This column explores the research that investigates teaching children with informational texts, which is a growing concern and focus in Common Core State Standards (CCSS.) The authors highlight empirical data that study the use of informational texts with young learners. The article is foregrounded in four key findings: make the texts available…

This study examined incidental recall of a folktale told to 91 Tohono O'odham American Indian children (average age 9 years) who either were directly addressed or had the opportunity to overhear the telling of the folktale. Learning from surrounding incidental events contrasts with learning through direct instruction common in Western schooling,…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) display severe social and academic deficits that can adversely affect their academic performance in mathematics and result in higher rates of failure throughout their schooling compared to other students with disabilities (U.S. Department of Education, 2005; Webber & Plotts, 2008).…

"Tools for Getting Along" is a 26-lesson curriculum designed to help upper elementary school teachers establish a positive, cooperative classroom atmosphere. Lessons are intended to reduce disruptive and aggressive behavior by helping students develop anger management skills. Students use problem-solving steps to generate, implement, and…

Introduction: Deafblindness limits access to social cues and social feedback, thus restricting the development of social skills. Many children with CHARGE syndrome, a leading cause of deafblindness, experience challenges with emotional self-regulation and anxiety that may interfere with socialization. Learning about self-determination skills such…

Seven schools in an economically challenged area of an urban school district in central California implemented mentored peer mediation programs under the guidance of a university-K-12 partnership project, Mediator Mentors. Individual student outcomes for social-cognitive dispositions, perceptions of school climate, conflict strategy choices, and…

Learning science vocabulary is an often tedious but important component of many curricula. Frequently, students are expected to learn science vocabulary indirectly, but this method can hinder the success of lower-performing students (Carlisle, Fleming, and Gudbrandsen 2000). We have developed an inquiry-based vocabulary activity wherein students…

Addressing the reading needs of adolescent learners living in rural areas may create challenges for teachers and administrators in the age of accountability. This study addressed this issue by implementing two explicit instructional approaches with struggling adolescent readers (n = 49) in a rural middle school in the southeastern United States.…

Play is a significant aspect of preschool curricula. We report two studies that examine the effects of play-related variables: length of free play, type of language instructional approach, degree of structure of free play, and amount of teacher involvement in communication with peers. For each study, we target three dependent variables: rate of…

The purpose of this study was to determine if a typical third-grade boy and fifth-grade girl and a boy with learning disabilities could benefit from the combined use of Direct Instruction (DI) flashcard and math racetrack procedures in an after-school program. The dependent variable was accuracy and fluency of saying basic multiplication facts. A…

Science education reform documents identify nature of science (NOS) as a critical component of scientific literacy and call for universities, colleges, and K-12 schools to explicitly integrate NOS learning into science curricula. In response to these calls, this study investigated the classroom practices of nine graduate assistants (GAs) who…

Teachers of young children can plan proactively so that they avoid some of the serious problem behaviors in the classroom. The strategies presented in this article are part of a problem solving approach to challenging behavior based on the principles of positive behavioral support. Although these methods presented here have research-based…

This dissertation presents the results of an experiment that measured the learning outcomes associated with three different pedagogical approaches to introductory physics labs. These three pedagogical approaches presented students with the same apparatus and covered the same physics content, but used different lab manuals to guide students through…

Anecdotal accounts from science educators suggest that few teachers are teaching science as inquiry. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this claim. This study aimed to provide evidence-based documentation of the state-of-use of inquiry-based instruction and explicit instruction about nature of science (NOS). We examined the…

Determining effective instructional strategies for the attitudes and achievement of middle school social studies students and the attitudes of their teachers was the focus of this study. Specifically, the researcher looked at the difference in the impacts that direct and indirect instruction made on attitude and achievement of students, attitude…