In 2013, the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program identified Manitoba as the province having the lowest reading achievement scores of grade 8 students across Canada. These poor results serve as an indicator that changes to the way teachers support struggling readers in the classroom and beyond its walls are essential. Struggling readers require…

Monitoring educational development in the early years of schooling is vital if practitioners, and policy makers, are to support students' learning, but the assessment of student achievement in developing countries can be a logistical headache. Maurice Walker reports on an innovative approach to assessment using tablets that is addressing that.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether, or to what extent, property wealth of the upper and lower 5% districts, per pupil expenditure, limited English proficient students, economically disadvantaged students, membership, and teacher experience contribute to student achievement in 5th grade reading and mathematics. To do this, the…

Based on the Lexile® Framework, a scientific approach to reading and text measurement backed by more than two decades of ongoing research, Achieve3000®, a web-based differentiated reading program used by HISD [Houston Independent School District], is designed to improve student reading ability and comprehension of increasingly complex texts by…

In the 2013-2014 school year, the High-Dosage Tutoring (HDT) Program served approximately 1,698 students at nine AISD schools. This report summarizes the third year of implementation and outcomes.

Ten years ago, six teachers established a program of literacy intervention and professional learning in remote northwestern Australia based on the Reading Recovery principles. This group of teachers was determined to learn what had to happen in order for them to make a difference with students and then to make it happen. Their work led to getting…

Several researchers emphasize the role of the writer's topic knowledge for writing. In academic writing topic knowledge is often constructed by studying source texts. One possibility to support that essential phase of the writing process is to provide interactive learning questions which facilitate the construction of an adequate situation…

This article gives a short overview based on the "EU High Level Group of Experts on Literacy" (HLWG) report to address issues and challenges in Europe on improving literacy competencies in schools. Furthermore, an analysis is conducted focusing on the promotion of reading and early literacy skills in schools taking into account…

We evaluate the impact of Success for All literacy instruction in grades 3 through 5 using data from the same cluster randomized trial used to evaluate effects in the earlier grades (K-2). In contrast to the early benefits, there is no effect on reading achievement in the later grades, either overall or for students and schools with high or low…

Students with intellectual disabilities (ID) display an extremely wide variety of skills in the field of literacy, and the ability to read and write are central learning aims in the education of students with ID. It is vital to gain detailed knowledge on the literacy skills of students with ID in order to plan instruction, create learning…

The purpose of the study was to determine if parents' military deployment had an impact on the academic achievement of their children. The study examined if there were a parallel between parental military deployment and absenteeism, parental deployment and discipline, and parental deployment and counselor visits. The study also examined if…

As governments, donors and implementation organisations re-focus Education for All Goals in terms of quality of education, increasing concerns have been raised over low literacy levels in developing countries. This paper provides key learning from the application of an early reading intervention applied in post-conflict Liberia, which included a…

The PISA 2009 results for Ireland indicated a large decline in reading literacy scores since PISA 2000 (the largest of 38 countries). The decline in mathematics scores since PISA 2003 was the second largest of 39 countries. In contrast, there was no change in science achievement since PISA 2006. These results prompted detailed investigations into…

This paper looks at results from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment to examine the effects of school libraries on students' test performance, with specific focus on the average of students' family wealth in a school. The paper documents students' school library use and students' home possessions to indicate how school…

Few studies have examined Response to Intervention (RTI) implementation adherence at the school level. Although tools designed to assess the implementation of RTI exist, the technical properties have not been rigorously documented, and psychometric techniques now being used to develop instrumentation appear not to have been used. The purpose of…