Research Findings: This within-group exploratory sequential mixed-methods investigation sought to identify how ethnically diverse, urban-residing, low-income Black families conceptualize positive parenting. During the item development phase 119 primary caregivers from Head Start programs participated in focus groups and interviews. These…

The goal of the current study is to explore the influence of knowledge on socioeconomic discrepancies in word learning and comprehension. After establishing socioeconomic differences in background knowledge (Study 1), the authors presented children with a storybook that incorporates this knowledge (Study 2). Results indicated that middle-income…

This study evaluated the ability for two rhythmic rhyming programs to raise phonological awareness in the early literacy classroom. Year 1 (5-6-year-olds) from low socioeconomic status schools in Bedfordshire, learned a program of sung or spoken rhythmic rhymes, or acted as controls. The project ran with two independent cohorts (Cohort 1 N = 98,…

Early math skills are a strong predictor of later achievement for young children, not only in math, but in other domains as well. Exhibiting strong math skills in elementary school is predictive of later high school completion and college attendance. To that end, the Making Pre-K Count and High 5s studies set out to rigorously assess whether…

The Kauffman School is a public charter school that serves students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri. This paper used a matched comparison group design to estimate the impacts of the Kauffman School on student achievement, attendance, and suspensions. We found that the Kauffman School had positive and statistically…

As part of its ongoing efforts to raise the academic achievement of children from low-income families in Kansas City, Missouri, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation founded the Ewing Marion Kauffman School in fall 2011. The Kauffman School's mission is "to prepare students to excel academically, graduate from college, and apply their unique…

Children from a low socioeconomic status (SES) are exposed to numerous stress factors that are negatively associated with sustained attention and academic performance. This association suggests that the timed component of lengthy assessments may be unfair for students from such backgrounds, as they may have an inability to sustain attention during…

With the push for adequate yearly progress (AYP), educators must find cost-effective strategies improve learning for all students. Tutoring has been found to be an effective strategy for improving students' learning. However, little research has been done to determine the influence of pre-service teachers as tutors. This quantitative,…

The purposes of the study were to determine (a) the ability of two spontaneous language measures, mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m) and number of different words (NDW), to identify African American preschool children at low and high levels of language ability; (b) whether child chronological age was related to the performance of either…

Too few community college students who intend to transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree actually do. Further, low-income and first-generation college students are overrepresented at community colleges. Education is considered a means of social and economic mobility for low-income, first-generation students; therefore, retaining this population…

This dissertation explored multiple factors that impact the satisfaction and success of low socioeconomic status students at a California community college. In an effort to illuminate this impact, a quantitative study investigating extant data collected from a campus climate survey was conducted. The researcher was specifically interested in…

The authors tested whether students can be taught to better understand conventional representations in diagrams, photographs, and other visual representations in science textbooks. The authors developed a teacher-delivered, workbook-and-discussion-based classroom instructional method called Conventions of Diagrams (COD). The authors trained 1…

The purpose of this study was to examine if there was a difference between mean measures of preliteracy skills of preschool children who participated in Creating Young Readers, a volunteer based reading program, and a control group who had not. Unpaid community volunteers were trained in a modified dialogic reading technique, focusing on…

This report presents selected findings from the Current Teacher and Former Teacher Data Files of the 2012-13 Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS). TFS is a nationally representative sample survey of public and private school K-12 teachers who participated in the previous year's Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). First fielded in school year 1988-89,…

Head Start is the largest publicly funded preschool program in the U.S., and one of its primary goals is to improve the school readiness of low-income children. As has been widely reported, the first randomized trial of Head Start in the program's history found some evidence that it is achieving this goal. Receiving one year of Head Start had…