I examined the perceptions of parents, students, and teachers of Saturday Academy, an intervention for students who are at risk of failing academically. The problem is that nearly half of students who attend high school may be at risk of dropping out before they graduate. The purpose of this study was to describe, evaluate, and analyze the…

This book highlights the experience of Liberia in both assessing and improving reading in primary schools. As a result of an Early Grade Reading Assessment, the Ministry of Education and partners, including the United States Agency for International Development, came together to identify and develop strategies for improving reading in schools.…

Schools have become more diverse; the number of English Language Learners has increased from two million in 1993-94 to over four million in 2006 (Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, 2001). Most English Language Learners in U.S. schools are of Latino descent. Recent national tests of reading and writing (i.e., the National Assessment of Educational…

All too often, literacy assessments are given only for accountability purposes and fail to be seen as valuable resources for planning and differentiating instruction. This clear, concise book shows K-5 educators how to implement a comprehensive, balanced assessment battery that integrates accountability concerns with data-driven instruction.…

International research and academic performance measures indicate that boys are scoring lower on standardized tests than girls in reading and writing. At the time of this study, boys had lower standardized test scores than girls in an elementary school in a southeastern state in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to…

Reading Comprehension is one of the four components tested by the "MUET" (Malaysian University English Test) for Sixth-Form students in Malaysia, and school teachers are charged with the task of helping these students improve. This article discusses how "reciprocal teaching strategies" could help low-proficiency Sixth-Form…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing are a low-incidence population with diverse linguistic characteristics and levels of academic achievement. This article presents findings on teacher recommendations of assessment practices for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. A total of 372 educational professionals responded to a set of three…

Attitude toward reading has long proven to be of importance in learning. This study designed a survey instrument for college teachers to gage future teachers, college students' attitudes toward the reading of textbooks. College students (n = 64) responded to two instruments, the newly created survey called the College Textbook Reading Attitude…

Parents, students, teachers, school leaders, governments and the general public need good information on how well their education systems prepare students for life. A growing commitment by governments to monitor the outcomes of education systems in terms of student achievement on a regular basis and within an internationally agreed framework led…

To ensure fairness, it is important to better understand the relationship of language proficiency to standard psychometric analysis procedures. This paper examines how results of differential item functioning (DIF) analysis are affected by an increase in the proportion of examinees who report that English is not their first language in the…

The purpose of the current investigation was to determine which curriculum-based measures of written expression demonstrated adequate technical characteristics and provided useful information towards predicting performance on a state-standardized assessment. Data collected from 124 third grade students was used for the study. Curriculum-based…

Ten cerebral palsied adolescents and young adults with complex communicative needs who use augmentative and alternative communication were studied. They were classified according to their high versus low working memory capacity and according to their high versus low phonological skills into two groups of participants. These groups were compared on…

Low levels of reading performance are associated with delinquency. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between early involvement in the justice system and reading problems. This study examined the relationship between youth at various early stages of involvement with criminal behaviors and reading abilities (specifically,…

The long-term relationship between lower intelligence and mortality risk in later life is well established, even when controlling for a range of health and sociodemographic measures. However, there is some evidence for differential effects in various domains of cognitive performance. Specifically, tests of fluid intelligence may have a stronger…

This study investigates the factorial invariance of the statewide science tests at the middle school level across the oral administration accommodation and nonaccommodated groups of students with and without disabilities. Results indicate that the factor loadings and error variances are invariant across groups, although the oral administration and…