This study investigates the capacity of children to develop map-based skills in spatial orientation in an urban environment unknown to them. In this quantitative study, a total of 328 pupils of grades 3-5 had to achieve specific skills with regard to map-based skills in spatial orientation (such as turning-off skills, transformation from map to…

Documenting how students with learning disabilities (LD) initially conceive of fractional quantities, and how their understandings may align with or differ from students with mathematics difficulties, is necessary to guide development of assessments and interventions that attach to unique ways of thinking or inherent difficulties these students…

Research Findings: This study investigates contributions of the preschool classroom interpersonal environment to students' social competence in 1st grade. Participants were 862 ethnically/racially diverse children who attended public preschool classrooms serving low-income families. Systematic observations of 60 classrooms occurred across the…

The authors outline results of 3 studies conducted to examine the structure of disciplinary knowledge from reading measured through proximity data. In Study 1, 168 third-grade students were asked to read a science text and rate the relationships of keywords from the passage. From these ratings, comprehension scores were calculated that related…

This paper considers whether the sources of linguistic complexity presented within texts targeted at 1st-grade readers have increased, decreased, or held steady over the 52-year period from 1962 to 2013. A collection of more than 450 texts is examined. All texts were selected from Grade 1 textbooks published by Scott Foresman during the targeted…

An emerging consensus suggests that guided discovery, which combines discovery and instruction, is a more effective educational approach than either one in isolation. The goal of this study was to examine two specific forms of guided discovery, testing whether conceptual instruction should precede or follow exploratory problem solving. In both…

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…