As students proceed through school, they are expected to comprehend complex texts but may not have the necessary competencies to do so. This study examined the impact of teaching text organization of lengthy social studies textbook passages on student comprehension of the content contained there. Over a 10-week period, 205 sixth-grade students…

Students classified as English learners (EL) are a protected class of students with core legal rights. There are clear opportunities to strengthen education policies and practices to improve opportunities and outcomes for EL-classified students. This dissertation is comprised of three studies examining key issues in EL education with the goal of…

This report summarizes feedback from AISD teachers and program coordinators who participated in Spring 2016 focus group discussions about a newly implemented professional development model called Project GLAD.

During the summer of 2014, Austin ISD's Department of English Language Learners provided guided language acquisition design (Project GLAD) training to 33 district teachers. Teachers from two AISD campuses were selected to participate in the district's pilot of the Project GLAD program. This report summarizes Fall 2014 survey responses from the 33…

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of treatment-control differences in the quality of classroom interactions in 4th through 7th grade urban classrooms. Word Generation (WG) is a research-based academic language program for middle school students designed to teach novel vocabulary and literacy through language arts, math, science, and…

This mixed-methods study examines middle school students' academic language development in the context of a year-long professional development project titled, Developing Content Area Academic Language (DCAAL). The purpose of DCAAL was to partner middle school teachers (n = 8) with a team of university researchers to explore how to integrate…

This paper investigates the differences in academic achievement trajectories from elementary through middle school among English Learner students in four different instructional programs: English Immersion, Transitional Bilingual, Developmental Bilingual, and Dual Immersion programs. Comparing students with the same parental preferences but who…

Success for All (SFA)[R] is a whole-school reform model that includes a reading, writing, and oral language development program for students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Classroom reading instruction is delivered in daily 90-minute blocks to students grouped by reading ability. Immediate intervention with tutors who are certified…