Describes the long-term effects of a bilingual education program on the academic achievement of Mexican-American students in a predominantly Mexican-American school district. Examines program impact on reading and mathematics achievement over a six-year period. Analyzes the effects on achievement of four variables: preachievement, gender, age, and…

Describes the instructional materials and features that distinguish the Chicago model of mastery learning instruction from other models of mastery learning. Also describes innovative ways to examine the effects of mastery learning instruction, given that school data often are limited to norm referenced tests and are lacking in controls. (Author/GC)

A study of nearly 30 urban elementary schools indicates that school composition (including race and socioeconomic background, school social structure, and certain social climate variables) explains more than 83 percent of between-school variance in reading achievement and 65 percent in mathematics achievement. (Author/GC)

Concludes that reading interests of children were similar across achievement levels. Offers tips to help low-achievers choose recreational reading materials. (FL)

Introduces a collection of essays on literacy. Divides them into four sections: (1) attempts to define literacy and how it is valued in American society; (2) analyses of the development of reading skill; (3) assessments of reading and writing achievement in schools; (4) analysis of the critical issues in literacy instruction. (RDN)

Two studies of children learning to read (one before the introduction of phonics instruction, the other while phonics instruction was being given) found that error-target similarity increased with reading attainment. This suggests that while reading aloud, considerable knowledge of spelling develops independently of explicit use of phonics. (CMG)

This article describes two major issues of national significance in New Zealand: remediation of reading problems in young children and solution of the problem of meeting educational needs of urban minority groups, particularly students from urban Polynesian communities. (BW)

Education is the building block of every student's future. To ensure all students have every opportunity to succeed, Indiana adopted world-class academic standards in English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies and an assessment system to measure student progress. This booklet clearly spells out what students should know and be…

States and other educational entities receiving Part B funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) submitted their Annual Performance Reports to the U.S. Secretary of Education on or before March 31, 2004. These reports contained information on a variety of indicators, including assessment participation and performance…

This report presents the national and state results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessment in reading, and compares them to results from assessments in 2003 and in the first year data were available, usually 1992. In 2005, nationally representive samples of more than 165,000 fourth-grade and 159,000 eighth-grade…

The purpose of this research project was to study the role of elementary school librarians in reading instruction in Region II, Education Service Center area of Texas. By using school web sites and telephoning schools it was found that 51 of the 104 elementary schools did indeed have school librarians while 46 did not. The study found that 7…

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis has been using the Sander's value-added model to determine if they have had gains in student achievement in language arts, mathematics and reading. The article summarizes the method to make this determination and the results from three years of testing using the CTB McGraw-Hill Terre Nova test. The archdiocese has…

Kentucky's goal of reaching academic "proficiency" by 2014 illuminated problematic findings in 2002 reading test scores: 44.30% of middle and 71.25% of high school students scored below "proficient." The research question was, "Do teaching practices in schools with high reading achievement scores differ from teaching practices in schools with low…

Families originally living in public housing were assigned housing vouchers by lottery, encouraging moves to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Although we had hypothesized that reading and math test scores would be higher among children in families offered vouchers (with larger effects among younger children), the results show no significant…