Professional learning communities (PLCs) are being recognized as effective in improving teacher collaboration and student achievement. Trust is critical in effectively implementing the PLC model, and the school principal is best positioned to influence school trust levels. Using five facets of trust, this research sought to clarify the impact of…

Early detection of loneliness in children, especially children with special needs who are at greater risk for loneliness, is crucial for planning appropriate interventions. A review of studies regarding the assessment of loneliness in children reveals the Children's Loneliness Scale (CLS) is commonly used in other cultures whereas information…

In this article, we focus on the interaction in a Year 5 classroom where students fill in a "self-evaluation form" as a preparation for a forthcoming discussion on progress aiming at the production of an Individual Developmental Plan. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of fabrications and performativity, we understand this as an…

This study utilized a causal comparative (ex post facto) design to determine if a consistent relationship existed between fifth-grade students' success on the Science Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) at the elementary (K-5) level in comparison to fifth-grade students' success on the science TAKS at the intermediate (5-6) level. The…

The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of transcription skills, oral language skills, and executive functions to growth in narrative writing between fourth and sixth grade. While text length and story content of narratives did not increase with age, syntactic complexity of narratives showed a clear developmental progression. Results…

Like algebra at any level, early algebra is a way to explore, analyze, represent, and generalize mathematical ideas and relationships. This book shows that children can and do engage in generalizing about numbers and operations as their mathematical experiences expand. The authors identify and examine five big ideas and associated essential…

Using visual resources from everyday life in art lessons can enrich students' knowledge about the creation of visual images, artifacts, and sites, and develop their critical understanding about the cultural impact of these images and their effects on people's lives. Through examining an exhibition in the windows of Selfridges department store in…

Learning to write in middle school requires the expansion of sentence-level and discourse-level language skills. In this study, we investigated later language development in the writing of a cross-sectional sample of 235 upper elementary and middle school students (grades 4-8) by examining the use of (1) lexico-grammatical forms that support…

The goal of the study was to examine the joint and distinct contribution of attachment security and social anxiety to Arab children's peer competence in middle childhood. We focused on Arab children as very little research has examined close relationships for this group. A sample of 404 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade Arabic students (203 boys and…

The equipartitioning learning trajectory (Confrey, Maloney, Nguyen, Mojica & Myers, 2009) has been hypothesized and the proficiency levels have been validated through much prior work. This study solidifies understanding of the upper level of co-splitting, which has been redefined through further clinical interview work (Corley, Confrey &…

The acquisition of spelling skills in English presents, for a substantial number of children, a significant challenge. Spelling skills do not automatically transfer from reading skills, and while many teachers are aware of the need to develop a separate word study program to assist with spelling development, time and confidence factors often…

Although several different reading fluency intervention approaches appear promising for adolescents who are struggling readers, few studies have directly compared various approaches. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to determine the relative effects of word-oriented, fluency-oriented, comprehension-oriented, and multi-component…

Strategic grouping can transform reading instruction in the middle grades from a hit-or-miss learning experience to a targeted, responsive one. This book features a practical and field-tested model for small-group differentiated reading instruction in Grades 4-8. Jennifer Berne and Sophie C. Degener offer a clear, detailed discussion of how to…

Within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework, Tier 1 instruction requires the selection of research-based core curricula. However, many educators and administrators are not aware of high-quality core writing curricula. The authors assembled a rubric to assist schools in evaluating core writing curricula for Grades 3-5. Rubric components…

This quantitative study was developed to explore the ability to impact elementary student 21st Century online research skills with a planned classroom intervention curriculum. The repeated measures quasi-experimental study randomly assigned all 5th grade classes in a Midwestern, suburban school (n = 418) to a 12-week intervention or control…