A significant body of research exists on the development of early literacy skills and their relationship to the development of literacy as a whole. Phonological awareness, orthographic processing, rapid automatized naming, phonological memory, and receptive vocabulary have all been shown to be predictive of early reading outcome measures. What is…

Many researchers have documented that reading fluency scores continue to be a national concern for the United States and have suggested that early reading failure has long-term detrimental effects on society. However, much less is known regarding specific interventions that could reduce this concern. Investigators in other studies have suggested…

As the nation endeavors to leave no child behind, more than 12 million of the U.S. children who live in poverty continue to be at risk of school failure. Having significant learning deficiencies, many of these children are substantially behind their more affluent peers and historically never catch up (Barr & Parrett, 2007), creating a daunting…

This technical report presents results from a cross-validation study designed to identify optimal cut scores when using easyCBM[R] reading tests in Oregon. The cross-validation study analyzes data from the 2009-2010 academic year for easyCBM[R] reading measures. A sample of approximately 2,000 students per grade, randomly split into two groups of…

For a decade, at least since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the nation's foremost education goal has been to erase achievement "gaps" in which African American, Latino, and low-income students dramatically lag behind their peers. This emphasis has enjoyed broad support through the Bush and Obama administrations, and from major…

This longitudinal study investigated children's performance on several informal reading and spelling tasks. Students (n = 274) in a rural North Carolina county were assessed across grades 2 to 6 on the following measures: isolated word recognition (timed and untimed), oral reading accuracy, reading comprehension, reading rate, and spelling.…

An experimental study of the Technology Immersion model involved comparisons between 21 middle schools that received laptops for each teacher and student, instructional and learning resources, professional development, and technical and pedagogical support, and 21 control schools. Using hierarchical linear modeling to analyze longitudinal survey…

The second phase of a new national survey conducted among college instructors and employers shows that 78% of college faculty and 62% of employers believe that public high schools are not doing enough to prepare students for the expectations they will face in college and the working world. Only roughly one in four recent high school grads report…

This is the second publication in the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) Project Plus series. Project Plus aims to inform questions of policy and practice by synthesising findings of educational interest from projects funded by the TLRI. This Project Plus focuses on literacy in the early childhood education (ECE) and school…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine if business leadership practices by Texas public school principals have an impact on principals' campus student achievement in mathematics and reading, as measured by TAKS scores. The survey instrument was the Leadership Assessment Instrument (LAI), developed by Warren Bennis in 1989. The…

This report is a compilation of reprinted Executive Summaries from the reading, mathematics, and writing report cards based upon data collected in 2007. The reports provide national, state, and district-level results, as well as trends for different student groups such as gender, race/ethnicity, students with disabilities (SD), English language…

This document presents a summary of a larger report that focuses on student proficiency reading and math from 2003-04 to 2006-07. The report compares gaps in performance on state achievement tests between grade 8 American Indian and Alaska Native students and all other grade 8 students in 26 states serving large populations of American Indian and…

This study examined whether having a teacher who chose an alternate route to certification (AC) rather than a teacher who chose a traditional certification route (TC) affects the reading and math achievement of elementary school students. The study included about 2,600 kindergarten through fifth-grade students and their 174 teachers. These…

This study examined one public school system's change in its bell scheduling format from a seven period day to block scheduling. The data collected was from a three year period of the grade 10 students passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam. Students in Massachusetts must pass the mathematics and English/language arts…

This quantitative study implemented a non-experimental design that was descriptive, ex-post facto, and longitudinal. This study is examining economically disadvantaged students (EDS) with comparison to non-economically disadvantaged students (non-EDS) and their academic performance on Georgia's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT).…