieve grade-level proficiency and stay on track academically. "Reading Recovery"® is an intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to students in grade 1 with low literacy achievement. This supplemental program aims…

High-quality decodable books enhance literacy by providing children with focused practice opportunities to break down sounds they have learned and apply their decoding skills. Just Right Reader (JRR) hired LXD Research to measure its impact during a pilot study in the Spring of 2024 to determine the effect of their decodable books on literacy…

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M) were released in 2010 with a goal to improve critical thinking skills and prepare all students to thrive in college, careers, and as informed citizens. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) followed in 2013. Using districtwide surveys of students in grades 6-8, conducted annually from…

The fundamental goal of the Third Grade Summer Reading Camp program in 2024 was to bolster the reading skills of struggling third grade students and to prepare them to demonstrate mastery of state standards needed to be promoted to the fourth grade. The Office of Program Evaluation undertook an evaluation to gauge whether students who completed…

In order to realize all the benefits of parental-choice programs, advocates, policymakers, and participating schools have to pay more attention to implementation challenges, both when designing parental-choice policies and after new programs are enacted. This report discusses both categories of implementation challenges. The first…

In alignment with the Academic Excellence pillar of the Strategic Plan, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is committed to improving student achievement in literacy. MCPS initially piloted a Structured Literacy approach in Kindergarten-Grade 2 during the 2021-2022 school year. Due to the pilot's success in improving student outcomes, MCPS…

Concern about the state of literacy instruction in America's classrooms has recently exploded. As a result, policymakers, school system leaders, and teachers have increasingly sought to remake how children learn to read in order to improve literacy outcomes--a pursuit that has gained heightened urgency in the aftermath of the pandemic. This work,…

In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each of its twelve schools in order to bolster district capacity to support student mental health and wellbeing. Stanford's John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (Gardner Center) conducted a Year 1…

Success for All (SfA) is a comprehensive school reform program designed to support schools serving many students of disadvantaged backgrounds to increase students' achievement. SfA includes daily 90-min reading lessons with extensive use of cooperative learning, tutoring for struggling readers, and an emphasis on parental involvement. School teams…

Delve into the transformative journey of teachers and administrators from a rural school district as they bring "Principles to Actions" to life. Pawnee City Public Schools believes effective teaching affects student learning and implemented a successful district-wide plan to improve student learning through the eight Mathematics Teaching…

National curriculum standards for different countries mean some International Baccalaureate (IB) schools must often balance IB and national standards. Literature on how schools find this balance is limited. Using a qualitative case study design, we examined the perspectives of teachers of English in a Chinese IB school that recently employed a…

Grade 3-5 students in southeastern Arkansas are reading below grade level despite the efforts of educators. The study explored educator perceptions of the Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.) professional development, in which educators learn about Science of Reading (SOR) instructional strategies and how to implement them in the…

LXD Research analyzed data from over 3,200 students in grades K-2 who participated in using the 95 Phonics Core Program in a school district in MO during 2021-2022. The demographic breakdown of this sample included 75% White students, 23% Low Income students, 9% ESL students, 13% SPED students. Schools in the district were paired for similar ELA…

The purpose of this study was to assess the increase of Latino parents' confidence in advocating and supporting their child's schooling. The intervention was implemented in six public independent school districts in the Southwest United States. The data was examined through matched pre- and post-surveys (n = 45). Findings are consistent in…