Becoming critical thinkers and collaborative learners is important for today's students as they develop the skills needed for success in the 21st century (National Research Council, 2012; Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 2019). One instructional strategy used to develop critical-thinking skills through collaboration is Socratic seminar. A…

Program exposure is a key element of implementation fidelity and refers to the amount of an intervention received by participants. For students using IXL, setting a target program exposure (i.e., an IXL usage goal) both allows monitoring of implementation fidelity and enhances students' motivational and learning outcomes. IXL's proposed optimal…

The ability to identify the main idea through close reading of informational text is a higher-level skill students develop in elementary grades as a foundation for the acquisition of other critical skills in later grades. This article provides instructional strategies for this important skill as well as for improving reading comprehension.

Critical thinking skills are an important topic of the United States' education system. This study examines the literature on critical thinking skills and defines them. The study also explores one specific teaching and assessment strategy known as the Socratic Method. The five-week research study used the Socratic Method for developing critical…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the TRALE model (Technology-Rich Authentic Learning Environments) improved young urban learners' literacy skills. TRALE, designed as an early childhood education program, integrated authentic learning and the use of technology to increase disadvantaged children's literacy learning. The paper includes…

This study explored the effectiveness of a speech and language intervention that was designed to be culturally responsive and adapted to provide explicit language instruction. Participants included all 774 kindergarten students from a mid-sized rural school district in British Columbia. Seventy-seven students screened as at risk received the…

Students entering school with little knowledge of English do not have the foundation in place to develop reading skills. This lack of foundation puts English Learners at a disadvantage that they struggle to overcome. The purpose of the quantitative study was twofold: (a) to determine whether measures of phonemic awareness are predictive of end of…

This study, with three mildly handicapped nine-year olds, investigated the effects on capitalization skills of a peer teaching procedure combined with student letter-writing activities. Findings indicated acquisition of the skills, with mixed results for generalization. Two of the 3 mildly handicapped peer teachers (ages 10-11) also improved their…

This study examined the effect of 3rd-grade language arts instruction on growth in children's reading comprehension skills and the degree to which the impact of instruction depended on the language and reading skills children brought to the classroom. Classrooms were observed in the fall, winter, and spring, and language arts activities were coded…

Presents a study on the implementation of a constructivist approach to using multimedia technology in two advanced language arts classrooms in a public middle school. Because the principal content consisted of written material, the authors examined pre- to posttest improvement in writing ability as measured by trained raters of essays.…

This book contains hands-on language arts activities for K-3 children. Activities in the book help develop skills in the six language arts while continually reinforcing how much fun learning can be. The book's teacher-friendly format breaks down each activity into the following components: objectives, materials, preparation, procedure, summary,…

Learning-disabled students in an after-school program were provided with remedial instruction using precision teaching. The instructional program sought to increase performance of five students (grades 4-8) in specific academic skills by 50%. Skills included, among others, spelling, capitalization and punctuation, reading, and multiplication. The…

The use of microcomputers in language arts instruction with exceptional students can be an effective tool for both teaching and reinforcing skills, but is not typically employed as an integral part of the overall language arts curriculum. Research studies substantiate the positive impact on student performance when microcomputers are effectively…