This technical report describes the development and piloting of reading comprehension measures developed for use by fifth-grade students as part of an online progress monitoring assessment system, http://easycbm.com. Each comprehension measure is comprised of an original work of narrative fiction approximately 1500 words in length followed by 20…

In the last issue, this journal asked a question on many librarians' minds, and it was pleased with the depth and variety of responses. As suggested by this journal editorial board member Oliver Pesch, readers were asked, "Many libraries have gone to federated searching to win users back from Google. Is it working?" Respondents approached the…

This study followed 88 children in Beijing and Hong Kong for three years to investigate the relationships between the early teaching of literacy skills and later literacy outcomes. The children were administered the Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale at the age of five years, and three years later. Their parents and teachers reported on…

This paper reports on a study on the relationship between cognitive task complexity and linguistic performance in L2 writing. In the study, two models proposed to explain the influence of cognitive task complexity on linguistic performance in L2 are tested and compared: Skehan and Foster's Limited Attentional Capacity Model (Skehan, 1998; Skehan…

According to many students, introductory physics is difficult. We investigated what students believe makes physics difficult and what can be done to overcome these difficulties. Our investigation included an initial free-response survey given to approximately 1400 students in an introductory physics course and a second survey, which was given to…

Previous studies have shown inconsistent results concerning bilinguals' use of gestures to compensate for reduced proficiency in their second language (L2). These results could be because of differing task demands. In this study, we asked 16 intermediate English L2 speakers (whose first language [L1] was Chinese) to watch a story and tell it back…

Rigor, relevance, and relationships are three elements that provide the hallmark for education today. These three elements are integrally connected; if one is missing in a teacher's teaching practices, he or she is not doing his or her best to prepare students for success in school and in life. To ensure the inclusion of both rigor and relevance,…

This is the 36th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," 2014. Section 664(d) of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" ("IDEA") (P.L. 108-446), as reauthorized in 2004, requires that the Department of Education report annually on the progress…

This is the 33rd Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," 2011. Section 664(d) of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" ("IDEA"), as reauthorized in 2004, requires that the Department of Education report annually on the progress made toward the…

This is the 32nd Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2010. Section 664(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (P.L. 108-446), as reauthorized in 2004, requires that the Department of Education report annually on the progress made toward the provision of a free…

The 34th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," 2012 describes our nation's progress in: (1) providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities; (2) ensuring that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents are protected;…

The 35th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," 2013 describes the nation's progress in (1) providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities, (2) ensuring that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents are protected, (3)…

A special case of examinee choice, the Optional Essay Problem, is examined from the point of view of test equating. The Optional Essay Problem involves equating essay scores when the examinees are required to select an optional essay topic from a list of topics in addition to taking a mandatory test required of all examinees. The conditions that…

The Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation, which produces vocabulary instructional materials for test takers, is in the process of determining the difficulty values of nontechnical words in the English language. To this end, the Foundation writes test items for vocabulary words and tests them in schools. The items are then calibrated using the…

In this study, the ability of test development staff to predict the difficulty of analogy items was explored. The nature of the item attributes that contributed to test writers' predictions of difficulty as well as actual item difficulty was also investigated. The two expert test writers studied were quite good at predicting item difficulty. Item…