Many disadvantaged students with refractive errors, such as myopia (nearsightedness) and hyperopia (farsightedness), do not have eyeglasses, and their reduced vision may impact reading proficiency. Providing eyeglasses may increase their reading success. This article reports the findings of a study in Baltimore City in which disadvantaged second…

Student achievement in literacy and mathematics for students involved in a Spanish language program at a large and diverse school district in Arkansas, were compared to peers' scores who did not participate in the program. The program was implemented to enroll native English speaking students in a Spanish enrichment program (SEP) with the intent…

Already academically at risk, students in the rapidly growing English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the United States face additional challenges due to regression of English language acquisition over the average ten-week agrarian summer break when they return to homes in which Spanish was the primary language spoken. While the…

This action research is a quantitative study of personal goal setting and how it affects the academic performance of third grade students on weekly Math, Reading, and Language Arts assessments in a proactive effort to increase individual performance on standardized tests. The students' weekly performance was indicative of their expected…

A challenge for todays instructional leaders is identifying the most effective method of educating English Language Learners (ELLs) who participate in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program. The primary purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness of three programs used for ESL students in twelve elementary schools in a Urban…

This study examined whether having a teacher with National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification improves student achievement. The study analyzed data on about 3,800 second through fifth grade students taught by 198 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Study data were from 2003-04 and 2004-05. The authors…

This case study examined the general question: "What are the best practices for teaching. English language learners how to read?" Furthermore, this study sought to discover specifically: How do students using Houghton Mifflin Reading Program with supplementals and Rigby Reading Program with supplementals compare in terms of academic gains?; What…

This study examined the effectiveness of a transitional Spanish-English bilingual program, Academic Language Acquisition (ALA), in enhancing K-5 students' English-language proficiency, as well as their English performance in academic subject areas, in comparison with the Structured English Immersion (SEI) process. An existing reading program,…

Minnesota is one of many states that began development of an English proficiency test before federal requirements were in place to do so. It had decided to put into place a test that would provide the state with a better and more uniform gauge of how its population of English language learners (ELLs) was doing in their acquisition of academic…