Gaps in education attainment between high and low achieving children in the primary school years are frequently evidenced in educational reports. Linked to social disadvantage, these gaps have detrimental long-term effects on learning. There is a need to close the gap in attainment by addressing barriers to learning and offering alternative…

This study is an attempt to clarify the incremental and multidimensional nature of foreign language vocabulary development and its relation to the participants' reading and writing performances and general language ability of English as a foreign language (EFL). With this principle aim, the current study investigated the relationship between…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and…

Following professional development, 4 teachers implemented instructional lessons designed to improve the written expression of 6th- and 7th-grade struggling writers in inclusive, self-contained, and co-taught classrooms. A multiple-baseline study investigated the effects of a computer-based graphic organizer (CBGO) with embedded self-regulated…

This study compared 70 English learners (ELs) and English-only (EO) second-grade students' writing samples before and after a yearlong writing program. The school utilized Write From the Beginning (J. Buckner, 2006) and focused on personal narratives. A subgroup of students also participated in an intervention supporting expository writing on…

In this multiple-case study, the author investigated fully online students' perceptions of and experiences with asynchronous and synchronous writing support options of an institutional writing center and a commercial tutoring service. This dissertation used a multiple-case study design (Merriam, 1998, 2009; Yin, 2009) to ascertain which features…

The Improving Basic Programs effort in Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), is designed to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and achieve, at a minimum, proficiency on state…

The Title I, Part A program is designed to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and achieve, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and assessments. The program's goal is to provide supplemental funding for educational programs and…

In educational measurement contexts, essays have been evaluated and formative feedback has been given based on the end product. In this study, we used a large sample collected from middle school students in the United States to investigate the factor structure of the writing process features gathered from keystroke logs and the association of that…

Teaching in Singapore, Tze Kwang Teo cannot conceive of a history teacher unfamiliar with the mnemonic "PEE" (or "PEEL") used to structure students' essays. Its ubiquity is testimony to its power, reminding students both to explain and to substantiate their claims. Yet, as Foster and Gadd have argued, its neat formulation can…

Between March and June 2014, more than 1.67 million students from the 2014 graduating class took the SAT, marking a new participation record for the test. At the request of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the College Board created a special report that allows the association to compare how independent school students fared…

Background: Writing is an essential literacy skill; however, public school students often receive inadequate writing instruction, particularly as they move into middle and high school. However, research has shown that the nature of writing tasks assigned can impact writing development and student achievement measured by standardized assessments.…

The effect of using a computer or paper and pencil on student writing scores on a provincial standardized writing assessment was studied. A sample of 302 francophone students wrote a short essay using a computer equipped with Microsoft Word with all of its correction functions enabled. One week later, the same students wrote a second short essay…

The purpose of this research was to determine the effects of Cardio-Syntactic Analysis instruction on writing scores in an 11th grade English class. The sample consisted of 35 students enrolled in an Honor's English 11 class at Volunteer high School, in Church Hill, TN. The class was randomly assigned into an experimental group of 17 students and…

The academic achievement of individuals with autism spectrum disorder has received little attention from researchers despite the importance placed on this by schools, families and students with autism spectrum disorder. Investigating factors that lead to increased academic achievement thus would appear to be very important. A review of the…