Educators and researchers have been fighting the reading wars for the last century, with battles see-sawing literacy instruction in American schools from phonics to whole language and, most recently, back to phonics again. Over the last decade, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new "science of reading" laws that require…

Public school board members are charged with the responsibility and accountability to provide governance-level advocacy for equity and excellence in public education. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of school board members in three K--8 school districts in the midwestern part of the United States regarding the 50+ year Race-Based…

School districts continue to strive to enhance students' academic achievement. Various studies and literature highlight the significance of the role of non- academic subjects, which in Ontario, Canada, are referred to as learning skills. Teachers in Ontario are mandated to report on six learning skills three times in a school year within their…

This qualitative descriptive study explored how general education K-6 teachers describe their ability to implement student Individualized Educational Plans (IEP) in their classrooms and the supports needed for effective implementation of IEPs in Ohio. Self-Efficacy has been defined as the confidence that an individual has in their ability to…

Teachers' beliefs, knowledge, and decisions can affect the way teachers teach, and, consequently, what students learn. Self-efficacy beliefs may also interact with beliefs about the most appropriate and effective teaching and the selection of instructional practices to implement. We examined the relationships among teachers' mathematics…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore transformational leadership practices in principals through the eyes of special education teachers, and their effect on teacher commitment. The conceptual framework of this study was based on Bass' (1985) transformational leadership model guided by Kouzes and Posner's (1987) five exemplary…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the perception of the principal and teachers regarding what transformational leadership practices meet the needs of EBs in a DLI PK-8th grade campus in South Texas. The research site was selected for having 40% emergent bilingual students. The campus principal has been implementing a…

Research has suggested that measures of both general classroom observational tools (Classroom Organization and Teacher Emotional/Instructional Support) and content-specific observational tools (Ambitious Math Instruction and Errors and Imprecision) are related to K-6 student math achievement and therefore there is encouragement to use both types…

This study focused on a problem of practice at Mystic River School (MRS), a kindergarten through eighth grade school in an urban district in New England. Schoolwide diagnostic data showed a significant gap between multilingual learners (MLs) and their native English speaking peers in literacy. An analysis of this data, interviews with staff and…

The consistent prevalence of computer science in our society and the urgent need for STEM professionals in the U.S. raised the need for computer science education at the K-8 level. Researchers have examined the challenges, possible approaches, and contents of teaching computer science. However, there has been limited research on teachers'…

This highly practical reference is organized around the problem behaviors that K-6 teachers see as the greatest barriers to student success--and the positive behaviors they value the most. Of particular value to educators, the book matches proven intervention techniques to specific target behaviors. Hill M. Walker presents exemplary strategies for…

The purpose of this single descriptive case study was to describe how an externship program in the central United States impacts K-8 teachers' investment in and integration of work-based learning (WBL) practices in the classroom. The need to investigate how best to encourage teachers to buy into WBL is driven by misalignment among teacher…

This study explores the impact of professional learning communities on student achievement in a small school setting. Aaron Hansen's book, "How to Develop PLCs for Singletons and Small Schools," offered a guide for arranging vertical, grade-level teams with one teacher per grade level at one private, K-8 school. The faculty engaged in…

This study examined the level of social communication problems (SCP), social anxiety (SA), and mood problems (MP) among children with ASD (age 4-13 years) enrolled in special classes (n = 74) and regular classes (n = 73) and grade level (kindergarten, 1st-3rd, 4th-6th) from teachers' perspective in schools of Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Teachers…

The focus of this special edition is students' literacy development over the school years. Drawing on data that includes classroom interactions, analyses of texts, and interviews with students, this edition builds on the seminal treatment of the question of literacy transitions provided in Christie and Derewianka (2008). This paper aims to…