This is the second of 2 reports that look at the results of TIMSS 2023 and Australia's performance. This report, Volume II, presents the results from the contextual questionnaires, and examines the home, school, and classroom contexts in which learning and achievement occur, as well as student attitudes. Each chapter focuses on different…

Strategic Reading and Writing (SRW) is a reading and writing intervention course available to sixth- through tenth-grade students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) who did not meet Grade Level standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) grades 3-8 reading the previous school year or who fell below the…

These are the appendices for the report "The Effects of an Academic Language Program on Student Reading Outcomes." This study investigated WordGen Elementary, a program designed to improve fourth- and fifth-grade students' ability to understand and communicate academic language and their general reading skill. The program provider…

Before school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the frequency with which teachers used computer activities to teach a class varied across education systems. However, many teachers across the board reported the need for professional development to teach using technical devices. Using results from TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and…

This is the appendix for the report, "The Impact of Word Knowledge Instruction on Literacy Outcomes in Grade 5." District leaders in a large urban school district in central Florida wanted to examine the efficacy of a new curriculum designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students so as to improve reading achievement. The new…

In today's economy, preparation for career or college is essential. Yet too few students graduate with the knowledge or skills to directly enter college or a career. The time students spend in on-the-job training or catching up in remedial courses cost students and their families more both in time and money. Many of these students are caught off…

Achieve3000®, a web-based differentiated reading program based on the Lexile® Framework and designed to improve student reading ability and comprehension of increasingly complex texts, was made available to approximately 100,000 secondary students across 98 HISD schools during the 2017-2018 academic year. The present evaluation, using a select…

Relative to their middle and high school teacher counterparts, elementary science teachers are both uniquely situated and uniquely challenged for excellent science instruction. More than 90 percent of elementary teachers work in self-contained classrooms, meaning they have opportunities to connect their science instruction with English language…

The Writer's Workshop is an approach to writing instruction using a workshop model. It is being implemented in kindergarten to fourth-grade in the Houston Independent School District. The Writer's Workshop sought to improve students' writing through teacher preparation by accommodating weaker students in research-based approaches that treat…

The "English Language Development among American Indian English Learner Students in New Mexico" study examined ways to better understand progress toward English proficiency among American Indian English learner students. The study examined two statewide cohorts of American Indian students identified as English learner students at initial…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…

The Houston Independent School District offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). In the Transitional Bilingual program (TBP), students may move into a pre-exit phase of bilingual education so long as they meet certain performance criteria. In this Pre-Exit phase, predominantly English-language instruction…

This report includes results for Austin Partners in Education (APIE) programs in 2019-2020 including math classroom coaching, GEAR UP tutoring, college readiness, and mentoring. It highlights continued academic programs serving students in middle and high school and describes APIE support provided to teachers' instruction. As classroom instruction…

Over the past several years, research teams have developed observational instruments to measure the quality of teachers' instructional practices. Instruments such as Framework for Teaching (FFT) and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) assess general teaching practices, including student-teacher interactions, behavior management, and…

Contemporary state math standards emphasize that students must demonstrate an understanding of the mathematical ideas underlying the computations that have typically been the core of the elementary school math curriculum. The standards have put an increased emphasis on the study of fractions in upper elementary grades, which are the years during…