The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a bold effort to create a network of charter schools designed to transform and improve the educational opportunities available to low/income families. KIPP schools seek to actively engage students and parents in the educational process, expand the time and effort students devote to their studies, reinforce…

"Accelerated Reader"[TM] is a guided reading intervention used to supplement regular reading instruction in K-12 classrooms. Its aim is to improve students' reading skills through reading practice and quizzes on the books students read. The "Accelerated Reader"[TM] program calls for students to select and read a book and then…

This descriptive report is part of a broader project collecting, organizing, and analyzing multiple sources of data from the four-state REL Appalachia region, comprised of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The purposes of that broader project are: (1) to increase awareness of and understanding about critical education issues in the…

The Alabama Reading Initiative is the brain child of state policy makers and academic leaders designed to increase student achievement on standardized reading assessments, and to change instructional practices in schools so that achievement is consistent and sustained. This quantitative population study was conducted in two rural school systems to…

This report paints a collective portrait of the Baltimore City Schools dropouts of 2008-09 to summarize some of the commonalities that join their individual stories together. After examining the surface level demographic characteristics of these dropouts, researchers probed more deeply into their behavioral characteristics in the years preceding…

This case study of reading activity in third-grade bilingual classrooms at a state-sanctioned "successful" school examines the influences of the California accountability framework--Proposition 227, No Child Left Behind, and the federal Reading First program--on shifting beliefs and practices around what "counts" as reading.…

In this study, the authors examined the racial and gender gap in the academic development of African American and White children from kindergarten to 5th grade. Their main goal was to determine the extent to which social and behavioral factors, including learning-related skills, problem behaviors, and interpersonal skills, explain these gaps and…

This study presents the findings from the first-year evaluation of the Round Rock Independent School District's (ISD) Digital Learning Classroom project, an initiative focused on the improvement of English Language Learners' (ELL) learning using interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology. An objective of the evaluation was to determine the extent IWB…

TWO LONGITUDINAL STUDIES OF THE EFFECTS OF EARLY READING ON LATER ACHIEVEMENT ARE REPORTED. EARLY READERS ARE CHILDREN WHOSE READING WAS THE PRODUCT OF NONSCHOOLING, WHO IDENTIFIED 18 OUT OF 37 WORDS ON AN ORAL TEST, AND WHO COULD ACHIEVE A RAW SCORE ON THE GATES PRIMARY READING TESTS. THE 1958 STUDY TESTED 49 EARLY READERS OVER A 6-YEAR PERIOD…

THE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT, OF CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT, AND OF VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT ARE SIGNIFICANTLY INTERRELATED. COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS DEPENDS UPON THE ABILITY TO ASSOCIATE WRITTEN AND VERBAL SYMBOLS WITH THE REFERENTS THROUGH A SYSTEMATIC PROCESS OF REORGANIZING AND INTEGRATING OLD AND NEW CONCEPTS. THE ABILITY TO ASSOCIATE, IN TURN, DEPENDS UPON…

Significant relationships were found between behavioral disorders and early reading achievement and current reading achievement in 45 behavior disordered and 45 normal secondary students. Results revealed a pattern of relatively poor reading achievement associated with behavioral disorders and continuing, poor performance in reading at the…

Third graders (N=32) were administered items from reading achievement tests and interviewed concerning strategies they employed and level of confidence in each answer. Results indicated that LD students were less likely to report use of appropriate strategies on inferential questions and to attend carefully to specific format demands; LD students…

This article, first in a three-part series, presents six elements of administrative leadership found in effective reading programs. They represent a realistic way for a principal to provide leadership to a secondary school reading program. (MD)

Assessed the validity of the Kindergarten Teacher Rating Scale (KTRS) in predicting reading achievement for male (N=254) and female (N=227) students. Results indicated that the KTRS was a significant predictor of reading achievement for both boys and girls. Differential predictive validity for boys and girls was not found. (LLL)

Discusses some dimensions of the right to read and the promise of American education to make all Americans literate. (Author)