The policies underlying the specific learning disability (SLD) regulations in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are analyzed. The analysis focuses on the Response-to-Intervention (RTI) provision ("if the child responds to scientific, research-based intervention") as a diagnostic model,…

The importance of early identification of children at risk for reading failure is clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this longitudinal retrospective study was to further define the relationship between the development of prereading skills and later reading outcome in two groups of children; a group of reading-disabled children…

This article asks whether a project in Canada could have any implications for schools in England. It is concerned with the ultimate challenge for teachers: not just how to create positive, healthy relationships with excellent educational progress in a "failing" school where they are conspicuously lacking, but how to do so in a lasting,…

The authors used a pretest-posttest control group design with random assignment to evaluate whether early reading failure decreases children's motivation to practice reading. First, they investigated whether 60 first-grade children would report substantially different levels of interest in reading as a function of their relative success or failure…

While implementers are often blamed, reformers themselves are usually responsible for sub-optimal implementation of educational reform projects. This article shows that the conditions for successful implementation, which are known and accessible, are frequently ignored. The case study concerns a university that is engaged in in-service teacher…

Current policy, media and curriculum initiatives across western nations are drawing literacy and literacy pedagogy toward enticingly simplistic understandings of literacy as commodity. Increasingly they focus on "fixing" perceived literacy problems by assuming the primacy of early years literacy and "top-up" intervention…

Under the leadership of Tony Blair New Labour committed itself to raise standards, tackle educational failure and use education to combat disadvantage. This paper examines New Labour's approaches to school improvement, particularly the origins and enactment of "zero tolerance" strategies, the different groups of schools identified as…

The majority of court-involved youths have experienced academic failure, school exclusion, and dropout. Researchers have identified factors that increase a youth's risk for court involvement and incarceration. The risk factors include individual, family, community, peer, and school factors. Researchers actually have identified specific…

Attributions can have a significant effect on academic achievement and students with learning difficulties are more likely to display negative attributions than their peers. In this article, the attributions of students identified as having learning difficulties are compared with those of other non-labelled low achievers, and non-labelled average…

This article reviews the concepts of positive and negative perfectionism and the dual process model of perfectionism outlined by Slade and Owens (1998). The authors acknowledge that the dual process model represents a conceptual advance in the study of perfectionism and that Slade and Owens should be commended for identifying testable hypotheses…

This two volume document investigates the policies and processes that result in learners failing or passing in grades 1-3 in Ondangwa and Rundu education regions of Namibia. The first volume is a synthesis of the research, while volume two presents the "raw" data provided to help ground the reader in real life school settings. Ondangwa…

This study was conducted to compare causal attributions for success and failure response across four school subject areas (English, Mathematics, General Music, and Physical Education) using a "critical incident" methodology. Students (N=205) from a midwestern junior high school completed a questionnaire in which they identified important…

The study focuses on the completion rates in the three primary instructional modes at the university: (1) regularly scheduled classroom modules; (2) self-instructional modules; and (3) independent study. It appears that there is too wide a divergence in the completion rates among these instructional modes, but there is no solid information to…

After consideration of difficulties and shortcomings in the field of research in reading retardation, the evidence about specific factors contributing to reading achievement is reviewed. Factors considered include intelligence and patterns of scores on intelligence subscales, processing of verbal and auditory stimuli, and personality…

Describes the theory and known influences on learned helplessness, particularly in the mathematics field, and discusses prevention and remediation with respect to this phenomenon. (PK)