This study examined the effects of the SRA FLEX Literacy (FLEX) program provided to 44 middle school students considered at risk for reading failure as compared to their peers who were not at risk in reading (N = 197) who received instruction in the Holt Elements of Literature series. Two outcome measures were used to judge the effects of the…

The Mathematics Fluency and Calculation Tests (MFaCTs) are a series of measures designed to assess for arithmetic calculation skills and calculation fluency in children ages 6 through 18. There are five main purposes of the MFaCTs: (1) identifying students who are behind in basic math fact automaticity; (2) evaluating possible delays in arithmetic…

This review article starts with an overview of changing education paradigms and the literature on cognitive and linguistic relationships in imaginative play related to comprehension of oral and written texts. Strategies for developing the cognitive and linguistic foundations for text comprehension through play are described. A review of current…

An increasing number of children worldwide attend schools where the language of instruction does not match their native language, presenting significant challenges with learning the content and vocabulary of academic content areas (e.g., social studies, science). In the U.S., these students are designated as English language learners…

Stakeholders have long been concerned about high school drop-out rates and associated achievement gaps between groups, specifically racial, of high school students. While significant improvements have been made to these drop-out rates at the national level, the largest group of drop-out students continues to be those of Hispanic heritage. Research…

Theoretical models of word recognition suggest that knowing what a word means makes it easier to learn how to decode it. We tested this hypothesis with at-risk young students, a group that often responds poorly to conventional decoding instruction in which word meaning is not addressed systematically. A total of 53 first graders received explicit…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of combining event-centred and variable-centred approaches when analysing big data for higher education institutions. It uses a large, university-wide data set to demonstrate the methodology for this analysis by using the case study method. It presents empirical findings about…

Learning to code has been an increasingly frequent topic of conversation both in academic circles and popular media. Learning to code recently received renewed attention with the announcement of the White House's Computer Science for All initiative (Smith 2016). This initiative intends "to empower all American students from kindergarten…

All individuals go through a process of change when implementing a new innovation. This descriptive study determines there is a difference in the stages of concern regarding Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI), Tennessee's design model for Response to Intervention, (RTI) for 87 teachers from 8 different schools in a county in Middle…

This study explored the extent to which kindergarten and first grade teachers provided individualized reading instruction to struggling readers during a unique one-on-one reading instruction task. Three outcomes of teachers' instructional strategies were captured: code-focused strategies, meaning-focused strategies, and level of challenge. Child…

Districts nationwide are challenged with how best to address the needs of an increasing number of non-English or limited-English speaking students. These young people are similarly challenged as they face new environs, unfamiliar cultural settings, and significant communication issues. Findings have indicated that an arts-rich education can assist…

Many students with a history of speech or language impairment have an elevated risk of reading difficulty. Specific subgroups of these students remain at risk of reading problems even after clinical manifestations of a speech or language disorder have diminished. These students may require reading intervention within a general education system of…

High-quality early childhood education is a vital experience for young children with and without disabilities. Social and communication experiences in the context of play represent a core curriculum that sets a foundation for later learning and participation. Using a new self-report instrument, this article describes data collected in a…

We replicated and extended prior research investigating a theoretically guided intervention based on expectancy-value theory designed to enhance student learning outcomes (e.g., Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009). First, we replicated prior work by demonstrating that the utility value intervention, which manipulated whether students made…

This article explores the dissonance between the expansive discourses imagined by the advocates for youth media as helping foster "empowerment" and "voice", versus the more circumscribed realities of participatory media production. I focus on a two-part case study--considering both a film-making project for "at risk"…