A case study is presented of a second-grader whose parents receive a report that her reading and mathematics achievement is far below grade level, based on a newly implemented computer-based assessment and intervention program. Discussion concerns her previous grades, assessment results, the constructivist theory-based curriculum, and legal…

The arts play an important role in human development, enhancing the growth of cognitive, emotional, and psychomotor pathways. Neuroscience research reveals the impressive impact of arts instruction, such as, music, drawing and physical activity, on students' cognitive, social and emotional development. Much of what young children do as…

The study explores urban second graders' thinking and talking about the concepts of evaporation, boiling, and condensation that emerged in the context of intertextuality within an integrated science-literacy unit on the topic of States of Matter, which emphasized the water cycle. In that unit, children and teacher engaged in a variety of…

This chapter examines how the study of popular romantic fiction was used to transform students' understandings of the ways in which gendered identities are constructed and their perception of the way textual meanings are determined.

A case study of a child who was a part of a larger reading-practice research study is presented. Data analysis from the larger study yielded a strong effect size for children in the experimental group who used decodable text for reading practice. The pre- and posttest scores of one child included in the treatment were not used in the statistical…

A response-to-intervention model (RTI) has been identified as a promising way to identify and intervene early with children who are experiencing learning difficulties. The general RTI approach also holds promise of preventing learning difficulties with preschoolers. This article examines the potential benefits of implementing a RTI model in…

Background: A longitudinal study investigated the cognitive skills and scholastic attainments at 8 years of age of children selected on the basis of poor phonological loop skills at 5 years. Methods: Children with low and average performance at 5 years were tested three years later on measures of working memory, phonological awareness, vocabulary,…

Although the literature on social networks has made a considerable contribution to the sociological imagination in recent years, it has been largely ignored in conventional course materials. Such an omission is curious, considering social networks' intuitive imagery, broad theoretical relevance and extensive empirical application. This article…

This paper concerns the influence of age of acquisition (AoA) in word reading and other tasks, and attempts to develop a number of issues raised by Zevin and Seidenberg (2002). Analyses performed on both rated and objective measures of AoA show that the frequency trajectory of words is a reliable predictor of their order of acquisition, which…

Literacy is important not only to school success but is fundamental to skills needed to succeed in our rapidly changing technology-driven society. This article focuses on characteristics, interactions, and attitudes of parents and children related to their use of assistive technologies to build literacy skills. Interviews and observations…

As additional funding and new legislation increase our focus on literacy, we should consider the findings of a study by the National Staff Development Council and the National Education Association on what works. The study reviews programs that have demonstrated improvements in student learning, and issues key findings for every grade level.

Helping teachers decide the critical point when a young child is ready to learn and the appropriate strategy to use with that child is the crux of this successful program. Scaffolding Early Literacy is helping close the learning gap between higher-performing students and minority, special needs, and low socioeconomic students. (Contains 3…

This study reports a small-scale experiment that was set up to estimate the extent to which (i) the use of formulaic sequences (standardized phrases such as collocations and idiomatic expressions) can help learners come across as proficient L2 speakers and (ii) an instructional method that emphasizes "noticing" of L2 formulaic sequences can help…

For many ESL teachers, finding time for research within the everyday activities of classroom teaching can be problematic. This is often the case with large classes and classes that have few contact hours, where it is difficult to include research activities, particularly those that centre upon gathering relevant information about individual…

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on…