This article offers a framework for more equitable classroom reading assessment known as a Critical Assessment Practices (CAPS) approach. CAPS includes a set of four principles that teachers can use to partner with, and to empower, students to support more equitable and informative classroom-based reading assessment. Teachers can apply the CAPS…

The purpose of this study was to examine how an early childhood education (ECE) curriculum responds to children's voices in reference to transition from kindergarten to first grade. Drawing from the findings of a previous study which examined the empowering and limiting aspects of transition as voiced by first graders, I consider the points where…

While cultivating "student voice" is more common in the adolescent years, the early years are an ideal and worthy time to listen and honor the voice of young people, before they are "schooled" in more formal practices of discussion and debate. Teachers can actively listen to young people, and support their capacity to be civic…

In this study, we assessed how Finnish teachers' professional actions support their students' engagement and positive self-image at school. This qualitative multimethod study is comprised of three sub-studies: (1) the research Data Set A included pedagogical reflective journals, observations of, and interviews with, two Finnish teachers and their…

Let's face it--teaching can be stressful. In this generation of Common Core Standards and highstakes testing, educators are often left without the time to plan positive behavioral supports or the sanity to cultivate compassionate relationships with their students. Even though they understand the critical relationship between behavior and…

This article investigates the perspectives of seven adolescent Latinx students in relation to being bilingual and bicultural, and to their former K-8 elementary school, which offered a variety of culturally sustaining practices, including campus-wide use of both Spanish and English and a dual language program. Within this qualitative case study,…

Lauren Hennig is a relatively new third grade teacher in Charleston, Illinois. She knows that patiently listening to others and respectfully sharing one's own opinion is a learned skill that's essential for promoting and sustaining our democracy. This is the story of how Lauren works to help her students develop this skill through student-led…

Children in mainstream schools who struggle academically and disengage in regular schooling may be helped when teachers change their practice to include what the students themselves have reported makes a difference. Student voices need to be listened to, not as a token gesture, but as a way of making a positive difference in their lives at school…

This paper explores the perspectives of teachers who initially observed, and later came to participate in, a pupil voice initiative in a primary school. Such "marginal" points of view are often neglected in discussions of youth participation. The article aims to demonstrate that whilst adult support for pupil voice is crucial in ensuring…