Educational research has been around for over one hundred years and has faced periods of optimism, pessimism, and skepticism. Currently, there is a plethora of educational research available for teachers and districts to use. However, there is a research-practice gap. This gap refers to the amount of research available and educators using the…

This best-evidence synthesis reviews the past 20 years of rigorous reading intervention research to identify effective programs of instruction for Grade K-3 English Learners (ELs), as well as to determine the average effect of reading instruction on reading outcomes for this population. We identified 10 studies, all of which only included students…

Literacy is essential to the development of any nation. Despite foreign aid to support education initiatives in Africa, high rates of illiteracy persist. This synthesis examined the extent to which early literacy intervention research has been conducted in Africa and the effects of these interventions on reading outcomes for students in…

Many teachers have strong beliefs about the way literacy should be taught, despite what the research shows about how students learn best. If an educator's existing beliefs about literacy clash with updated instructional understandings and methods about the science of reading, there's a likelihood that teachers may resist embracing change and…

In-person tutoring has been shown to improve academic achievement. Though less well-researched, virtual tutoring has also shown a positive effect on achievement but has only been studied in grade five or above. We present findings from the first randomized controlled trial of virtual tutoring for young children (grades K-2). Students were assigned…

Spatial reasoning, recognised as playing a critical role across STEM disciplines, is gaining prominence in mathematics education, not only as fundamental to mathematics, but also as embodied mathematical activity. In this paper, we discuss spatial reasoning and its embodiment in mathematics. We then present a systematic review of the topics as…

This document was created in response to a request from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to the Wisconsin Minnesota Comprehensive Center (WMCC) Region 10 to provide information on high-quality, qualitative studies about K-2 explicit, systematic phonics instruction. This document is intended to supplement the review document:…

This document was created in response to a request from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to the Wisconsin Minnesota Comprehensive Center (WMCC) Region 10 to provide information on high-quality, qualitative studies about explicit, systematic phonics instruction in grades K-2. It is meant for internal use by the Department of Public…

This research study examines the impact of teacher research on participants in a large-scale educational reform initiative in the United States, No Child Left Behind, and its strand for reading teachers, Reading First. Reading First supported professional development for teachers in order to increase student scores on standardized tests. The…

Identifying an appropriate class size is an important decision public schools face as they weigh balancing their budget with the impact class size may have on student achievement. This study examined perceptions of South Dakota kindergarten through third-grade teachers, elementary principals, and superintendents concerning optimal class size and…

Part of a larger initiation mixed methods study (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989), this paper discusses the changes in young children's learning performance and efficiency (one element of the quantitative portion of the larger study) during clinical interviews in which each child interacted with a variety of virtual manipulative…

The role parents can play in supporting early reading attainment is well documented. There is still, however, a need to understand what motivates parents to become involved in reading at home with their child. Past research, based upon correlational studies, has mixed findings regarding the influence of the teacher and the child on parents'…

Teachers are on the front line in any educational controversy. Increasingly, some bloggers, newspaper articles, and other media have criticized the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (CCSSI 2010) as being inappropriate for children in kindergarten and first grade. However, both research and expert practice reveal that children are…

This document begins by providing four tips parents and care takers can use to supporting childrens' reading skills at home: (1) Have conversations before, during, and after reading together; (2) Help children learn how to break sentences into words and words into syllables; (3) Help children sound out words smoothly; and (4) Model reading…

This cross-case qualitative study draws on poststructural notions of identity to explore the relationship between multimodal literacies of young children and their becoming identities. Although research focuses on the products or texts of multiliteracies, more research is needed to examine shifting identities in the process of students creating.…