The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which graduate student tutors delivered 15 minutes of differentiated reading instruction (DRI) and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (IRA) lesson each day. Students in grades K-5 (N = 179) attending a summer program at one urban elementary school…

Success for All (SfA) is a comprehensive school reform program designed to support schools serving many students of disadvantaged backgrounds to increase students' achievement. SfA includes daily 90-min reading lessons with extensive use of cooperative learning, tutoring for struggling readers, and an emphasis on parental involvement. School teams…

This study determines the effectiveness of a non-digital picture concept programme to treat cognitive deficits in pupils with dyslexia. Using a sample of 38 primary two pupils (aged 7-9 years) in Ebonyi State, Nigeria, a Picture Concept Activity and the traditional method of repetitive passage drill were administered for eight weeks and results…

The concept of large-scale assessment has long been on the concern of the education system worldwide. PISA, which is one of the large-scale international assessment, has been administered in a number of countries worldwide since 2000. When PISA was first launched, there was an "unconditional acceptance" of this new application worldwide,…

This paper contributes to the growing body of evidence on the effects of school closures on learning outcomes, focusing on a recent event in a developing country. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic outbreak, a significant number of public schools in São Paulo state, Brazil, extended the winter break by two to three weeks. By employing double- and…

The 2007 Public Education Reform Amendment Act led to 39 percent of the principals in District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) being dismissed before the start of the 2008-09 school year, and additional principal exits over the next few years. We measure the impact of replacing these principals on schoolwide student achievement by measuring the…

We explored whether and how cognitive measures of executive function (EF) can be used to help classify academic performance in Kindergarten and first grade using nonparametric cluster analysis. We found that EF measures were useful in classifying low-reading performance in both grades, but mathematics performance could be grouped into low,…

Background: Multiple perspectives on cognitive development, including Cattell's Investment Theory (1963, 1987), suggest that fluid reasoning (Gf) is foundational to the development of academic knowledge and skills. Yet little is known of the role that Gf may play in reading achievement, particularly in comparison with a larger literature…

Student attendance is increasingly recognized as an important measure of educational success, which has spurred a body of research examining the extent to which schools can affect this outcome. However, prior work almost exclusively focuses on teachers, and no studies have explicitly examined the importance of school leaders. This study begins to…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has significantly increased over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policymaking and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

The efficiency-equity trade-offs in public service delivery may be influenced by the dependency of local governments on their own resources rather than inter-governmental grants. School districts in the United States are expected both to produce human capital efficiently and to provide educational opportunity equally. To ascertain school district…

Trend results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show a decline from 2001 through 2016 in most countries in fourth graders' and their parents' reading attitudes, as measured by students like reading and parents like reading scale scores. Average students like reading scale scores, as reported by the students…

Under waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government required states to identify schools where targeted subgroups of students have the lowest achievement and to implement reforms in these "Focus Schools." In this study, we examine the Focus School reforms in the state of Kentucky. The reforms in this state are uniquely…

This study was designed to examine the effects of grade level retention on students' reading achievement, based on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR). Three research questions guided the study. Did students who were retained in kindergarten, first, or second grade reach academic success on 5th grade reading STAAR? Did…

Resurgence in college-level reading research has led to studies on rhetorical reading and reading transfer, but often absent from these discussions are student emotions about reading and themselves as readers. Our qualitative study explores these emotions by examining how basic writing students perceive ideal readers and reading difficulties. Our…