The First Grade Pre-Screening is designed to be used at the start of the first grade school year so that teachers can obtain information about their incoming students. This information is intended to give teachers insight about what math and reading skills a student may or may not have at the beginning of the year. The information can aid teachers…

In this handbook, "Prior-to-Secondary School Course Classification System: School Codes for the Exchange of Data" (SCED), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the National Forum on Education Statistics have extended the existing secondary course classification system with codes and descriptions for courses offered at…

A valid screening system requires a screener that accurately predicts whether or not students are at risk given their current performance. To understand a screening measure's accuracy, predicted student performance data (i.e., screening data) must be compared with actual performance data. When these sets of data are compared in a setting where…

Accurate identification of at-risk kindergarten and 1st-grade students through early reading screening is an essential element of responsiveness to intervention models of reading instruction. The authors consider predictive validity and classification accuracy of early reading screening assessments with attention to sensitivity and specificity.…

This article introduces a multilevel growth mixture model (MGMM) for classifying both the individuals and the groups they are nested in. Nine variations of the general model are described that differ in terms of categorical and continuous latent variable specification within and between groups. An application in the context of school effectiveness…

Categorizing organisms as living or nonliving things may seem to be intuitive by nature. Yet, it is regulated by scientific criteria. Students come to school with rules already in place. Their categorizing criteria have already been influenced by their personal experiences, also known as observations and inferences. They believe that all things…

This article describes the experience of a group of first-grade teachers as they tackled the science process of classification, a targeted learning objective for the first grade. While the two-year process was not easy and required teachers to teach in a new, more investigation-oriented way, the benefits were great. The project helped teachers and…

There is a particular need for inquiry-based lessons in the early elementary grades, when students are starting to develop their analytical skills. In this article, the authors present a 2-tiered inquiry-based lesson plan for 1st and 2nd grades that has been successfully used by graduate teaching fellows involved in the National Science Foundation…

In this article, the authors begin with what they believe is an implicit endorsement of an integration orientation toward acculturation. Literature may be used to help students understand the implicit nature of culture. Inspired by such scholars as Clayton (1996, 2003) and based on a content analysis of 134 books, the authors identify and describe…

"Hard Science" is designed to teach 1st grade gifted students accurate and high level science concepts. It is based upon their experience of the world and attempts to build a foundation for continued love and enjoyment of science. "Hard Science" provides field experiences and opportunities for hands-on discovery working beside experts in the field…