Early shared book reading activities are considered to be a promising context for supporting young children's language development. Ninety low socioeconomic status preschoolers and their mothers were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) e-book reading; (2) printed book reading; (3) regular kindergarten literacy program (control). Mothers…

This study focuses, from a bilingual perspective, on how a Swedish national test is intended to promote critical literacy and language development in line with related aims in syllabuses for Swedish and Swedish as a second language. The material consists of reading and writing assignments and prescribed classroom preparations (including…

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…

This study investigated whether a diagnostic testing condition leads to stereotype threat effects for African American children (n = 198) at an urban elementary school. Results indicated that presenting a reading test as diagnostic of abilities hindered the performance of African American children aware of racial stereotypes but not of those…

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…

Cultural sensitivity and responsiveness are being advocated in reading assessments to reduce the impact of community speech patterns (CSP) on the accuracy of miscue analysis. This study, motivated by a high incidence of retention in 1st grade in a local school district, investigated whether CSP among students affected reading outcomes and…

Children's evolving understanding of polysemy represents a unique aspect of semantic knowledge that is rarely addressed in reading theory or intervention. The ubiquity of words with multiple meanings in written language, however, underscores its importance for the development of fluent reading and comprehension. Early struggling readers'…

In the Southwest, politicians, legislature, and voters have devised and instituted a plan originally known as House Bill 2732, voted into law A.R.S.15-701§ A (2) & (3), which declares that all third grade students, beginning in the 2013-2014 school year, must receive a score that demonstrates their competency as approaching or above their…

"Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies" and a similar program known as "Peer-Assisted Literacy Strategies" are peer-tutoring programs that supplement the primary reading curriculum (Fuchs, Fuchs, Kazdan, & Allen, 1999; Mathes & Babyak, 2001). This review uses the acronym "PALS" to encompass both programs and their…

Research has shown that there is a strong link between reading comprehension and vocabulary, yet many children lack the required vocabulary needed to perform adequately on reading comprehension assessments. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the teaching of Larry Bell's 12 Powerful Words vocabulary program in order to raise third, fourth…

The researcher studied the effect of multiple strategy instruction on the reading comprehension of low-achieving and average first-grade readers, and gifted first-grade students. The researcher also sought to determine how the effect of multiple strategy instruction differs according to gender. Running records and "Assessing Comprehension…

The GeoGebra Workshop for the degree "Teacher in Primary Education" has been designed to work the main geometric competencies that primary pre-service teachers need to develop. In this paper, some case studies are included in which we analyse the development of geometric skills and the use of GeoGebra dynamic tools in three types of activities:…

Summer setback, which is defined as a decline in academic achievement over the summer months, occurs in many academic areas but seems especially problematic in reading. We assessed students from a midwestern parochial school serving predominantly students from a low--socioeconomic status background for their reading achievement before they left…

We examined growth trajectories of writing and the relation of children's socioeconomic status and language and/or speech impairment to the growth trajectories. First-grade children (N = 304) were assessed on their written composition in the fall, winter, and spring, and their vocabulary and literacy skills in the fall. Children's SES had a…

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of listening to expository text on first graders' listening comprehension and book choice. The participants for this study included 77 first grade students from four heterogeneous classes at a suburban elementary school in the New York City metropolitan area. During the pretest and…