Once upon a time, nonfiction books for children routinely included concise, stodgy writing. Most of the books were text heavy, with just a few scattered images decorating, rather than enhancing, the content and meaning. But nonfiction has changed dramatically over the last two decades, evolving into a new breed of visually dynamic, engaging texts…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings from a study that examined how attaining English proficiency and being reclassified as fluent English proficient affected achievement in English language arts and math in the first year after student reclassification in grades 3-8 in New Mexico. New Mexico established a state-level policy that requires…

This study was prompted by the Arizona Department of Education's (ADE) interest in learning more about the progress of English learner students toward English proficiency in the early grades. The study examined, for the 2013/14 kindergarten cohort in Arizona, the English language proficiency of non-native English speaker students and their English…

This document contains the technical appendices for the report "Targeted K-12 Funding and Student Outcomes: Evaluating the Local Control Funding Formula." Appendices include: (1) Data Sources and Sample Construction; (2) Estimating Effects on Student Outcomes; (3) Estimating Targeting Using School Site Spending Data; and (4) Supplemental…

This Study Snapshot highlights findings from a study that was conducted to better understand progress toward English proficiency among American Indian English learner students. The study examined two statewide cohorts of American Indian students identified as English learner students at initial kindergarten entry in 2013/14 or 2014/15 in New…

With the Common Core State Standards, instruction in English language arts will dramatically change. Unlike prior state standards, these new standards place a greater emphasis on reading challenging texts. To that end, teachers will need to support students in paying closer attention to such texts. Instead of focusing on pre-reading activities…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the National Standards for Foreign Language Education have several areas of commonality: (1) both standards have the goal that all students, by the end of 12th grade, will have the skills they need to be successful world citizens; (2) the literacy skills that are found in the Common Core are the same…

To teach the rigorous skills and knowledge students need to succeed in future college-entry courses and workforce training programs, education stakeholders have increasingly called for more rigorous curricula, instruction, and assessments. Identifying the critical attributes of rigor and measuring its appearance in curricular materials is…

The procedures undertaken in developing and organizing skills indexes for use in coding elementary school language arts textbooks to determine what is actually taught are presented in this paper. The outlined procedures included performing a preliminary analysis on four language arts textbooks to compile an extensive list of skills and performance…

"Differentiating Instruction With Menus Grades 3-5" offers teachers everything they need to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. Addressing the four main subject areas (language arts, math, science, and social studies) and the major concepts taught within these areas, these books provide a number of different types of…

Described is a preschool science activity in which students use shell collections. This activity demonstrates how language development and reading readiness skills are interrelated with science. Prereading and reading activities are described involving the students in direct interaction with the shell collection. (DS)

Describes a year-long project which combined the curricula of a language arts class, a library skills class, and an art class as 3 teachers and 163 sixth-grade students designed and created a 58-foot mural depicting the Dewey Decimal System. Notes that the mural adorns the school library and assists library users in locating the volumes they seek.…