Reading proficiency scores are the topic of many discussions in school districts nationwide. Low state test scores and current Science of Reading Research are driving many states to enact legislation to improve reading instruction. In order to better understand literacy instruction, a literature review explores the varied approaches to reading…

SRSD interventions on writing have shown to be effective across a myriad of contexts and populations. Less is known, however, about their effectiveness for improving the writing skills of disadvantaged children, relative to their efficacy with other types of students. This is important, because low-SES children have been found to often display…

Community college completion has been proven to be a ticket to a middle-class life. Moreover, we know that poverty causes educational barriers, including community college completion. Community colleges across the nation are identifying significant equity gaps between students from poor versus middle-class or affluent households. One solution to…

Several instructional approaches have been advanced for learning programming. However, effective ways of engaging beginners in programming in K-12 are still unclear, especially among low socioeconomic status learners in technology-deprived learning environments. Understanding the learning path of novice programmers will bridge this gap and explain…

Zearn Math is a popular software platform for K-8 mathematics learning, designed to enable all students to successfully access grade-level content. RAND researchers collaborated with Zearn, the product's developer, to design this evaluation. Then RAND conducted the study independently, randomly assigning 64 schools in an urban Texas district to…

Background: Much has been made of whether the evidence supporting mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) is consistent or high-quality enough to merit their wide implementation, and numerous meta-analyses, reviews, and meta-analyses of meta-analyses have been conducted in pursuit of this question (e.g., Bockmann & Yu, 2023; Goldberg et al.,…

Research Findings: This study evaluated the effects of an early mathematics intervention designed to engage preschool children, their teachers, and their families in an interactive mathematics game. Previous research shows that playing this specific type of linear board game results in increased numerical skills and understanding in young children…

Research Findings: Low-socioeconomic status (SES) (intervention group, n = 31; control group, n = 32) and middle/high-SES (reference group, n = 33) 5-year-old Chinese kindergartners were screened through SES and IQ test. Their number sense was examined over five time points. The pretest was conducted at the beginning of the fall semester, followed…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the effects of new developmental statistics-based courses to traditional algebra-based developmental courses. The study used extant data from eight institutions and a matched sample of 2,041 students (Treatment, N = 748; Comparison, N = 1,293). All students enrolled in a treatment or…

The purpose of this convergent mixed methods research study was to determine if teacher instructional practices implemented after receiving job-embedded professional development through instructional coaching impact student reading achievement scores in an urban elementary school setting in which the school district faces the impact of poverty. In…

There is a need for empirically based educational practices shown to support learning, yet validation tends to require a high degree of experimental control that can limit ecological validity and translation to classrooms. We describe our iterative intervention design to support preschoolers' vocabulary through book reading coupled with playful…

Research Findings: This meta-analysis examined 29 (quasi-)experimental studies that involved low-income children ages 3 to 5 who might be subject to risks of academic failure and other negative outcomes. Compared to the controls, children who learned with social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula demonstrated significantly improved…

Project-based learning is popular with many parents, students, and teachers because of its focus on problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, and real-world application (Gallup, 2019). It encourages teachers to act as facilitators while students actively engage in teacherand student-posed learning challenges, working alone and in groups on…

This article reports on an exploratory mixed-methods study that investigated how the creation of multimodal digital texts, using tablets, and open-ended creative apps contributed to the literacy learning of five-year-old children in two schools in low socioeconomic areas in Western Australia. Participating teachers learned about seven exemplar…

This study investigated how an embedded peer support model that integrates non-cognitive principles, academic support, and peer mentoring affected students' success in completing gateway first-year courses as well as key measures such as retention at a Hispanic- and Minority-Serving Institution. The results show that the program had a…