The Houston Independent School District offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs). In both programs, students may transition into a pre-exit phase of bilingual education so long as they meet certain performance criteria. In this Pre-Exit phase, predominantly English-language instruction is used in…

This study evaluated the effects of a fluency building activity on the oral reading fluency (ORF) and comprehension of four first-grade students identified as at risk for reading failure. The participants in this study were selected because they were members of a group at the highest risk for reading problems, specifically African American boys…

The purpose of this study is to compare primary school 5th-class students' electronic text reading performance, reading speed and reading comprehension with tablet PCs and printed books. This study examined a sample of 20 students. The students were randomly divided into two groups, a control group and a treatment group. The control group students…

Present national methodological standards for evaluating the credibility of the design of individual research studies have resulted in findings reporting the pre-­post effectiveness of Direct Instruction programs to be eliminated from consideration by educational leaders involved in making curricular decisions intended to advance local school…

As the rate of developmental reading students continues to climb, so does the surge in digital platforms as a means to deliver postsecondary instruction. Students enrolled in developmental reading courses should not be assumed to have digital literacy skills simply because they have been termed a "digitally literate generation." In this…

Policy discussions on how to improve educational outcomes have traditionally focused on schools and teachers. While schools and teachers have measurable effects on educational outcomes, reforms aimed at only improving schools and teachers have failed to eliminate persistent achievement gaps. Thus, some scholars have argued for a broader, bolder…

This quantitative, quasi-experimental study investigated the reading achievement of students at-risk of failure to learn to read. This study analyzed the effectiveness of the reading intervention program, Reading Success, which is used with at-risk first grade students in an elementary school district in DuPage County, Illinois. The Reading…

This was a quantitative study utilized to determine the effect of the Physio-Cat Program on improving reading-comprehension scores in reading for students in kindergarten through Grade 5 at an elementary school in Dade County Florida. The Physio-Cat Program, designed by this researcher, was developed to provide an innovative approach to improve…

This study determined the relationship of state funding to student performance on state mandated assessments in South Dakota between the years of 2003-2009. A cohort group of 40 school districts between 200 ADM and 600 ADM who had not reorganized were selected. Data was collected using the Dakota STEP assessment portal on the South Dakota…

Education has been under major reform since the passing of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Under the NCLB Act states have set benchmark goals to measure whether districts and schools are making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward ensuring that all children are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Lack of progress in reading has…

Little research has been done into how the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) affect national educational reform and policy-making. This paper examines the normative impact of PISA by investigating how, and the extent to which , national policy actors use PISA in policies and practices, to evaluate and improve…

The School Choice Demonstration Project has published a series of reports written in the fifth and final year of its evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). This review is of "Report #29," a five-year longitudinal growth study, which found that a sample of elementary and middle school MPCP students outperformed a…

The study described in this report examined whether the use of "daily report cards" ("DRCs") in elementary school classrooms improved behavior and academic achievement among students diagnosed with combined inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbid oppositional defiant…

The researcher studied the effect of multiple strategy instruction on the reading comprehension of low-achieving and average first-grade readers, and gifted first-grade students. The researcher also sought to determine how the effect of multiple strategy instruction differs according to gender. Running records and "Assessing Comprehension…

All too often, a student's lack of success is blamed on his or her background, and/or the parent or the parent's educational level. Many factors such as socioeconomic conditions, student behaviors, attendance, and teacher demographics can directly or indirectly affect class environment, classroom management, interaction with students,…