This study examined the learner characteristics and performance scores of students in the 2009 alternate assessment-modified achievement standard for one Midwestern state. Comparing performance differences by disability category for each content area from the students' 2008 test type assignments and performance scores facilitated examining the…

This longitudinal study examined a model of early school achievement in reading and math, as it varies by socioeconomic context, using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. A conceptual model was tested that included features of family stress, early parenting, and school readiness, through both a single-group…

Using longitudinal data on a nationally representative U.S. cohort, this study examined the roles of language minority (LM) status and English proficiency in English reading growth across the elementary and middle school years. Piecewise growth modeling was used to compare English reading growth trajectories for native English speakers and LM…

Background: There is concern in the education community regarding gender differences in reading, as girls regularly outperform boys. There is also concern about the consequences of low motivation for children's engagement in reading and learning. An important question is whether boys' motivation is more closely linked to their attainment compared…

The problems facing males and reading continues to be a topic of concern and discussion in communities across the country. The author has interviewed school librarians and teachers, however, who are coordinating programs that are successfully connecting male students and reading. This article includes summaries of those interviews. The author has…

Research showed that children's school-entry academic skills are strong predictors of their later achievement, thereby highlighting the importance of children's achievement at kindergarten entry. This article defines a particular type of parental involvement in children's education and uses a representative sample of American urban kindergarteners…

The study examined how cognitive and motivational factors predicted reading skill and whether intrinsic reading motivation would explain significantly more variance in low ability readers' reading performance. One hundred and eleven children (aged 9-11) completed assessments of reading comprehension skill, verbal IQ, decoding skill and intrinsic…

As the number of schools changing from part- to full-day kindergarten programs increases, state and local education agencies need empirically-based evidence on ways that schools and teachers can best structure the additional instructional time of full-day programs to improve children's early reading skills. This brief uses nationally…

Informational text presents many obstacles to comprehension for striving readers. Although teachers use many evidence-based practices to support instruction with this type of text, in some situations, readers may be able to increase their comprehension by rereading. Teachers can help students recognize situations in which rereading is helpful.…

Word and nonword identification skills were examined in a sample of 80 elementary school age students with mild intellectual disabilities and mixed etiologies who were described as struggling to learn to read by their teachers. Performance on measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary, measures of phonological awareness, and measures of word…

Core reading programs have a tremendous influence over reading instruction in the United States. Federal policies such as Reading First put increasing pressure on schools to implement a core reading program. While core reading programs contain a wide variety of suggested strategies and activities, they may not provide sufficient text or volume of…

The articles in this special issue make two important contributions to our understanding of the impact of accommodations on test score validity. First, they illustrate a variety of methods for collection and rigorous analyses of empirical data that can supplant expert judgment of the impact of accommodations. These methods range from internal…

Background: This investigation was sparked by research findings on secondary education showing school segregation to be closely associated with homogeneous grouping practices, such as tracking and between-class ability grouping. Research Design: We conduct secondary analyses of national data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten…

Students' oral reading fluency growth from first through fourth grade was used to predict their achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test (9th ed.; SAT-9 Reading) using a latent growth model. Two conditional variables related to student status were used to determine the effects on reading performance--English language learners (ELLs) with low…

This study investigates the literacy skills of 193 students across grades three, five, seven, and nine in one private English medium school in Kerala, India. Students were assessed on their ability to read phonologically regular and irregular words, fluency with grade-level text, vocabulary knowledge, and comprehension skill. Results showed that…