In the fall of 2020, ACT and the Mississippi Community College Board (MCCB) entered into a data sharing agreement in order to examine the validity of ACT's® WorkKeys® Assessments. WorkKeys Assessments measure students' foundational workplace skills. The focus of this technical brief is to summarize the results of several validity studies using a…

When individuals read a narrative text, they construct a mental representation known as a situational model to comprehend the unfolding story. These models require updates at meaningful changes in the story to reflect current information accurately. Existing research highlights the attentional and working memory demands of these updating…

Introduction: The learning media assessment (LMA) process is the mechanism professionals use to determine a student's optimal learning and reading media. Currently, no tool has been validated for the purpose of conducting the LMA process. Methods: A Delphi approach was used whereby a panel of identified experts in the LMA process went through…

This paper describes an academic service learning project that enabled teacher education candidates to create research-based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children's books. The book and family literacy activities were donated to local families at a Title I school during a reading night event. Teacher education candidates…

A learning crisis across Arabic-speaking countries is leading to human capital deficits, undermining efforts to reduce poverty and putting achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals at risk. The World Bank has introduced the concept of learning poverty to highlight this crisis -- measured as the percentage of 10- year-old children who are…

This study explored a relationship between internet access and literacy using quantitative data regarding students' reading performance. Data used in this study included reading scores provided by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the internet access data made available by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and…

Background and aims: eBooks have become a ubiquitous presence in many classrooms today. Yet, empirical evidence on literacy development has not been well produced, especially for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This mixed-method case study aimed to explore how four children with ASD interact with ebooks and printed books with parents…

Novice Teacher Experiences of Online Reading Instruction During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Deyanira Candales, 2023: Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice. Keywords: novice teachers, reading, online instruction, elementary school, virtual learning, distance learning,…

Learning and innovation skills such as creativity, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and collaboration can be fostered through learning about STEAM role models. Using selected picture book biographies, teachers can help their elementary students visualize the experiences of these individuals as they developed and refined ideas…

To make up for pandemic-related learning losses, many U.S. public school districts have increased enrollment in their summer school programs. We assess summer school as a strategy for COVID-19 learning recovery by tracking the academic progress of students who attended summer school in 2022 across eight districts serving 400,000 students. Based on…

Teachers of students at the Skipping School are tasked with teaching their students to read while managing a host of complex emotions and behaviors that negatively impact the quantity and quality of their instruction. The purpose of this Action Research study was to examine and lessen existing barriers to effective reading instruction for teachers…

A significant discrepancy exists between current research and teaching practices in reading instruction (Moats, 2020; Seidenberg, 2017). The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate teacher perceptions of barriers and successes when implementing structured literacy practices. This study is significant because the data will support…

The current study examined teachers' perceptions with regard to the Guided Reading (GR) approach in elementary level education. Specifically, this study examined the following research questions: a) What are Alberta teachers' perceptions about the GR approach? b) What are Alberta teachers' perceptions about how they enact GR in the classroom? and…

As an internal process, documenting reading comprehension has remained challenging. This paper presents three case studies that explore the transactional practices of literacy education graduate students as they read and annotate assigned texts in an online, asynchronous class. Social annotation tools give multiple students simultaneous access to…

In this study, we describe a teacher educator's first experience implementing a service-learning project in a children's literature course in which pre-service teachers helped provide read-alouds for the local public library's summer reading program. We sought to examine the impact the project had on the seven participants. Data was collected…