In a large school district in Florida, many third-grade students have been retained over a 7-year period. Enrollment documents, such as summer school registration forms and seven annual summer reading camp evaluations in 2013-2019, indicated that 13,693 students attended the 4-week summer reading camp during this period. Summer reading camps are…

States are increasingly recommending that districts and schools use multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to improve reading outcomes for all students. States have also suggested MTSS is a viable service delivery model in response to new state legislation to screen, identify, and treat students with word-level reading disability (i.e., dyslexia).…

The current study reports on a large-scale quantitative analysis of classroom talk practices and links to different measures of reading achievement within upper elementary classrooms. Data involving 745 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers and 18,844 students from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study were used. Talk was quantified via…

This study presents estimates of Black-White, Hispanic-White, and income achievement gaps using data from two different types of reading and mathematics assessments: constructed-response assessments that were likely more cognitively demanding and state achievement tests that were likely less cognitively demanding (i.e., composed solely or largely…

Identifying sources of variation has been used extensively in educational research as a tool to identify potential drives of variances in student achievement. However, prior research predominantly relied on findings from national- or international-level data, and thus their conclusions remain very broad-based. This study contributes new insight by…

"Success for All" ("SFA"®) is a whole-school reform model (that is, a model that integrates curriculum, school culture, family, and community supports) for students in prekindergarten through grade 8. "SFA"® includes a literacy program, quarterly assessments of student learning, a social-emotional development program,…

Too many talented students who go to under-resourced schools do not achieve their full potential. Though they may perform very well relative to their classmates, these students do not receive the same kinds of academically challenging opportunities throughout their educational journey as do their counterparts in better-resourced public and private…

Effect sizes are commonly reported for the results of educational interventions. However, researchers struggle with interpreting their magnitude in a way that transcends generic guidelines. Effect sizes can be interpreted in a meaningful context by benchmarking them against typical growth for students in the normative distribution. Such benchmarks…

The Texas Education Code (§ 29.051) requires school districts to provide every language minority student with the opportunity to participate in either a bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) program. This evaluation report summarizes the performance of students who participated in the district's Dual Language Bilingual Program. Included…

The objective of this study was to determine the latent profiles of reading and language skills that characterized 7,752 students in kindergarten through tenth grade and to relate the profiles to norm-referenced reading outcomes. Reading and language skills were assessed with a computer-adaptive assessment administered in the middle of the year…

Literacy By 3 is a comprehensive, literacy initiative implemented in Houston Independent School District's (HISD's) kindergarten- through fifth-grade classrooms during the 2014-2015 school year. Literacy By 3 is a combination of six reading strategies: (1) guided reading; (2) reading to self (independent or silent sustained reading); (3) read to…

The purpose of this research brief is to present results from a study investigating the relation between word reading fluency (both initial level and fall-winter gain scores), passage reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Word reading fluency data were collected in the fall and winter; outcome measures were administered in the spring of…

Guam Department of Education (GDOE) is a single unified school district consisting of grades Kindergarten thru 12. Its 26 Elementary Schools, 8 Middle Schools, 6 High Schools, and 1 alternative school serves over 31,000 students, and is managed by the Superintendent who is the Executive Secretary of a 12-member Guam Education Board (GEB). In…

In August 2010, the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) received a grant of more than $25 million from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program for a five-year study to validate its Leadership Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) model in three very diverse regions of the United States: rural North…

Increased scrutiny of educational proficiency targets has intensified the urgency for educators to identify measurements that indicate students' likelihood of eventual achievement in reading. This regression analysis explored the relationship between nonverbal ability in kindergarten as measured by the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and…