Intervention is imperative when students enter kindergarten with deficits in early literacy skills due to multiple factors, including the complexities of a community's needs and resources. In the Seaford School District (SSD), entering kindergarten students lacked needed early literacy skills, as evidenced by low scores on the Dynamic Indicators…

Due to barriers to kindergarten readiness, many kindergarten students do not enter kindergarten with the prerequisite skills needed for reading. A number of students do not leave kindergarten with adequate reading skills needed for future success. As a result, students are ill-prepared for first grade and are at risk for future reading failure.…

This paper presents evidence confirming the validity of the RD design in the Reading Recovery study by examining the ability of the RD design to replicate the 1st grade results observed in the original i3 RCT focused on short-term impacts. Over 1,800 schools participated in the RD study over all four cohort years. The RD design used cutoff-based…

In the United States, the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) has steadily grown over the past decades. In the State of Delaware, the growth has been exponential. ELLs' academic underachievement in reading and math has remained a challenge for K-12 educational institutions. It has continued to be necessary to research the causes and…

Third grade is a critical checkpoint in a child's educational journey. By the end of third grade, children need literacy skills that prepare them for increasing curriculum demands in fourth grade and beyond. Students who are not reading on grade level by this point are significantly more likely to drop out of high school or fail to graduate on…

Though the students at Appoquinimink High School (AHS) earned the fifth highest scores on DCAS Reading (among traditional public high schools), I was skeptical regarding whether these results accurately represented our students' literacy proficiency. My classroom interactions suggested that students lacked motivation toward literacy. Specifically,…

Faced with meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools are under pressure to have 100% of their students meet national standards in reading by 2014. For the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years, Sussex Technical High School (STHS) in Georgetown, Delaware chose to adopt Read Right, a reading comprehension improvement…

"The Right Trajectory" brings to the forefront an often-overlooked voice in the debate about new state assessments developed in consortia: that of the best teachers in the country. This research suggests, despite challenges still to overcome, that these front-line experts believe that the new consortia tests are an improvement on the…

This mixed-methods study was designed to compare the achievement in mathematics and reading to that in science since the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002. The literature discussed that due to the increased emphasis in mathematics and reading due to NCLB, science education was impacted. Science instruction has endured reduced…

A vertical scale, in principle, provides a common metric across tests with differing difficulties (e.g., spanning multiple grades) so that statements of "absolute" growth can be made. This paper compares 16 states' 2007-2008 effect size growth trends on vertically scaled reading and math assessments across grades 3 to 8. Two patterns…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2011 to other…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2011 to other…

This report presents the deliberations of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Committee (RAC), one of 10 RACs established under the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 (20 U.S.C. sections 9601 et. seq.) to assess the educational needs of the region. The committee's report outlines the educational needs across the District of Columbia and…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2009 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2009 to other…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…