For Mexican American students, grade-level reading and overall academic achievement decline, as measured by standardized tests, as they progress through the educational system. By grade seven, 65% of Mexican American students fail one or more grade levels below expected achievement. To reverse this trend of academic failure, teachers need to use…

Public demand for improvements in education has motivated a search for guidelines as to what constitutes satisfactory public instruction and learning. One of the latest and most significant manifestations of this has been the efforts within the individual states to define and adopt adequate reading and English language arts standards. This digest…

This digest investigates seven of the most prevalent and damaging myths about literacy in the United States. In response to various claims about American elementary and secondary students' test score declines in reading achievement, the author interprets data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the International…