This is a qualitative case study (conducted in an urban, public school classroom in the United States) of the collaborative composing processes of two groups of first-grade students designated as English Language Learners (ELLs) as they wrote in a writing workshop context. I focused on a specific type of the students' hybrid composing practices:…

Using primarily online interaction, we worked with a grade one teacher to help her develop an understanding of community in her own classroom. Using an interpretive interactionist methodology, we theorized four domains in her view of classroom community: trust, membership, power, and capacity. The teacher's perceived success in creating community…

This paper describes the data collected from a study that examined the participation of two students with significant disabilities in separate settings--a first-grade classroom and a high school. Interweaving several theoretical strands--disability studies, narrative theory and socio-cultural perspectives on learning--it incorporates an…

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one…

This session will describe the social validity, usability and intent to use of an interactive, state-of-the-art, professional development program based on the Response to Intervention (RtI) approach and its core components (e.g., problem-solving strategy; three tiers of intervention service delivery with universal, selected and intensive…

This report summarizes evaluation results for an efficacy study of the Leveled Literacy Intervention system (LLI) implemented in Tift County Schools (TCS) in Georgia and the Enlarged City School District of Middletown (ECSDM) in New York during the 2009-2010 school year. Developed by Fountas & Pinnell (2009) and published by Heinemann, LLI is…

This eight-week study supports the view that literacy learning is multimodal (Berghoff et al., 2000). It contributes to existing research (Dyson, 1986; Gardner, 1980; Hubbard, 1989; Hubbard & Ernst, 1996; Olshansky, 2007, 2008; Skupa, 1985) on the communicability of drawing and writing as vehicles through which children make and share meaning.…

This report addresses the following four questions by reporting on the impacts of Head Start on children and families during the children's preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years: (1) What difference does Head Start make to key outcomes of development and learning (and in particular, the multiple domains of school readiness) for low-income…

"Success for All" ("SFA")[R] is a comprehensive school reform model that includes a reading, writing, and oral language development program for students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. Its underlying premise is that all children can and should be reading at grade level by the end of third grade and then remain at grade…

"Reading Recovery"[R] is a short-term tutoring intervention designed to serve the lowest-achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students. The goals of "Reading Recovery"[R] include: promoting literacy skills; reducing the number of first-grade students who are struggling to read; and preventing long-term reading difficulties. The…

Background/Context: Technological and economic changes have put a high premium on developing students' information literacy and research skills. Previous attempts to deploy educational technology toward these ends have proved disappointing because K-12 teachers have difficulty integrating shared computers into instruction. In response, numerous…

"Breakthrough to Literacy" is a literacy curriculum for preschool through third grade that introduces students to a book-a-week throughout the year. Students gain exposure to the book-of-the-week through multiple formats: a Big Book, a Take-Me-Home Book, an audio book, and a computerized version. The book-of-the-week serves as the basis…

By using the fairy tale genre, one teacher was able to foster critical literacy in a first-grade classroom. By encouraging a critical perspective, the author reveals how the issues of identity, rules, and power were exposed to the students. The article also portrays how the author engaged in significant learning himself, realizing that to instill…

"Reading Recovery"[R] is a short-term tutoring intervention intended to serve the lowest-achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students. The goals of "Reading Recovery"[R] are to promote literacy skills, reduce the number of first-grade students who are struggling to read, and prevent long-term reading difficulties. "Reading…

Given the vital importance of using a scientific approach for curriculum development, the authors employed a design experiment methodology (Brown, 1992; Shavelson et al., 2003) to develop and evaluate, FUSION, a first grade mathematics intervention intended for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. FUSION, funded through IES…