Preschool reading readiness is an issue with growing interest. The preschool years provide an opportune time when reading difficulties are more easily altered through exposure to early literacy skills. This paper extends the authors' previous research by examining the kindergarten performance of a cohort of children from a multi-year research…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the 7th grade reading performance among a random sample of urban public school academies (charter schools) in Wayne County, Michigan, compared with a random sample of traditional urban public schools within the same geographic area. This study was conducted using the fall 2012 Michigan…

This report contains the 2014-2015 evaluation report on the Home Instruction of Parents with Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) Program. HIPPY is a school readiness program that helps parents prepare their preschool children for academic success. A total of 730 students and their parents participated in the Houston Independent School District (HISD)…

Reading fluency is a skill foundational to academic performance, and acquiring this skill in early grades is crucial. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, reading levels of students are far below grade level, and Malawi is no exception. Research suggests that students, particularly in consistently spelled languages, acquire automaticity most easily by…

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between the challenge level of text and early readers' reading comprehension. This relationship was also examined with consideration to students' word recognition accuracy and reading rate. Participants included 636 students, in Grades 1-3, in a southeastern state. Results suggest that…

This study examined the effectiveness of a researcher-provided intervention with fourth graders with significant reading difficulties. The intervention emphasized multisyllable word reading, fluent reading of high-frequency words and phrases, vocabulary, and comprehension. To identify the participants, 1,695 fourth-grade students were screened…

Home literacy environment explains between 12 and 18.5% of the variance of children's language skills. Although most authors agree that children whose parents encourage them to read tend to develop better and earlier reading skills, some authors consider that the impact of family environment in reading skills is overvalued. Probably, other…

The amount of research evaluating the technical merits of general outcome measures of science and social studies achievement is growing. This study targeted criterion validity for critical content monitoring. Questions addressed the concurrent criterion validity of alternate presentation formats of critical content monitoring and the measure's…

This study examined the predictive validity and classification accuracy of two commonly used universal screening measures relative to a statewide achievement test. Results indicated that second-grade performance on oral reading fluency and the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), together with special education status, explained 68% of the…

Research suggests that morphological awareness facilitates word decoding, improves lexical knowledge, and helps reading comprehension (Carlisle, 2010; Nagy et al., 2014; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011). The present study examined the relationship among morphological awareness, word recognition and reading comprehension in 153 second- and…

The aim of this article is to exploit an unusual occurrence whereby a large group of South African grade 3 students were tested twice, 1 month apart, on the same test in different languages. Using a simplified difference-in-difference methodology, it becomes possible to identify the causal impact of writing a test in English when English is not a…

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. eighth graders score below basic on national assessments of reading (NCES, 2013) and are poorly equipped for the reading demands of secondary school. Struggling adolescent readers cannot summarize a simple passage, use context to determine word meanings, and have difficulties making text-based inferences. In addition,…

The purpose of the study was to explore network dynamics within a rural middle school and identify to what extent middle school faculty engagement in network dynamics affects student test scores. Specifically, within the study, I examined the effects of network relationships (i.e., trust and social ties), content exchange (i.e., advice ties), and…

Wilburn implemented the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) from 2008-09 through 2014-15. TIF [Teacher Incentive Fund] funding supported the performance pay component since 2010-11. All TAP principles were implemented. However, challenges occurred related to staff turnover, scheduling, and the extra work involved. Many teachers did not find the TAP…

The goal of this study was to gather comprehensive evidence about the alignment of the Smarter Balanced summative assessments to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Alignment of the Smarter Balanced summative assessments to the CCSS is a critical piece of evidence regarding the validity of inferences students, teachers and policy makers can…