Children with spelling difficulties are limited in their participation in all written school activities. We aimed to investigate the influence of word-prediction as a tool on spelling accuracy and typing speed. To this end, we selected 80 Grade 4-6 children with spelling difficulties in a school for special needs to participate in a research…

This document provides an executive summary of "Reading First Impact Study. Final Report. NCEE 2009-4038." The final report presents findings from the third and final year of the Reading First Impact Study (RFIS), a congressionally mandated evaluation of the federal government's initiative to help all children read at or above grade…

The perspective of this article is that the purpose of the elementary physical education program is the development of a physically active lifestyle. We discuss the relative contribution of the development of motor skills, fitness, content related to encouraging participation, and the affective goals of the program to the development of a…

This article systematically reviews research on the achievement outcomes of four types of approaches to improving the reading success of children in the elementary grades: reading curricula, instructional technology, instructional process programs, and combinations of curricula and instructional process. Study inclusion criteria included use of…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002 calls for several changes in the K-12 education system in the United States. It focuses on evidence-based educational practices for schools in the United States. This study was part of a large-scale, 8-year research project that examined the quality of classroom instruction from three elementary schools…

Eight students were observed during classroom instruction. Comparisons were made of how they spent their time in resource and regular classrooms. In general, opportunities for differentiated instruction were available in resource rooms. However, no practical differences were noted in the amount of time students were actively engaged in instruction…

A structured reinforcement system, in which learning disabled students earn tokens for on-task activities, is an effective way of managing classroom behavior. An 11-step process of initiating such a program is described. (CL)

Systematic observation of four elementary students at time of referral and one and two months after special education placement revealed considerable variability among students in amount of academic time allocated and engaged in. Changes in instruction and student responding as a function of special education intervention were inconsistent across…

Goal-directed persistence of 44 mentally retarded young children on tasks used to assess mastery motivation among nonretarded infants was examined to determine whether retarded children were motivated to solve or work on tasks that were slightly challenging to them. Results indicated significant age-related increases in children's goal-directed…

An environmental modification involving a portable partition designed as a distractor shield was found to increase the mean level of on-task performance of four profoundly retarded adults in the classroom. Additionally, the increase in on-task behavior was accompanied by increases in student task productivity. (Author/CL)

Using a minute-by-minute observational chart, classroom activities and student involvement may be recorded. Such a record is valuable for noting students' and teachers' time on task. (JW)

Fourteen mildly retarded adolescents who participated in a mathematics program involving games (dice, cards, dominoes, boards, and spinners) performed significantly better than 14 Ss in a control group who completed traditional drill and workbook exercises. Experimental Ss also had higher time-on-task scores. (CL)

ALT (academic learning time) was obtained on 60 nonhandicapped and 60 mainstreamed handicapped students in elementary physical education classes. Results indicated that Ss in individualized instruction settings engaged in a significantly greater amount of ALT than Ss of nonusers, with no significant difference between mainstreamed handicapped and…

Three procedures for increasing the disabled students' academic learning time(ALT)by maximizing allocation time, engagement time, and success rate are discussed, and a direct instructional model for enhancing ALT in both regular and special education environments is described. (CL)

Investigated the feasibility of adding haptic and auditory displays to traditional visual geographic information systems (GISs). Explored differences in user performance, including task completion time and accuracy, and user satisfaction with a multimodal GIS which was implemented with a haptic display, auditory display, and combined display.…