The pedagogy of language has since time immemorial majored in the use of pens and other printed materials. However, there occurred a separation of the teaching culture into two major categories; the "big C" and "little c", meaning high and popular culture. Over the years, advancements in various pedagogical techniques have made…

Research on Theory of Mind (ToM) and reading comprehension is a lively and active field with numerous publications a year. ToM describes a child's ability to identify and reason about the mental states of others (e.g., think, believe, intend, want). The burgeoning findings from this research suggests ToM plays an important role in the reading…

With the growing number of non-native English speakers, improving communication through direct vocabulary instruction (DVI) is important. The problem investigated in this study was that English as a second language (ESL) teachers were not using the strategy DVI, in the ESL classroom. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore ESL…

Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is an effective instructional approach used to teach academic strategies for skills such as writing and reading comprehension. Included in SRSD are direct strategy instruction and explicit procedures for teaching self-regulation skills, a method that has been effective at improving academic skills of…

For high school students to develop scientific understanding and reasoning, it is essential that they engage in epistemic cognition and scientific argumentation. In the current study, we used the AIR model (i.e., Aims and values, epistemic Ideals, and Reliable processes) to examine high school students' epistemic cognition and argumentation as…

To test the effects of talker variability and explicit instruction on the statistical learning of lexical tone, 80 monolingual English listeners were taught an artificial language that mimicked Mandarin's asymmetric distribution of syllable-tone co-occurrences. Training stimuli consisted of either speech from one talker or speech from four…

This paper reports findings from two studies of student writing performance carried out in undergraduate political science courses to test whether low-cost interventions could lead to improvements in writing outcomes. Students enrolled in an introductory comparative politics course (N = 180) and a sophomore-level survey course (N = 101) were…

Many teachers are ill-prepared to apply practices that can both preempt and address challenging behaviors that interfere with academic instruction. We evaluated the efficacy of a supplemental multi-platform (direct instruction, guided practice, and mixed reality simulations) intervention designed for preservice teachers who do not have…

According to research by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD; 2000), reading is the single most important skill a child will learn in life. Reading proficiency is a powerful predictor of academic success, on-time graduation, and future earning potential in the workforce. Children who reach adulthood without adequate…

This short-form article describes a multimedia unit of study on social turmoil for students at the ACTFL Intermediate Mid and Intermediate High levels. It explains the rationale for the cultural products used based on current scholarship as well as ACTFL and MLA standards and provides explicit instructional guidance so that students with little…

This article is concerned with presenting a qualitative study of teachers dealing with undemocratic attitudes in secondary school. The research question was: how do teachers teach when the aim is to remove undemocratic attitudes and prevent the formation of undemocratic attitudes? The research group which was part of the study established…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if a direct, explicit method of teaching vocabulary with the Vocabulary Scenario Technique -- General Education 16 Encounter (VSTGE16) protocol would yield gains in the vocabulary knowledge of fourth grade students in a general education classroom. Two research questions examined whether fourth…

The What Works Clearinghouse™ is a federally funded source of scientific evidence for what works in education. The What Works Clearinghouse aims to disseminate findings from rigorous education research to the education community. One mechanism for accomplishing this aim is the production of practice guides. Panels of national content experts,…

Administrators often assume new teachers come prepared with the foundational skills required to be effective teachers. Not only is this frequently a false assumption, but some of these skills do also not fully make sense until a teacher has responsibility for a classroom. To assist in the transition process, many teachers will attend orientation…

Reading includes multiple skills essential for students to develop to become productive adults, yet results from state testing show some students are not meeting grade-level expectations. Colorado Department of Education shows a percentage of students have sufficient reading deficiencies, which resulted in having schools use an approved reading…