Many students, especially students with disabilities are underachieving in reading. Early evidence-based literacy instruction implemented in kindergarten and first grade is critical for providing the necessary foundation for learning to read. The status of kindergarten and first grade literacy instruction impacts the goal of ensuring students are…

Academic underachievement, as measured on standardised assessments, is commonly reported among students on the autism spectrum. However, little is known about the factors that predict academic (under)achievement, limiting the development of effective and targeted interventions. This study explored teacher ratings of academic skills and enabling…

Disparities in school discipline data indicate that children of color, particularly boys, receive more frequent and harsher disciplinary actions than their white peers, and this begins in early schooling. Within today's print-centered, bodily restricted school curricula, literacy instruction is often reduced to highly controlled, leveled readers…

This review examines reasons for Malaysian pupils' underperformance in solving mathematics problems that demand numerical estimation and mental computation. Their underdeveloped number sense appears to be the major reason. According to the Ministry of Education, the national mathematics curriculum is unlikely to account for this underachievement.…

Early academic achievement has been shown to predict high school completion, but there have been few studies of the predictors of early academic success focused on Latino students. Using longitudinal data from 750 Mexican and Dominican American families, this study examined a cultural model of parenting and early academic achievement. While Latino…

This study examined the psychological well-being of gifted primary school children. From a screening sample of 233 children in Grades 1 and 2 across five schools in the Netherlands, 35 children achieving high scores on two out of three selection criteria (teacher nomination, creativity, and nonverbal reasoning ability) and 34 typically developing…

The performance of boys in literacy has become an issue of increasing concern around the globe. This paper discusses the results of a study that sought to determine the literacy performance of Malaysian primary schoolers. Using one of the states in the country as a case study, data on approximately 85,000 students from grades 1, 2, and 3 were…

African American male students in elementary schools are scoring approximately 30% lower than their peers in reading and content areas. There are many factors causing the discrepancy; indeed, the complexity of the problem has inhibited a clear solution. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine factors associated with low…

National educational achievement statistics show that academic underachievement is a significant problem for all students in the United States and for culturally diverse students in particular. The relationship of attachment and its interaction with traumatic stress has been proposed as an alternative explanation for the persistent…

The identity of the underachiever has become synonymous with the stereotypical identity of boys. Teachers know what underachievement looks like: it looks like a boy who is bright, but bored. Evidence from a research study reported here demonstrates that teachers are more likely to select boys as underachievers than girls and that teachers…

Academic underachievement frequently is associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD); however, the role of variables beyond AD/HD symptoms and cognitive mediators is unknown. Further, whether prediction models vary (a) relative to non-AD/HD students, (b) between math and reading, and (c) based on how achievement is defined has…

In this study, Reading Recovery teachers reported the program plans for students who had not successfully discontinued the Reading Recovery program. Despite the existence of policy and monitoring devices in New Jersey, a number of schools did not have plans in place to offer ongoing intensive literacy instruction for their lowest-performing…

Metacognitive Performance of four groups of students (hearing high-achieving, hearing average-achieving, hearing underachieving, and deaf and hard of hearing) in first through third grade in the United Arab Emirates was examined and compared. Metacognition was measured using analyses of pictures depicting real-life problematic events, situations,…