Motivation to read is crucial to improving reading skill. While there is extensive research examining reading motivation among elementary students, with respect to adolescents, research is limited. Employing a person-centered approach can aid in developing a better understanding of adolescent reading motivation and would help address possible…

Motivation to read is crucial to improving reading skill. While there is extensive research examining reading motivation among elementary students, with respect to adolescents, research is limited. Employing a person-centered approach can aid in developing a better understanding of adolescent reading motivation and would help address possible…

This study aims to measure the impact of 95 Percent Group's Phonological Awareness Lessons (PA Lessons), an intervention program designed primarily for Tier 2 or 3. The study is a replication of Schechter & Lynch (2023) research conducted in the same medium-sized school district, Val Verde Unified School District, in California during the…

School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) is widely implemented across the United States. Evidence suggests that SWPBIS, when implemented with fidelity, has a significant and positive impact on schools, including lower suspensions and higher reading and mathematics achievement. A critical component of this research is…

Drawing on state reading achievement data provided by a California school district, we analyze the achievement impacts of Achieve3000, an intervention designed to offer K-12 students expanded opportunities to acquire literacy skills. Achieve3000 is a personalized, technology-adaptive program to supplement regular instruction in English language…

Improving student outcomes in reading has been in the national spotlight for decades and a plethora of research exists to support instruction rooted in the science of reading through a multi-tiered approach. Despite this extensive body of research, there continues to be high numbers of youth not reading proficiently across the nation. In one…

Background/Context: Students classified as Long-Term English Learners (LTELs) are those who have not gained fluency in the English language, even after being enrolled in the U.S. K-12 educational system for five to seven years (Olsen, 2014). Although LTELs are not consistently tracked across states, we know they constitute a sizeable portion of…

The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the impact of i-Ready Personalized Instruction on ELA achievement, as measured by SBA scores. We compared "striving learner" students who were assigned to use i-Ready Personalized Instruction (Treatment students) and "striving learner" students assigned to only receive i-Ready…

While policymakers have demonstrated considerable enthusiasm for "science of reading" initiatives, the evidence on the impact of related reforms when implemented at scale is limited. In this pre-registered, quasi-experimental study, we examine California's recent initiative to improve early literacy across the state's lowest-performing…

Second-generation Latinx immigrant students in middle school and high school may experience language and reading barriers in education resulting from their cultural upbringing. This study examined the language and reading scores of 2,107 bilingual dominant second-generation Latinx youth participants enrolled in 8th and 9th grade in the states of…

As parents, communities, educators, and policymakers continue to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning in America, many have turned to recently released results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP measures what students know and what they can do in several tested subjects, including reading,…

Newsela contracted with LearnPlatform by Instructure (LearnPlatform), a third-party edtech research company, to examine the relationship between Newsela ELA usage and outcomes for students. LearnPlatform designed the study to satisfy Level II requirements (Moderate Evidence) according to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The study included…

This research examined if or to what extent there was a relationship between maternal home-based involvement, based on the Family Involvement Questionnaire-Elementary from a mother's perspective, and fifth and sixth-grade students' reading and mathematical achievement scores as measured by STAR reading and math in the state of California. The…

School boards remain one of the most powerful forces in American education, helping to set curricula, evaluate teachers, and direct hundreds of billions of dollars in education funding. Yet teachers' unions play an outsized role in determining who serves on these boards. If the interests of teachers are perfectly aligned with those of students,…

Due in part to the challenges associated with learning a new language, English language learners (ELLs) typically begin school with lower achievement than their non-ELL peers, and those achievement gaps often close slowly if at all. A separate body of research shows that achievement is associated with social-emotional learning constructs like…