A balanced assessment system is vital to the instructional process in all schools. This system includes both formative and summative assessment measures. Both assessments provide data that can inform curriculum design and the instructional process. The purpose of this study was to examine the predicative validity of formative diagnostic and…

Despite historical emphasis on "specific" learning disabilities (SLDs), academic skills are strongly correlated across the curriculum. Thus, one can ask how specific SLDs truly are. To answer this question, we used bifactor models to identify variance shared across academic domains (academic "g"), as well as variance unique to…

This article reports on a 3-year formative experiment involving the implementation and testing of a long-term, multifaceted vocabulary instruction program in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in three demographically distinct schools. The quantitative findings indicate that the students, across the 3 years of the project, showed accelerated…

Research with school-age readers suggests that the contributions of reading and language skills vary across reading comprehension assessments and proficiency levels. With a sample of 168 struggling adult readers, we estimated the explanatory effects of decoding, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, fluency, background knowledge, and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of a relationship between second-order change leadership behaviors of high school administrators and changes in student achievement on the Florida Standards Assessment English Language Arts/Reading component and the Algebra 1 End of Course examination in two large urban school districts.…

In this study, I investigate whether three A2 Key for Schools practice tests from Cambridge Assessment English for 6th-graders (11-12 years old) in Argentina measure growth and produce scores that are meaningful. Drawing data from three consecutive years, I analyze the scores of 80 children over a school year and consider whether the tests are…

Research Findings: Parent involvement is a critical way for children to learn about the importance of education and develop reading skills. Unfortunately, not all low-income parents are able to be involved in their children's education, which can have negative implications for children's reading development. The present study tested if the…

In embodied theories of semantic representation, the processes and mechanisms of modal simulations that are engaged during semantic processing have tended to be underspecified. We investigated the possibility that motor imagery may be a mechanism of simulation, using an individual differences approach. In this preregistered study, we assessed…

This study used wrap-up effects on eye movements to assess the relationship between online reading behavior and comprehension. Participants, assessed on measures of reading, vocabulary, and spelling, read short passages that manipulated whether a syntactic boundary was "unmarked" by punctuation, "weakly marked" by a comma, or…

In two studies, we explored the associations among situational reading-related competence beliefs and task value, inference strategies, comprehension during reading, and foundational skills in college age students. In Study 1, 93 participants from a community college completed assessments of comprehension and two types of inference strategies…

Research with school-age readers suggests that the contributions of reading and language skills vary across reading comprehension assessments and proficiency levels. With a sample of 168 struggling adult readers, we estimated the explanatory effects of decoding, oral vocabulary, listening comprehension, fluency, background knowledge, and…

This research study was conducted to gain a better understanding of teacher perceptions, in both low-performing and high-performing urban charter schools, of the impact of administrative support, professional development, and teacher preparation in closing the achievement gap among fourth grade students. The trend over the last five years among…

States are increasingly recommending that districts and schools use multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to improve reading outcomes for all students. States have also suggested MTSS is a viable service delivery model in response to new state legislation to screen, identify, and treat students with word-level reading disability (i.e., dyslexia).…

Comprehension of many types of texts involves constructing meaning from text and pictures. However, research examining how second language (L2) learners process text and pictures and the relationship with comprehension is scarce. Thus, while verbal input is often presented in written and auditory modes simultaneously (i.e., audio of text with…

Children who speak one language at home and a different language at school may be at higher risk of falling behind in their academic achievement when schooling is disrupted. The present study examined the effects of COVID-19-related school disruptions on English language and literacy development among monolingual and bilingual children in the US.…