Many of the district's students are recent immigrants who have been in the United States for three years or less. "Immigrant" children or youth, as defined under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and later the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA), are "individuals who are aged 3 through 21; were not born in any…

The aim of this study was to measure the impact of the overall school facility condition for traditional Colorado elementary schools, according to Colorado's Facilities Conditions Index (FCI), on student achievement, as measured by the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). Control variables included Special Education (SPED), English Language…

As writing is a complex and resource demanding task, high-quality writing instruction is indispensable from primary grades on to support beginning writers in developing effective writing skills. Writing research should therefore provide teachers and schools with evidence-based guidelines for teaching writing in daily practice. In this respect, the…

This study was designed to validate a multidimensional structure of writing self-efficacy in English as a foreign language contexts, conceptualized in self-regulated learning theory and social cognitive theory. The Second Language Writer Self-Efficacy Scale was developed and evaluated through a series of rigorous validation procedures. The…

This meta-analysis examined if students' writing performance is improved by reading interventions in studies (k = 54 experiments; 5,018 students) where students were taught how to read and studies (k = 36 investigations; 3,060 students) where students' interaction with words or text was increased through reading or observing others read. Studies…

This study systematically examines the moderating effects of task type and L2 proficiency on the relationship between L1 and L2 simultaneously across reading and writing tasks with different levels of cognitive complexity. Main and moderating effects were evaluated through structural equation modeling analyses. First, both L1 skills and L2…

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of Facebook use on writing achievement, writing attitude, writing anxiety and writing self-efficacy of the students in the written expression course. In the study, pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design with study and control groups was used. The experimental group included 96…

Background: Federal and state accountability policies attempt to improve educational outcomes but have been blamed for a breadth of ills, including minimizing local knowledge and reducing teachers' ability to respond to contextual needs. Teachers in high-needs schools, especially, feel the effects of constrained curricula and increased testing,…

This report describes SAT test results for AISD's graduating seniors, Class of 2017, who took the SAT any time during high school.

The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed methods study was to explore elementary students' (N = 263) salient experiences with writing and the ways in which their perceptions of teacher writing instructional enthusiasm relate to writing success. In the quantitative phase, we examined how student perceptions of teacher and peer enthusiasm…

Little research has been done on key concepts related to peer feedback, including whether learners are able to transfer skills learned to future related tasks or to other classes and content areas, and whether the gains observed through peer feedback are the result of "giving" peer feedback or of "receiving" peer feedback. The…

This study explores older adolescents' linguistic resources, specifically academic vocabulary knowledge, in the context of factors that can impact their academic success and risk of dropping out of school. The data resulted from a collaboration among professional development personnel, teachers, and university researchers. Eleventh and twelfth…

This study reports findings from a multisite cluster randomized controlled trial designed to validate and scale up an existing successful professional development program that uses a cognitive strategies approach to text-based analytical writing. The Pathway to Academic Success Project worked with partner districts affiliated with 4 National…

The present study examined the effect of technology-based writing instruction on writing outcomes using meta-analytic methods. Additionally, this study investigated whether characteristics of study, sample, and outcome moderated the effect of technology-based writing instruction. Six studies were coded resulting in 11 extracted effect sizes.…

The current study used a scale-based approach and complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) analysis to comprehensively capture the effects of the sociocognitive-transformative approach on 2nd language (L2) learners' writing performance. The study involved 66 preuniversity intermediate L2 students from 4 different English classes. I randomly…