A program was developed to improve the attitudes of elementary students toward the artistic experience and the end products of artistic creativity. The targeted population consisted of fifth grade students at a Midwestern elementary school in an affluent suburb. A low level of interest was exhibited by students toward the artwork they produced.…

This report describes a program for enhancing reading comprehension and vocabulary development through the use of multiple instructional strategies and technology. The targeted elementary population exhibits both poor reading comprehension and poor vocabulary acquisition and understanding, which interfere with academic achievement. Evidence for…

This study describes strategies used to increase student confidence in their overall writing achievement. The targeted population consists of third and fifth grade students from the same district located in a northwest suburban area. This community is located near a large metropolitan city in a midwestern state. Lack of confidence in student…

This study describes a program for students in the target 4th, 7th, and 8th grades who exhibit low achievement in writing. This low achievement affects behaviors, attitudes, and peer interactions. Discipline referrals, district assessments, and teacher written assessments substantiate this dilemma. Probable cause for lack of writing skills has…

This paper describes the outcomes of an action research project that implemented a program for increasing social-emotional functioning and improving academic achievement in 18 high school students with social and emotional disabilities. Analysis of probable cause data revealed that these students lacked a sense of affiliation to the high school…

Linked with professional development programs to support the implementation of Te Whariki, the national early childhood curriculum in New Zealand, a project was designed to: (1) construct a framework for assessment and evaluation in early childhood programs in Aotearoe-New Zealand; and (2) use this framework to develop an evaluation process…

This action research project examined the impact of a character education program to enhance the learning environment in schools. The targeted population consisted of students in grades 1, 2, 3, and 6 and in a self-contained second, third, and fourth grade special education class. Students exhibited behaviors that reflected a lack of positive…

This study examines a program for improving home-school relationships concerning literacy development. The targeted population consists of parents and students from one first- and one second-grade classroom in an elementary school in a small midwestern city. Parent and student interaction and feelings about reading were measured by weekly reading…

Competent readers use strategies automatically; moreover, the use of strategies is a natural part of their reading process. Interested in the effects of the direct teaching of strategies to poor readers, a researcher decided to use a classroom action research approach. She studied reading strategies used by competent readers before, during, and…

In this paper, a model is presented that uses educational dialogues to support the design process for learning support systems. The model is argued to provide a structure that links pedagogically motivated empirical studies of student-tutor-system interactions to problem specification and system design, and to result in the creation of learning…

This report describes a program for improving writing skills through choices of structured and unstructured writing process. The purpose of this program is to increase their ability to produce quality writing as measured by the district's fourth grade writing rubric. The targeted population consisted of an average fourth grade class, located in a…

A research group was interested in how an understanding of multiple intelligences might translate into a variety of teaching techniques and strategies directed toward specific intelligences they found in their eighth-grade science classroom. Because of the tremendous effect of mass media and other visual/spatial influences on students, the study…

This 22nd volume of the "English Leadership Quarterly" contains articles on topics of interest to those in positions of leadership in departments (elementary, secondary, or college) where English is taught. Each issue highlights a different theme. Articles in Volume 22 Number 1 are: "Collaboration: Making a Difference"…

This project was developed to increase attendance at inservices and workshops that are provided to continue the training of tutors in the South Pittsburgh office of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council (GPLC). A questionnaire was designed and mailed to all (about 20) tutors in the area to obtain input about how prepared they felt, and whether…

This action research project addressed the problem of missing assignments among fourth- and fifth-graders at a school in northern Illinois. In order to document the extent to which students lacked responsibility for turning in daily assignments, the teacher-researchers kept track of missing assignments for each student and grade book records for 6…