Sixty-two percent of AISD English Language Learner students (ELLs) demonstrated yearly progress toward English language proficiency, based on Spring 2013 TELPAS results. TELPAS is the state of Texas annual assessment of English language proficiency for ELLs.

The confluence of No Child Left Behind and the National Reading Panel report on the five essential components of reading instruction forged a path for struggling adolescent readers that supports a narrow curriculum designed to address gaps in constrained skills. Adolescents from a large school district in the state of Tennessee who failed state…

Extreme linkings are performed in settings in which neither equivalent groups nor anchor material is available to link scores on two assessments. Examples of extreme linkages include links between scores on tests administered in different languages or between scores on tests administered across disability groups. The strength of interpretation…

Currently there is no agreed-upon method for determining the difficulty level, referred to as the readability level, of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement (R-CBM) passages. A key tenant of R-CBM is that the passages across each grade level are equivalent in difficulty level and therefore can be used to monitor student academic improvement. The…

Within each state there is a patchwork of residential educational programs that are affiliated with youth shelters, detention centers, hospitals, mental health facilities, and other settings. In Iowa, the local school district, an area education agency (AEA), the Department of Human Services, and others provide educational services. Heartland…

An essential component of a response to intervention (RTI) framework is a screening process that is both accurate and efficient. The purpose of this study was to analyze the validity evidence for the "Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension" (TOSREC) to determine its potential for use within a screening process. Participants included…

Despite the similarities that researchers note between the cognitive processes and knowledge involved in reading and writing, there are students who are much stronger readers than writers and those who are much stronger writers than readers. The addition of the writing section to the SAT provides an opportunity to examine whether certain groups of…

This study used fMRI to examine individual differences in the neural basis of causal inferencing. Participants with varying language skill levels, as indexed by scores on the vocabulary portion of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, read four types of two-sentence passages in which causal relatedness (moderate and distant) and presence or absence of…

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent a relationship existed between student achievement and how teachers and principals assess leadership effectiveness in 29 Alabama schools. This study also investigated the extent to which teacher and principal tenure were related to their perceptions of leadership and to student achievement.…

The purpose of this causal comparative study was to examine effect of the K-8 grade span configuration on the academic achievement of 8th-grade students in the State of Georgia, and to determine the viability of the K-8 grade configuration as a strategy for improving the academic achievement of students at the middle grade levels. This study…

Increased diversity in our schools and changes in legislation have prompted educators to address the needs of all students (U.S. Department of Education, 2003, 2008, 2009; State of Hawaii Department of Education, 2009). Two major responses have emerged to do this. One is to deliver the same curricula in the same way to all students (Cooper,…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between oral reading fluency (ORF) and Maze, two common Curriculum-Based Measures (CBMs), and the statewide large-scale assessment of reading in Oregon, the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills- Reading (OAKS-R). A sample of three cohorts of eighth-grade students in an Oregon school…

The reading and mathematics measures of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have been, and continue to be, reported on scales that appear to have the properties of "cross-grade" scales: Reported scores are higher for 8th-grade students than for 4th-grade students, and higher for 12th-grade students than for 8th-grade students.…

The purpose of this study was to find the effect of the use of assistive technology (CD ROM Interactive Liquid Books, the Interactive White Board, and Interactive Signed Stories) on English reading comprehension of students with learning differences, specifically with deaf and learning disabled students. The research questions that provided the…

While it is known that instructional technology improves academic achievement, there is little research about the integration of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) during Success For All (SFA) reading instruction. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in reading achievement between third…