With Secretary Arne Duncan at the helm, the U.S. Department of Education is gradually--and sometimes quietly--chipping away at key parts of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act as states and districts demand more relief from the elusive goal that all students be what the law terms "proficient" in reading and math by 2014. The pressure on…

The Accelerated Reader program was designed by Renaissance Learning to increase students' motivation to read and students' achievement in reading; however, a review of the literature reveals inconsistent findings about its outcomes. The Renaissance Learning company reports several research studies on their website that suggest the program is…

This paper investigates empirically whether immigrant students in Switzerland perform poorly compared to their native counterparts and provides some explanations. Using a national sample of the 2000 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) database, we first analyze the impact of immigrant status on pupils' achievement. We find a…

Connecting reading and writing has important implications for all readers, but particularly for those who struggle in learning to read and write. Based on their work with children who struggle, the authors focus on reciprocal cognitive operations or strategies that draw on sources of knowledge used in both reading and writing. Their aim in this…

Using an adapted alternating treatments design, this study compared the effects of two intervention conditions on the reading fluency, comprehension, and comprehension rate of six high-school students reading below grade level. Students were repeatedly exposed to repeated reading (RR), repeated reading and vocabulary previewing (RR + VP), and no…

Neither holding a college major in education nor acquiring a master's degree is correlated with elementary and middle school teaching effectiveness, regardless of the university at which the degree was earned. Teachers generally do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but we also find evidence that teachers may become…

As a classroom teacher for the past eight years, the author finds it important to read professional texts, both dated and current, to learn from what has worked in the past and of new, innovative practices to reinvigorate her lesson plans. This year, she read an older yet pertinent study by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley called "Meaningful…

Drawing on the conceptual work of externalisation in comparative education and multi-accentual signs in cultural studies, this article examines how the print news media accentuate "Finnish education" in the process of inserting this external reference into the domestic political discourses around education reform in Australia, Germany…

This study investigated two widely-used early literacy skill's indicators in reflecting growth in first-grade language achievement skills. It compared two curriculum-based assessments of letter knowledge: Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) and Letter Sound Fluency (LSF) in the Arabic language. A sample of 125 first-grade students, 100 average readers and…

We examined the developmental dynamics between task-avoidant behavior and different literacy outcomes, and possible precursors of task-avoidant behavior. Seventy Greek children were followed from Grade 4 until Grade 6 and were assessed every year on reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension. The teachers assessed the children's…

Utilizing latent transition analysis and multidimensional scaling growth analysis, the authors studied the emerging developmental trajectories in word literacy (i.e., word-reading competence) of a group of 1,503 kindergarteners. Specifically, 3 hypotheses with respect to growth patterns in word literacy from kindergarten to Grade 2 were examined:…

This paper reviews best practices for effective adolescent literacy programs. A focus is placed on five areas of literacy instruction including word study, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and motivation. Each of these areas is discussed as well as how each area is relevant to reading and understanding narrative and content-area text at high…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of school district size on the academic performance of Texas students. Specifically addressed was the extent to which differences in school district size were related to differences in student academic performance. The academic performance of the three major ethnic groups (i.e., Black,…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether kindergarten-reading achievement could be increased by implementing Response to Intervention (RtI) strategies. Kindergarten children (N = 290) who were identified as at-risk for reading difficulties were assigned to receive intervention through a) small reading groups (SRG), b)…

The mixed methods correlational study examined the problem that AYP of Pennsylvania gifted middle school students who have met state-mandated proficiency requirements under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has been reliant upon minimum proficiency tests. The purpose of the mixed methods study was to examine the correlations between the current measure…