It is frequently said or implicitly assumed that there is a positive relationship between enjoyment, attitudes, behaviour and attainment, with pupils who enjoy reading or writing having more positive attitudes towards it, doing it more and thereby getting better at it. This paper explores to what extent this is an assumption or to what extent it…

This study estimates the impact of schools' physical resources and teachers' academic press on students' academic achievement in mathematics and reading when a number of important student variables are controlled. Academic press is defined as teachers' emphasis on academic excellence and upholding academic standards (McDill, Natriello, &…

This study found that students in settings with a year-round calendar statistically outperformed students with traditional calendars in a school-within-a-school setting in mathematics. The study included reading and math achievement of fifth graders in three school-within-a-school year-round elementary schools. Overall, the study made 16…

In this study, the researchers examined 5 years of Texas statewide data concerning elementary school size and Hispanic student performance on three state-mandated assessments in reading, mathematics, and writing. For each year of data analyzed here, student data from more than 1,200 elementary schools. After collapsing elementary schools into…

Over the past decade, educators and researchers concerned about children with reading disabilities have called for widespread adoption of "early" identification tools and "early" effective programming. This call may be the result of, in part, what Stanovich calls "Matthew effects in reading." That is, when stakeholders delay identification and…

Most of today's reading programs rest on faulty ideas about reading comprehension. The author argues that comprehension is not a general skill; it relies on having relevant vocabulary and knowledge. He explains the need for a fact-filled, knowledge-building curriculum. He suggests that states should adopt a common core curriculum that builds…

This paper uses public schools data to examine the effects of age on student academic achievement in light of recent trends to delay children's entry into kindergarten. To avoid problems of endogeneity, students' quarters of birth is employed as an instrument for age at entry. In particular, the effects of students' quarters of birth on math and…

This research aims at investigating the influence of two methods implemented in primary reading and writing teaching programs--phonics-based sentence method and decoding (analysis) method--on primary school 5th grade students' reading comprehension achievement. Also, the study considers the relationship between socio-economic status and reading…

The three tiered reading model and the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are two initiatives being used to identify struggling readers of low socioeconomic status. While there is abundant information with statistical reports from various researchers, there is little research available as to what educators implementing…

The purpose of the study was to gain insights on key factors that make a difference in the reading achievement of students attending full-day and half-day kindergarten programs. More specifically, the focus was on investigating the impact that literacy instruction in full-day and half-day kindergarten had on the literacy achievement of struggling…

"The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy." Such was the dire warning recently issued by a task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Chaired by former New York City schools chancellor Joel I. Klein and former U.S.…

There is little research of Hispanic and Asian children's educational outcomes; in particular, the achievement gap between these two racial/ethnic groups has not been fully explored. The objective of this investigation is to analyze the Hispanic-Asian achievement gap in elementary school using the ECLS-K, a longitudinal nationally representative…

Young children who experience difficulty learning to read are at an increased risk for reading failure and behavior problems. Emerging evidence suggests that improving the literacy skills of young struggling readers also improves levels of on-task behavior. This study examined the effects of Headsprout Early Reading, a phonics-based online reading…

While it is known that instructional technology improves academic achievement, there is little research about the integration of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) during Success For All (SFA) reading instruction. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether there was a significant difference in reading achievement between third…

A study incorporating components of a standards based model of teaching (Danielson, 2007) was undertaken to examine the relationship between the principal's evaluation of the teacher's effectiveness, the teacher's self-evaluation of effectiveness, and student achievement. Participants were solicited from a large school district and…