Over the past few decades, reading assessment has been pushed to the forefront of the national discussion about education. The most recent reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1994, 2001) made assessment a priority as administrators and teachers are attempting to meet increasing accountability standards, but measuring…

Standardized reading test scores, family socioeconomic status (SES), and teacher-assigned reading groups of pupils in 37 midelementary classrooms from four school districts were examined. Little support was found for the conjecture that pupil or teacher social class plays a major role in elementary school reading grouping. (Author/GK)

This study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention year prior to kindergarten for at-risk children age-eligible for school. The central question of the study asked if the experience of a developmental kindergarten was worth the extra year participating children must spend in the educational process. The format for the study was that of a…

The purpose of this study was to: (1) compare the book selection preferences of inner-city and suburban fourth and sixth grade children, and (2) determine if children consistently chose books according to categories of literature. Comparison of inner-city and suburban students of the same sex and reading level provided a control for sex and…

The interaction of reading and computational abilities in solving mathematics word problems was investigated with the responses of about 20,000 fourth graders and 20,000 eighth graders to items from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Item responses exhibited different types of interaction, a finding with implications for item-response theory…

Throughout the 1980s and early '90s, school leaders in Waterloo faced a gloomy horizon. Economic hardships, including declines in property values and rising unemployment, resulted in decreasing school enrollment and limited financial resources. By 1995, the district had accumulated several million dollars of debt. From 1995 to 2005, the student…

A study was conducted to: (1) determine the simple and multiple correlation coefficients between selected educational/personal variables and academic achievement at intermediate grade levels as measured by the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills; (2) determine the multiple linear regression equations for predicting individual student achievement as…

Introduces ways to assess students' reading ability and improve reading of social studies textbooks. Combines reading scores from Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and individual sessions to understand students' reading ability levels. Uses cooperative reading groups, reading labs, and whole-class oral reading to improve skills. Suggests pre- and…