Pay for performance plans are spreading across the country due to the Obama administration's $4 billion Race to the Top initiative, which places a high priority on merit pay. Through a program that involved public accountability and bonuses, the state of North Carolina awarded more than $1 billion in school-based performance bonuses for meeting…

This study examined the benefit of utilizing one-item academic and one-item behavior readiness teacher-rated screeners at the beginning of the school year to predict end-of-school year outcomes for middle school students. The Middle School Academic and Behavior Readiness (M-ABR) screeners were developed to provide an efficient and effective way to…

This study investigated the use of the pre-instruction of vocabulary in order to improve elementary students' reading comprehension of a narrative text. Three classes of second, fourth, and sixth graders were pre-taught meanings of twenty different vocabulary target words for three consecutive weeks. The pre-teaching included four days of rich…

Research has shown that the effect of marginal glosses on reading comprehension and vocabulary retention is a controversial issue. The purpose of this study was to investigate this issue among Iranian university EFL students. Three types of glosses were applied in this study: single gloss in participants' first language (SL1G), single gloss in…

There are a number of detailed requirements for gifted screening, referral and eligibility specified under State Board Rules and School Board Rules. In all of these areas, explicit mention is made of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores as being integral components. The FCAT scores used for these purposes prior to 2008 were…

Since the National Reading Panel report and passage of No Child Left Behind, one particular reading instrument, "Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills" (DIBELS), has gained nationwide attention. As a result, DIBELS has been used in thousands of schools across the nation as a means of early identification, intervention, and…

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between technology skills and academic achievement among eighth-grade students. Previous studies investigated the relationship between the use of technology as a teaching tool and student outcomes, but none had specifically examined students' technology skill competencies with…

Methods and teaching tools have been researched to determine if they prove to be successful in effectively teaching the underprepared. This study was conducted to compare the differences in the utilization of alternative labeling on study guides to determine if the usage affects the outcome on participant's test scores. A quasi-experimental design…

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards for the 21st Century Learner do not just pay lip-service to the value of reading. They have been aligned with the Common Core standards that were derived from, and now influence, state standards-based tests, such as the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) reading tests. It is…

Local school districts often stagger daily start times for their schools in order to reduce busing costs. This paper uses data on all middle school students in Wake County, NC from 1999 to 2006 to identify the causal effect of daily start times on academic performance. Using variation in start times within schools over time, the effect is a two…

This article reports on findings from a review of statewide large-scale test blueprints. The qualitative and descriptive numerical review of themes found in state blueprints provides information on trends in statewide reading assessments. These trends are then set against the backdrop of testing accommodations for students with disabilities.…

The article compares three different methods to estimate effects of task characteristics and to use these estimates for model-based proficiency scaling: prediction of item difficulties from the Rasch model, the linear logistic test model (LLTM), and an LLTM including random item effects (LLTM+e). The methods are applied to empirical data from a…

The present study examined competing models of the bi-directional influences of anxiety and reading achievement. Participants were 153 ethnically-diverse children (84 male, 69 female) from general education classes evaluated in the winter and spring of their first-grade academic year. Children completed standardized measures of reading achievement…

The focus of this paper is on the assessment of the two main processes that children must acquire at the single word reading level: word recognition (lexical) and decoding (nonlexical) skills. Guided by the framework of the dual route model, this study aimed to (1) investigate the impact of item characteristics on test performance, and (2)…

This study explores how readers' interest, gender, and test types (multiple-choice questions, Yes/No questions, and short-answer formats) affect second language reading comprehension in three different levels and five different categories of topics. A questionnaire was administered to 168 Turkish EFL students to find out the gender-oriented topic…