Rigid foci on accountability, accreditation, and customer service pose significant challenges for literacy educators today. The most consequential identified as the snuffing out of scholastic innovation and erosion of academic freedom. This article recounts a recent experience that occurred while the author prepared a lesson for an undergraduate…

This program evaluation study addressed the struggle of local elementary school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in a school district to provide evidence-based intervention in language for students below grade level as required by the U.S. Department of Education. Recently, Language Lab™ was published to address the needs of oral language…

This article reviews "Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Third Edition" (WIAT-III), which is designed to assess students' skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and mathematics. The test can identify an individual's strengths and weaknesses, assist professionals who are determining whether a student is eligible for special…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (US Government, 2001), the current iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, makes it clear that states, districts, schools and teachers are accountable for the education of English language learners (ELLs), as well as all other students. To implement an accountability system, NCLB…

There is a sea change occurring in education across the country in the systematic way that everyone considers "what" students should be learning and "how" teachers should be evaluated. Amidst the sweeping changes in the enterprise of teaching and learning, English language learners, or ELLs, are one subgroup of students that…

The goal of this longitudinal study is to examine the relationships between early child factors (i.e., age at identification, enrollment in early intervention, oral language skills) and school readiness skills (i.e., conceptual knowledge) in a group of young children with hearing loss (HL). Standardized language, cognition, and conceptual…

The seemingly simple task associated with formal reading instruction may be problematic for many students with speech and language delays who often enter school with meager literacy experiences (B. K. Gunn, D. C. Simmons, & E. J. Kame'enui, 1999). However, the challenges that students face may be reduced when reading instruction includes…

For students with moderate or severe disabilities, developing literacy skills is a critical component of successful communication, employment, and community participation. Finally, educators have a practical, concise guidebook for helping these students meet NCLB's academic standards for literacy. Appropriate for use in all settings, including…

Administrators in the U.S. education system need to be more than good managers, they need to understand high-quality reading instruction, so they can serve their teachers and help their school meet Reading First requirements. Although written with the administrator in mind, this collection also can be used by teachers, teacher educators, staff…

"Dimension" is the annual volume containing the selected, refereed, edited proceedings of each year's conference. On the eve of its 40th anniversary, the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) plans a special series of articles on assessment within the foreign language profession. The 2004 edition of "Dimension"…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has increased the role of assessment in K-12 education. Designed to ensure that all students meet high academic standards, the law currently requires states receiving Title I funds to test all children annually in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and report student performance disaggregated by poverty,…

This technical report provides data on the extent to which progress monitoring measures explain reading achievement. The four progress monitoring measures discussed are: letter sounding, phonemic segmentation, oral reading fluency, and comprehension given in either oral or written form. These measures were administered to first grade students in…