A new study has found that state requirements that students pass exit tests to graduate from high school appear to do nothing to improve achievement on federal reading and mathematics tests. The study, the results of which have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal "Educational Policy," compared the reading and math scores…

In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America." This detailed study showed that Americans in almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama--and books in general--at significantly lower rates than 10 or 20 years earlier. The declines were steepest…

Purpose: Traditional school vision screening has focused on the examination of distance vision using screenings such as the "School Vision Screening" used in this study. No vision screenings for determining how well children can see print or pictures at close distances are administered on a regular basis. The purpose of the study was to…

The use of accommodations for both instruction and assessment continues to be of great importance for students with disabilities. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the state of the research on testing accommodations, as well as to identify promising areas of research likely to contribute to understanding of current and emerging…

The study examined whether the Chicago Teacher Advancement Program, which provides financial incentives for teachers, leads to improved student achievement and teacher retention. The study analyzed data on more than 67,000 students in grades 4 through 8 and on more than 8,000 teachers in about 260 elementary schools in the Chicago Public Schools…

This reader-friendly teaching guide makes the next steps of literacy instruction clear and easy for K-6 educators. Developed by highly respected experts Smartt and Glaser, this book gives readers a specific breakdown of the indicators on today's most popular reading assessments and matches those items with interventions that make a real…

This report by the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit organization, looks at the achievement of boys and girls on the state reading and mathematics tests used for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability. The report addresses four main questions: (1) What is the current status of performance differences between boys and…

This study investigated the impact of the "LANGUAGE!" literacy instruction on the reading comprehension and motivation to read of struggling middle school readers compared to that of a balanced literacy instruction. A convenience sample of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students (n = 175) from a small, suburban middle school in…

At the request of Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT), Mathematica is developing value-added models (VAMs) that aim to estimate the contributions of individual teachers, teams of teachers, and schools to the achievement growth of their students. The analyses described in this report are intended as an…

Matching learners with the right level of graded readers is necessary when graded readers are exploited as both simplified reading materials in extensive reading programs and major instruments in the experiments. A lack of controlling ability level can prevent learners from succeeding in developing reading in an extensive reading program. It would…

Every two years the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), "the Nation's Report Card," reports the nation's average reading and math scores in grades 4 and 8. Despite the strong focus on reading under the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, the recent 2009 reading scores were not statistically different from those of 2007, which…

This article reports research that examines the impact of fidelity to a scripted program in two third-grade classrooms. The data was drawn from a study conducted in an elementary school functioning under pressure from state and district policy to increase student standardized reading test scores. Thematic analysis was used to analyze observation…

States and districts have been encouraged to consider responsiveness to scientifically based instruction and intervention (RTI) as one of many markers of eligibility for special education under the category of learning disabilities. In this article, the authors describe variations in determining responsiveness, and cultural and linguistic…

In a technological society, demands for higher literacy are ever increasing, creating grievous consequences for those who fail to meet these demands (National Research Council, 1998). Both legislative mandates, such as NCLB, and developments in the provision of reading instruction, such as RtI, have increased the demand for high quality tutoring…

Research continues to suggest that adolescents struggle with reading, indicating that much work remains to ensure that all students read at levels consistent with the skills required for academic achievement (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006). This article investigates whole class choral reading (WCCR) within the context of a sixth-grade language arts…