In response to chronically low gifted identification rates in the majority of elementary schools among Black and Hispanic/Latino students, the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) launched Nurturing for a Bright Tomorrow (NBT) in Fall 2014. NBT was a multicomponent curricular enhancement program designed to train early elementary school…

Many classrooms are beginning to substitute standard chairs with therapy balls, which help to improve students' focus and classroom performance, according to teacher and student reports. Researchers conducted an observational study in a classroom at a local elementary school that implemented therapy balls. For each hour-long observation, three…

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship between the components of school climate and leadership behaviors on student achievement in an urban school district in the mid-atlantic region. School climate and leadership behaviors for the participating school districts was determined by the School Climate Survey (Corner…

The purpose of this study was to examine second graders' (n = 680) changing spoken nonmainstream American English (NMAE) use in relation to their oral language and reading comprehension achievement. Fall NMAE production was negatively associated with fall achievement scores. NMAE production generally decreased from fall to spring. Students who…

A multisite cluster randomized trial was conducted to examine the effects of the Social Skills Improvement System Classwide Intervention Program (SSIS-CIP; Elliott & Gresham, 2007) on students' classroom social behavior. The final sample included 432 students across 38 second grade classrooms. Social skills and problem behaviors were measured…

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of two physical education (PE) instructional climates (mastery, performance) on the percentage of time students spent in a) moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and b) management tasks during PE in 2nd-grade students. Forty-eight 2nd graders (mastery, n = 23; performance, n = 25)…

We report on a design based research study exploring how the organization of classroom activity impacts early elementary students' critical criteria for evaluating representations in science class. The ability to critique representations produced by others as well as one's own is an important practice when working with representations. Effective…

Although many studies have focused on the importance of school composition for student achievement, there is still no consensus on "whether" school composition matters to student achievement, and, if so, "why". Therefore, the present study investigates the association between school composition and mathematics achievement at…

Following a large, diverse sample of 4,096 children in 27 schools, this study evaluated the impact of 3 aspects of peer relations, measured concurrently, on subsequent child aggressive-disruptive behavior during early elementary school: peer dislike, reciprocated friends' aggressiveness, and classroom levels of aggressive-disruptive behavior.…

One hundred and ten English-speaking children schooled in French were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (M[subscript age]: T1 = 5;6, T2 = 6;4, T3 = 6;11, T4 = 7;11). The findings provided strong support for the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal, M., 2002) because in this sample the home language was independent of the language of instruction. The…

This study reveals that Turkish kindergarten through 8th Grade (K-8) students draw nature pictures in a certain way; range of mountains in the background, a sun, a couple of clouds, a river rising from the mountains. There are similarities in the K-8 students' nature drawings in the way these nature items are organized on a drawing paper. We…

Although high-quality early educational environments are thought to be related to the growth of children's skills in mathematics, relatively little is known about specific aspects of classroom instruction that may promote these abilities. Data from a longitudinal investigation were used to investigate associations between teachers' language while…

There is a growing body of literature exploring pedagogies that promote children's happiness at school. Yet there is little research on teacher's conceptions of happiness, and how this informs their decisions about children. This paper reports on findings from a qualitative study exploring teachers' conceptions of happiness. Twelve teachers from…

This study describes efforts in a U.S. teacher education program to raise the teacher candidates' awareness of how place impacts schooling. The preservice teachers and second graders exchanged pen pal letters based on books set in contemporary rural America. The teacher candidates enacted four major discourses in the correspondence: personal,…

This research explores the implementation of a school-wide intervention program that was designed to foster and instill intrinsic values based on an external reward system. The Positive Behavior Support in Schools (PBSIS) is an intervention intended to improve the climate of schools using system-wide positive behavioral interventions to discourage…