The early twenty-first century has seen increased attention to developing young children's social-emotional skills and competencies in preschool programs, including Head Start--the largest federally funded early-childhood education program in the United States. At the same time, there has been greater recognition of the importance of adapting…

We conducted a randomized field trial to test an academic vocabulary intervention designed to bolster the language and literacy skills of linguistically diverse sixth-grade students (N = 2,082; n = 1,469 from a home where English is not the primary language), many demonstrating low achievement, enrolled in 14 urban middle schools. The 20-week…

This experimental study examined the effectiveness of a text-based reading and vocabulary intervention with self-regulatory supports for 4th graders with low reading comprehension. Students with standard scores on the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test between 1.0 standard deviation (SD) and 0.5 SD below the normative sample were included (N=44) and…

This study examines the effectiveness of minimally trained tutors providing a highly structured tutoring intervention for struggling readers. We screened students in Grades K-6 for participation in an after-school tutoring program. We randomly assigned those students not meeting the benchmark on a reading screening measure to either a tutoring…

The current study examined the effects of the Class-wide Function-related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT), a class-wide group contingency, on the on-task behavior of all students in a first grade class and the on-task and disruptive behavior of three target students within that class who were nominated by their teacher through a behavioral screening.…

Although paraprofessionals have become an increasingly integral part of special education services, most paraprofessionals lack training in evidence-based instructional strategies. We used a randomized contolled experimental design to examine the efficacy of a professional development training package and its individual components to equip 25…

Empirical Education Inc. is the independent evaluator of WestEd's 2012 i3 Development grant for Internet-based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education (iRAISE). This interim report provides an update on the progress of the randomized control trial (RCT) during the 2014-2015 school year. The RCT measures the impact of iRAISE on student…

Student behavioral engagement is a key condition supporting academic achievement, yet student disengagement in middle and high schools is all too common. The current study used a randomized controlled design to test the efficacy of the My Teaching Partner-Secondary program to increase behavioral engagement. The program offers teachers personalized…

This study examined associations between quality of social and physical environments in preschools and children's development of academic, language, and literacy skills, and the extent to which preschool quality moderated the associations between child risk and development. Participants were a diverse sample of 540 four-year-old children in…

This study used a randomized field trial design to evaluate the efficacy of a research-based model for scaling up an intervention focused on preschool mathematics. Although the successes of research-based educational practices have been documented, equally well known is the paucity of successful efforts to bring these practices to scale. The same…

Results of a study on the relationship between children's sociomoral development and the sociomoral atmospheres of three types of kindergarten classrooms suggest the possibility that heavily academic, teacher-centered programs hinder children's development of interpersonal understanding and their broader social-cognitive and moral development. (LB)