Ability grouping is a common educational practice utilized by elementary teachers during reading instruction. This study examines whether ability grouping operates as a form of educational stratification by examining the following research question: To what extent do student literacy skills, background characteristics, and prior group placement…

This mixed-methods study analyzes the Spanish literacy performances of dual language students, including both emergent bilingual Latina/o and African American students, in the 1st grade of a dual language program. The findings suggest that emergent bilinguals across racial groups performed similarly well on Spanish literacy assessments overall.…

The issue of over or under representation of ethnic minority students in special education placement has received a great deal of attention in recent years. An equally important question that has not received as much attention centers on the impact of special education placement, particularly early in a child's education career, on subsequent…

Through a synthesis of test publisher norms and national longitudinal datasets, this study provides new national norms of academic growth in K-12 reading and math that can be used to reinterpret conventional effect sizes in time units. We propose d' a time-indexed effect size metric to estimate how long it would take for an "untreated"…

A longitudinal study followed cohorts of students progressing through schools in the Cleveland Public School district and compared the reading comprehension scores of black and white students. Subjects, 12 cohorts ranging in size from 1400 to 2900 students, had reading comprehension test scores available for the first and last years of the study.…

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between reading achievement and a set of social and individual variables through the use of a critical path analysis. Data, taken from Cycle II of the National Health Examination Survey, included statistics on a national sample of 7,119 children, ages six through eleven years. Four…

Reviews of research, studies of early readers, and investigations of emergent literacy uniformly conclude that parents' beliefs, aspirations, and actions affect their children's growth into and embracing of literacy. However, conflicting results call into question the utility of simply correlating race or various socioeconomic factors, such as…

Replicating research completed in 1986, a study determined the relationship among cognitive laterality, gender, and reading comprehension for African-American students, as well as gender differences in cognitive laterality and in reading comprehension. Subjects, 40 African-American males, 41 African-American females, 12 White males, and 17 White…

Basal reading programs not only have tremendous impact on children's learning to read, but they subtly influence children's attitudes toward and understanding of racial differences in society. In this study, teacher manuals from four basal reading programs were examined for grades four, five, and six to learn how ideas for discussing racial and…

The study involving 105 learning disabled students (6 to 12 years old) investigated the effects of the sex and race of students to determine if these factors were salient to initial placement in elementary learning disabilities classrooms, to the amount or type of instruction received in reading, to the learning behaviors students exhibit in…

A study examined the relationships of reading achievement and constructs about student literacy activities for four ethnic-gender groups. A secondary analysis of nearly 3,000 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds' reading achievement and student questionnaire data from the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress was undertaken. The constructs varied…

The relationship between type of reading instruction (whole language or basal) and reading comprehension as measured by the California Achievement Test (CAT) was investigated. Nineteen third- and fourth-grade teachers from school 5 districts in North Carolina took part in the project with 215 students in the basal group and 200 students in the…

To help clarify the meaning of three social constructs (class, race/ethnicity, and gender) that have been persistent indicators of reading ability, a literature review examined 393 research reports published between 1985 and 1989 in four major journals that commonly present research on reading. Articles for the review were selected regardless of…

Whether the shaping of test items can itself result in qualitative differences in examinees' comprehension of reading passages was studied using the Pearson-Johnson item classification system. The specific practice studied incorporated, within an item stem line, references that point the examinee to a specific location within a reading passage.…

Central to the process of reading comprehension is the use of questions and discussions in the classroom in order to direct and to evaluate a student's level of understanding of the materials read. Researchers estimate that approximately 70% of teaching involves the technique of questioning students. It is important that teachers do more than ask…