The purpose of the Teacher Prep Review is to guarantee teachers have expertise in reading instruction (as well as other essential areas NCTQ assesses) before being trusted to teach children to read. By regularly reviewing the reading coursework provided by nearly 700 elementary teacher preparation programs, the National Council on Teacher Quality…

Background: Over the past two decades, national attention has emphasized the critical role of early literacy and language instruction in preventing reading difficulties and improved our understanding of how young children learn to read. The research has established that students who are not strong readers by Grade 3 are less likely to build…

LXD Research conducted a third-party, mixed-methods efficacy study of 95 Percent Group's Phonics Core Program (95 PCP) to determine the program's impact on fourth and fifth grade students' literacy outcomes. Outcomes included Istation's Indicators of Progress (ISIP) Advanced Reading and the State of Texas Assessments of Readiness (STAAR). LXD…

This article describes the actions taken by the members of the school leadership team at McWhirter Elementary Professional Development Laboratory School in Webster, Texas, when the results of the state reading assessment in spring 2010, had taken a sudden and dramatic drop from the previous year. The team designed an action research study to…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has updated its 2009 intervention report for SuccessMaker®, a set of computer-based courses designed to supplement regular K-8 reading instruction. The program is designed to improve skills in areas such as concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and…

Though campus principals must take on many leadership roles, their primary responsibility is to facilitate effective teaching and learning with the overall mission of enhancing student achievement. One way to provide instructional leadership is to evaluate and select effective instructional programs that align with campus goals of improving…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the impact of "Collaborative Strategic Reading" ("CSR"), a set of instructional strategies used to build reading proficiency, on the reading comprehension of fifth-grade students. The analysis included 1,355 students from 74 social studies classrooms within 26 linguistically diverse…

In 2007, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) funded 22 colleges to establish developmental summer bridge programs. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs involve intensive remedial instruction in math, reading, and/or writing and college preparation content for students entering…

This study presents the findings from the first-year evaluation of the Round Rock Independent School District's (ISD) Digital Learning Classroom project, an initiative focused on the improvement of English Language Learners' (ELL) learning using interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology. An objective of the evaluation was to determine the extent IWB…

Data gathered from 25 rural public school districts in Texas during 2002-2003 were used to assess the impact of educator professional development and technology-intensive classroom learning activities on first- and second-grade students' reading achievement. Students from 18 school districts received the treatment while students from 7 randomly…

The effectiveness of the Reading Recovery Program, a literacy intervention for at-risk first-grade students, as it was implemented in 1995-96 in a small rural school district in Texas was studied. Reading Recovery consists of daily individual literacy tutoring sessions taught by a specially trained teacher, and emphasizes active engagement of the…

In 1971-72, 1,045 school districts in the State of Texas provided supplementary instruction and/or services to educationally/economically disadvantaged children through the use of Federal funds made available under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The number of pupils who have participated in these projects has…

This report presents case studies of the three exemplary projects within the Special Emphasis Project, a federally funded national study of how intensive reading programs might change the patterns of elementary school students who read one or more grades below grade level. An introductory section provides information on the history, organization,…

Learning problems of 392,317 students in Texas were diagnosed as being severe enough to require special treatment under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Title I Regular, during the 1972-73 school year. This number, 14 percent of the 2.8 million students enrolled in public schools in Texas, represented a concentrated effort to…

One educational innovation that is having a widespread and disproportionate impact on the gap in academic achievement between African-American and Latino children and their White peers is Success for All (SFA), a comprehensive reform model for elementary schools piloted in Baltimore in 1987. SFA, a whole-school reform model that focuses primarily…