Historically, research has focused on academic underperformance for students of color and those living in poverty, with less attention given to protective factors that promote academic achievement. Students' perceptions of their school environment (i.e., school climate) and their social-emotional competence have emerged as protective factors for…

The achievement gap is a historic and pervasive issue of social justice in education. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has further stalled student achievement in reading and math, amplifying the urgency for accelerating student learning to close the gap. The third grade is a critical year for literacy in education; if students have not mastered…

Purpose: We examined the extent to which achievement goals predict reading comprehension, measured by two response formats (free recall and constructed response), and how these relations differ for students with and without reading difficulties (RD). We further explored how executive functions (working memory and semantic verbal fluency) mediate…

The challenge that existed in the Fall of 2020 was not knowing exactly how students and teachers could adapt to a new way of teaching and learning amidst a world-wide pandemic. There has long been a debate over the effectiveness of online versus face-to-face teaching. The researcher found insufficient research so far has been done on the…

The research design for this study was grounded in descriptive research to explore participants' experiences and perceptions of using evidence-based reading strategies to motivate, engage, and advance student learning in the primary grades. Primary teachers' strategies show encouraging impacts on students' learning, specifically in reading,…

Although several studies have shown that planning, attention, simultaneous, and successive (PASS) cognitive processes--operationalized with the cognitive assessment system (CAS; Naglieri & Das, 1997)--are significant predictors of academic performance in the general population, little is known about their role among children with superior…

Gamification is becoming increasingly popular in primary education due to the widespread use of digital technology. However, gamified reading is new, and there is little empirical evidence regarding its effectiveness. The sustainability of the effects of gamification pedagogy is also in doubt as some scholars think that such effects are short-term…

Success for All (SFA) is a comprehensive whole-school approach designed to help high-poverty elementary schools increase the reading success of their students. It is designed to ensure success in grades K-2 and then build on this success in later grades. SFA combines instruction emphasizing phonics and cooperative learning, one-to-small group…

While research consistently demonstrates that behavioral self-regulation (BSR) is associated with early academic abilities, it may not yet account for the multiple ways in which young children symbolically communicate their knowledge. This study builds on previous research in the areas of early learning and self-regulation by including children's…

This study investigated the extent to which class-specific parameter estimates are biased by the within-class normality assumption in nonnormal growth mixture modeling (GMM). Monte Carlo simulations for nonnormal GMM were conducted to analyze and compare two strategies for obtaining unbiased parameter estimates: relaxing the within-class normality…

Both formative assessment and growth mindset scholars aim to understand how to enhance achievement. While research on formative assessment focuses on external teaching practices, work on growth mindset emphasises internal psychological processes. This study examined the interplay between three formative assessment strategies (i.e. sharing learning…

Background: Improving the academic achievement of youth in the United States is an area of interest and a critical indicator of the future success of the youth. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a comprehensive school physical activity and healthy eating program on 5th-grade students' academic achievement, specifically reading…

These are the appendixes for the report, "Trends and Gaps in Reading Achievement across Kindergarten and Grade 1 in Two Illinois School Districts." This study examined reading achievement data for kindergarten and grade 1 students in two districts in Illinois: District U-46 (Elgin Area Schools) and District 186 (Springfield Public…

In 2020 and 2021, schooling, like many other aspects of life, has been heavily affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. During periods of school closure, education systems and schools have often been quick to organise remote support for home-based learning. But several observers have questioned the effectiveness of these schooling surrogates,…

The purpose of this study is to determine how different public-school teachers and staff perceive school climate at an achieving public middle school. The research sought to find relationships between teacher sub-groups and other staff members, and how they perceived the school climate, either negatively or positively. The researcher believed that…