This brief document provides information about the nationwide reading initiative, Reading First, in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Reading First is a focused effort to improve reading skills of students in kindergarten through third grade. First, information is provided on unique characteristics of the Reading First program and requirements…

These two issues of the journal present information on the English Teachers' Association of Israel, report on various conferences, and offer the following articles: "The Winter Conference Report" (Riva Levenchuk and Rananah Gold); "Traditional Creativity" (Simon Lichman); "An Inspector Calls" (Shai Aran); "Using…

Beginning with a brief history of homeschooling in America, this paper discusses literature describing today's population of homeschoolers. Although older, the binary typology offered by Van Galen (1987, 1991) to categorize the motivations of homeschoolers is still utilized in much of the homeschooling literature. Van Galen breaks homeschoolers…

The development of the Stanford Foreign Language Oral Skills Evaluation Matrix (FLOSEM), a rating scale for assessing communicative proficiency in foreign languages, is described. Information on the utility of the FLOSEM is presented based on the results of three studies. Oral proficiency measures were obtained by means of the FLOSEM from 573 high…

This book is designed for students taking a first course in classroom assessment and measurement. It shows how assessment principles apply to the full range of teacher decision making and not just the formal evaluation of student learning. The book is organized in a way that follows the natural progression of teachers' decision making, from…

This 17th annual report presents information on current trends and issues informally discussed by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions. Commission on Composition (Richard Gebhardt, director) discussed the role of writing in literacy; interactions of race, class, language, and learning; teaching grammar;…

This article describes a collaborative project between an English language class in Japan and one in the United States. The institutions involved were Tokyo International University (TIU), located in Kawagoe, Saitama, Japan, and its branch campus, Tokyo International University of America (TIUA) in Salem, Oregon. This project created an…

This monograph, part of a series on student assessment, reports on the results of a national survey that examined institutional support for undergraduate student assessment. It provides a national profile of student assessment initiatives at comprehensive institutions and compares it to assessment practices and support patterns found in all types…

This yearbook examines the implications of assessment, assessment design, and multiple assessment tools. The five sections of the book are designed for developing and implementing assessment strategies for the business education curriculum, and several of the 14 chapters contain examples of assessment. The chapters cover the following topics: (1)…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on new perspectives in education that was conducted as part of a conference on human resource development (HRD). "A Systems Model for Evaluating Learning and Performance" (Hallie Preskill, Darlene Russ-Eft) describes a model for HRD developers to use in evaluating learning and performance that…

This final report describes the FOCUS project, which published 5 bulletins featuring reviews of 26 exemplary adult basic and literacy education (ABLE) projects from Pennsylvania and 8 states; undertook a feasibility study that reviewed 41 projects; produced a revised recruitment brochure; and revised a workshop. Next are the following four project…

This guide compiles information essential to a working knowledge of assistive technology for children with disabilities. It addresses the definition of assistive technology and provides information on laws which direct the provision of assistive technology. The manual provides a framework to guide the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team as…

The Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI) program is an effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that targets large urban school systems with the goal of sustainable implementation of high-quality, standards-based teaching for the purpose of attaining system-wide increases in students' learning of challenging mathematics and science.…

This study measured and compared the pre- and post-course differences in college students' attitudes toward and achievement in an asynchronous, Web-based, health profession course. The distance course included 14 Web-based learning modules that students could complete at their own pace prior to finishing the end of the term. The course also…

This paper describes how multiple sources of information were used by two educators to develop new understandings about their roles as teachers of information technology research to a multinational class. The information was gathered from students who provided feedback via an asynchronous Web-based chat space, e-mail, written assignments, and…