Nature-based interventions (NBI) have demonstrated positive effects on a range of student outcomes, including enhanced prosocial behaviors, decreased levels of stress, and improved mood and concentration. Further, school-aged children's participation in NBIs supports students' reconnection with the natural world. Although schools represent an…

There are increasing calls to introduce computational thinking in schools; the arguments in favor call upon research suggesting that even kindergarten children can successfully engage in coding. This contribution presents a cross-sectional study examining the coding practices and computational thinking of fifty-one primary school children using…

Summer reading programs are a form of extended school year services for students in special education. However, previous studies have not reported including high percentages of participants in special education, nor have studies sufficiently controlled for selection bias. This study combined propensity score weighting with partially clustered…

The purpose of this article is to isolate and detail various literacies deployed by youth when they composed multimodal texts that culminated in the production of student films. In particular, we focus on manifestations of young people's thinking in the forms of fast and slow literacies. Using data from a series of research studies in which we…

Cross-linguistically, monolingual children produce target-like inflected verbs much earlier than they can reliably distinguish between singular and plural subject-verb agreement morphology in comprehension (i.e. Johnson, V., J. de Villiers, and H. Seymour. 2005. "Agreement Without Understanding? The Case of Third Person Singular /s/."…

Research on the effectiveness of STEM-focused (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-focused) schools and other learning experiences (e.g., short-term camps) on student outcomes is sparse. This study documented perceptions of STEM content and careers for elementary, middle, and secondary school students participating in…

This article presents an evaluation of the first 2 years of a research-based summer learning program that provided self-selected and developmentally appropriate books to students in low-income and low-resource elementary schools by a local philanthropic organization in a large urban district. The evaluation found evidence of a positive effect of…

This article examines case studies of two part-time synagogue education programs, a conventional "Hebrew School" and an alternative program modeled after Jewish summer camp. Using the lens of teaching of Bible to children in Grades 3-5, the study provides insight into similarities and differences between the two types of programs and the…

The study of social cognition involves the attribution of states of mind to humans, as well as, quite recently, to nonhuman creatures, like God. Some studies support the role of social cognition in religious beliefs, whereas others ascribe religious beliefs to an ontological knowledge bias. The present study compares these distinct approaches in…

Theory and empirical work suggest that teachers' social capital influences school improvement efforts. Social ties are prerequisite for social capital, yet little causal evidence exists on how malleable factors, such as instructional management approaches, affect teachers' ties. In this cluster-randomized trial, we apply a decision-making…

This report examines the outcomes of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) in-class Summer Programs operated in the M-DCPS. The Summer Programs, offered to provide supplemental instruction for students in need of remediation, are comprised of Literacy for Rising 3rd Grade Students, Algebra I End-of-Course (EOC) remediation, and Course…

Within brief experimental analysis, assessment data are used to target interventions for struggling students. This use of assessment data aligns with prevention and early intervention frameworks, but popular measures are limited for this purpose because of issues with measuring improvement in short periods. Our study was a pilot comparison of two…

A one-group repeated-treatment design was used to examine the academic year and summer oral reading fluency outcomes for students attending a district-sponsored summer literacy program (N = 250). Piecewise growth models applied to longitudinal data obtained during the first and second grade and over the course of the intervening summer revealed…

The impacts of a summer reading program on students' reading fluency were assessed. Fifteen students in grades first through seventh voluntarily attended a nine-day summer reading program. Participants who attended the program were a good representation of the other students in the school. The school was selected due to the high percentage of…

In this study, we intend to determine if reading tests aloud provides a differential boost to youth with elevated symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) relative to same-aged peers. Participants were 36 youth, 44% with or at risk for ADHD, who participated in a week long summer camp. Over the course of the week, youth attended…