Gifted children often complain about waiting in class to learn. A qualitative study of 16 children in elementary and middle school in grades 1-8 revealed that sitting and waiting was a universal ingredient of being gifted in those regular classrooms. Children experienced 3 kinds of waiting: school/classroom, instructional, and assignment. Grounded…

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are brief measures of early literacy skills for students in Grades K-6 (University of Oregon, 2009; see Kaminski & Good, 1996). School psychologists and other educational professionals use DIBELS to identify students who are in need of early intervention. The purpose of this review was…

Beyond reliability and validity, measures used to model student growth must consist of multiple probes that are equivalent in level of difficulty to establish consistent measurement conditions across time. Although existing evidence supports the reliability of curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBMR), few studies have empirically evaluated…

Relations between changes in children's cognitive performance and changes in sleep problems were examined over a 3-year period, and family socioeconomic status, child race/ethnicity, and gender were assessed as moderators of these associations. Participants were 250 second- and third-grade (8-9 years old at Time 1) boys and girls. At each…

This study examined the academic performance and preference of students with disabilities for two types of test administration conditions, computer-based testing (CBT) and pencil-and-paper testing (PPT). Data from a large-scale assessment program were used to examine differences between CBT and PPT academic performance for third to eleventh grade…

There is compelling evidence for the role of social information processing (SIP) in aggressive behavior. However, less is known about factors that influence stability versus instability in patterns of SIP over time. Latent transition analysis was used to identify SIP patterns over one year and examine how community violence exposure, aggressive…

Using clickers to gauge student understanding in large classrooms is well documented. Less well known is the effectiveness of using clickers with youth for test taking in large-scale Extension programs. This article describes the benefits and challenges of collecting evaluation data using clickers with a third-grade population participating in a…

The "Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts" include the ability to become increasingly more capable with complex text over the school career, redirecting attention to the measurement of text complexity. While suggesting multiple criteria, the Standards offer a single measure of text complexity--Lexiles. Additional…

Introduction: The Swedish government has decided to introduce national tests in primary education. Swedish pupils in general have few tests and a recognised possible adverse effect of testing is test anxiety among pupils, which may have a negative impact on examination performance. However, there has been little research on effects of testing on…

Evidence-based classwide interventions have the potential to help a large number of students by preventing problem behaviors before they become a significant problem in the classroom. Results of a study examining the effectiveness of a classwide peer-modeling intervention package to improve students' on-task behavior in the classroom are…

This article provides an overview of research on intensive reading interventions to inform Tier 3 instruction for students with reading disabilities. Tier 3 interventions are typically provided to those students who demonstrate inadequate progress after receiving less intensive Tier 2 interventions. A conceptual overview of Tier 3 interventions…

There is a lack of valid and reliable low cost observational instruments to measure moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in school physical education (PE). The participants in this study were third to tenth grade boys and girls from a south Texas school district. The SAM (Simple Activity Measurement) activity levels were compared with…

The famed playwright Harold Pinter, having just been introduced as a very good writer, was once asked by a six-year-old boy if he could do a "w." The author suspects that "w" was a difficult letter for this young man, and he judged the writing capability of others accordingly. This student's assumption--that being a "good…

Productive knowledge work and high-level literacy are essential for engagement in a Knowledge society. In the research reported in this article, students were engaged in sustained collaborative knowledge building in science and social studies. The vocabulary growth of 22 students over Grades 3 and 4 was traced, based on their entries to Knowledge…

Since 2007, when this technical report was originally issued, the assessment field has made considerable progress in developing valid and reliable screening measures for early mathematics difficulties. This update includes new research published since 2007. It focuses on valid and reliable screening measures for students in kindergarten and first…