Title I, Part A and Title II, Part A funds are provided to Houston Independent School District (HISD) through the 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), also known as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Both funds focus on enhancing student achievement: Title I, Part A provides supplemental support for…

This report presents third grade English language learner students' 2012-2013 STAAR and TELPAS results and provides a comparison by program type.

This article analyzes the role that individual differences in children's cognitive, Spanish competence, and socio-emotional and behavioral skills play in predicting the concurrent and longitudinal acquisition of English among a large sample of ethnically diverse, low-income, Hispanic preschool children. Participants assessed at age 4 for language,…

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability in reading and writing, which requires adequate early intervention to prevent future school failure. We describe the diagnostic assessment of a 7-year-old boy labelled "dyslexic", the evaluation of his family, social, medical, developmental, and academic status as a preliminary for the design…

This study compares native English, Spanish, Lao, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, and all other ELL students over one, two, three, and four-year spans to determine if certain groups appear to face more difficulties in developing early reading mastery by third grade. This study also examines whether socio-economic status impacts the…

The present study investigated whether young Latino dual-language learners' 2-year English reading growth varied over time according to their initial overall oral English ability. We followed 41 Latino children for 2 years. We tested overall oral English at the beginning of the study and administered multiple curriculum-based reading assessments…

The Houston Independent School District offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs). In both programs, students may transition into a pre-exit phase of bilingual education so long as they meet certain performance criteria. In this Pre-Exit phase, predominantly English-language instruction is used in…

This study examined the impact of a 15-min daily explicit vocabulary intervention in Spanish on expressive and receptive vocabulary knowledge and oral reading fluency in Spanish, and on language proficiency in English. Fifty Spanish-speaking English learners who received 90 min of Spanish reading instruction in an early transition model were…

We investigated the latent factor structure of the "Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Kindergarteners" in Spanish ("PALS español K"). Participants included 590 Spanish-speaking, public-school kindergarteners from five states. Three theoretically-guided factor structures were measured and tested with one half of our…

It is well established that monolingual preschoolers' oral language development (vocabulary and oral comprehension) contributes to their later reading abilities; however, less is known about this relationship in bilingual populations where children are developing knowledge of two languages. It may be that children's abilities in one language do…

Many classrooms have interactive whiteboards and several computers and many schools are equipped with a computer lab and mobile labs. However, there typically are not enough computers for every student in each classroom; mobile labs are often shared between several members of a team and time in the computer labs needs to be scheduled in advance.…

Home language experiences are important for children's development of language and literacy. However, the home language context is complex, especially for Spanish-speaking children in the United States. A child's use of Spanish or English likely ranges along a continuum, influenced by preferences of particular people involved, such as parents,…

The present study examined the relationship between children's early literacy-related abilities and their reading achievement in late elementary school in the context of a Puerto Rican community in Massachusetts. The researcher examined four years of student achievement test data from the public elementary schools of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The…

The first purpose of this study was to examine the level of interdependence and reciprocity of the first and second language in students who were identified as limited English speakers and whose first language was Spanish. The second purpose was to identify the passing and commended rates of students within the specific bilingual programs that…

Success for All (SFA), one of the best-known school reform models, aims to improve the reading skills of all children but is especially directed at schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families. First implemented in 1987, SFA combines a challenging reading program, whole-school reform elements, and an emphasis on continuous…