The authors argue that part of the difficulty in studying the teaching of reading in elementary classrooms is determining where "the action" occurs in reading instruction. Based on their 5-year longitudinal study of fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in moderate- and high-poverty elementary schools, they describe three challenges: (a) determining…

This article describes a secondary analysis of a brief reading comprehension rate measure, percent comprehension questions correct per minute spent reading (%C/M). This measure includes reading speed (seconds to read) in the denominator and percentage of comprehension questions answered correctly in the numerator. Participants were 22 4th-, 29…

In a unique school-university partnership, methods students collaborated with fifth graders to use the engineering design process to build their problem-solving skills. By placing the problem in the context of a client having particular needs, the problem took on a real-world appeal that students found intriguing and inviting. In this article, the…

Constructivism has emerged as a very powerful model for explaining how knowledge is produced in the world as well as how students learn. Moreover, constructivist teaching practices are becoming more prevalent in teacher education programs and public schools across the nation, while demonstrating significant success in promoting student learning.…

The present study takes an interdisciplinary mathematics-physics approach to the acquisition of the concept of angle by children in Grades 3-5. This paper first presents the theoretical framework we developed, then we analyse the concept of angle and the difficulties pupils have with it. Finally, we report three experimental physics-based teaching…

Do older English as a second language (ESL) children have the same knowledge of word meanings as English as a first language (EL1) children? How important is vocabulary's role in predicting word recognition in these groups? This study sought to answer these questions by examining the profiles of ESL and EL1 upper elementary aged children, for a…

Reports from research and the larger educational community demonstrate that too many students have limited ability to comprehend texts. The research reported here involved a two-year study in which standardized comprehension instruction for representations of two major approaches was designed and implemented. The effectiveness of the two…

Electronic books (e-books) are a prevalent method for integrating technology in preschool and elementary classrooms; however, there is a lack of consensus concerning the extent to which e-books increase literacy skills in the domains of comprehension and decoding. This article assesses the efficacy of e-books with a comprehensive review method,…

The investigators used data from the "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort" (ECLS-K) to estimate whether and to what extent the timing and persistence of mathematics difficulties (MD) in kindergarten predicted children's first through fifth grade math growth trajectories. Results indicated that children persistently…

School disengagement and dropout prevention are important areas of inquiry in today's educational environment. School counselors can have dramatic impact on student engagement and retention. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a peer helper program on disengagement and dropout. The researchers implemented a comprehensive,…

Last year, fifth-graders at the Herricks Union Free School District in New Hyde Park, New York, studied the U.S. presidential primaries while following elections in Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Kenya. At South Brunswick High School in Southport, North Carolina, history students discuss battles of the Civil War via live teleconferences with counterparts…

Most people are familiar with the concept that animals come in all shapes and sizes and that the body plan of some animals can completely transform during their lifetime. Well-known examples of such complex life cycles of terrestrial animals include butterflies and frogs. Many people are unaware, however, that complex life cycles are exceedingly…

Paraphrasing, somewhat different from retelling and summarizing, helps students monitor their understanding and incorporate new knowledge with what they already know about a topic. Paraphrasing helps students realize that comprehension is the goal of reading.

This study examined whether specific emotion-related constructs may be uniquely related to anxious or depressive symptoms in youth. Although anxiety and depression are comorbid in both youth and adult populations, delineation of these disorders is a worthwhile endeavor given that such differentiation may lead to a clearer conceptualization of the…

To investigate the use of context and monitoring of comprehension in lexical ambiguity resolution in children, the authors asked 10- to 12-year-old good and poor comprehenders to read sentences consisting of 2 clauses, 1 containing the ambiguous word and the other the disambiguating information. The order of the clauses was reversed so that…