This research summary accompanies the report "Final Report of the i3 Impact Study of Making Sense of SCIENCE, 2016-17 through 2017-18." Science education has experienced a significant transition over the last decade, catalyzed by a re-envisioning of what students should know and be able to do in science. That re-envisioning culminated in…

In August 2010, the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) received a grant of more than $25 million from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program for a five-year study to validate its Leadership Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) model in three very diverse regions of the United States: rural North…

In the United States, less than half of the students who enter into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate curricula as freshmen will actually graduate with a STEM degree. There is even greater disparity in the national STEM graduation rates of students from underrepresented groups with approximately three-fourths…

This article describes the design and implementation of a program that incorporates a response-to-intervention (RTI) framework for promoting the development of early literacy and language skills among low-income minority children. The early literacy program, called the Exemplary Model of Early Reading Growth and Excellence, or EMERGE, combines…

A language and literacy intervention was implemented in 10 Head Start classrooms. Teachers were trained in specific book reading and conversation strategies. The focus of the intervention was to train teachers how to increase opportunities for language and vocabulary development in young children. At the end of the year, children in the…

Evaluates an approach that supplemented existing Reading Recovery programs with small-group, early literacy instruction in 28 Arkansas public schools. The program enabled many children to receive timely support. When space became available in Reading Recovery, these children made accelerated progress and were discontinued earlier than children who…

This study examined the effectiveness of a transitional Spanish-English bilingual program, Academic Language Acquisition (ALA), in enhancing K-5 students' English-language proficiency, as well as their English performance in academic subject areas, in comparison with the Structured English Immersion (SEI) process. An existing reading program,…

Dual enrollment programs enable high school students to enroll in college courses and earn college credit. Once limited to high-achieving students, such programs are increasingly seen as a means to support the postsecondary preparation of average-achieving students and students in career and technical education (CTE) programs. This report seeks to…

Everyone who graduates from high school truly literate starts to develop that literacy in the earliest grades. Educators must look to schools where students are achieving the highest literacy standards and identify the practices that enable them to achieve those goals. This report tells the stories of eight such schools--Portland Elementary School…

A study evaluated a comprehensive school-wide program based on an effective behavioral support approach for preventing disruptive behaviors implemented in seven elementary schools. The program included a school-wide discipline program, tutoring, conflict resolution, and functional behavioral intervention plans. Schools showed positive effects on…

We conducted functional analyses of disruptive behavior in a classroom setting for two students of typical intelligence with emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) using the classroom teacher to implement functional analysis conditions. The functional analyses suggested that both participants' disruptive behavior was maintained by escape from task…

Reading Recovery is a short-term intervention program for first-graders who are at risk of failure in reading and writing. More than 1.5 million children have been served in the United States since 1984, and pre- and post-test Observation Survey scores have been collected across the nation for the past 20 years. Yet there is a need to determine…

This report evaluates the Writing to Read (WTR) program instituted in 1988 in 13 West Virginia elementary schools as the result of a partnership between the IBM Corporation and the federal Appalachian Regional Commission. The WTR labs, also installed in 42 Kentucky and Virginia schools, use a computer-based instructional system to develop the…

This study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Policy Studies Associates, Inc. finds that regular participation in high-quality afterschool programs is linked to significant gains in standardized test scores and work habits as well as reductions in behavior problems among disadvantaged…

The goal of the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI) is to improve elementary and secondary students' ability to use their language--to read fluently and with expression, to understand what they read and hear, and to use this understanding so they can communicate effectively. ECRI is a pre- and in-service program for teachers to learn…