This report contains a description of the principal results and conclusions concerning the impact of educational performance contracting on student achievement in two school districts that subcontracted with its local educational association to test the use of incentives in regular classrooms. A related document is EA 004 441. (Author)

Examines why the whole-language approach to literacy development has failed, presenting several definitions of whole language, discussing some of the research on whole language and whether it works, and providing information about the impact of whole language in California (which suggests that California's reading-performance problems are not…

A study examined the construct and predictive validity of phonemic awareness to determine the strength of the relationship between phonemic segmentation and auditory abstraction and to determine which of the two measures provided the best prediction of word recognition ability. Data were gathered from 65 first-grade children from 2 public…

This paper examines the reading experiences, strategies, and curriculum preferences of university-level heritage language students. One hundred and twenty eight students enrolled in four different heritage language programs at UCLA--Korean, Russian, Thai, and Vietnamese--completed a survey about their exposure to print, early and current reading…

This study addressed four research questions: (1) Can first graders comprehend and explain cohesive ties in reading?; (2) Can first graders comprehend and explain ungrammatical or ambiguous cohesive items in reading?; (3) Is the control of cohesive elements in reading related to measures of reading achievement in first grade?; and (4) What…

An ongoing, interdisciplinary reading program for students in grades 7-10 in Perris Union High School District (California) is described. Initiated in 1979 as a result of low reading scores, the program divides all incoming seventh grade students into homogeneous groups. In the first 6 weeks of school these new groups meet once a day for 50…

THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE THE EFFECT UPON WORD RECOGNITION AND READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF FOUR READING PROGRAMS. THESE PROGRAMS VARIED IN (1) THE DEGREE OF REGULARITY OF GRAPHEME-PHONEME CORRESPONDENCES PROGRAMED INTO THE VOCABULARY PRESENTED AND (2) THE EMPHASIS ON LANGUAGE STRUCTURE AS RELATED TO MEANING. FOUR…

The students and teachers at Hoover High School in San Diego, California, have made significant progress in their quest to meet accountability standards and ensure that all students learn to read, write, and think at increasingly complex levels. In 1999, Hoover High was the lowest performing high school in the city of San Diego and one of the…

THIS RESEARCH STUDY EVALUATED THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE METHODS OF FIRST-GRADE READING INSTRUCTION EMPLOYING SIMILAR BASAL READER STORY CONTENT. THE THREE METHODS WERE--(A) THE INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES OUTLINED IN THE TEACHERS MANUAL ACCOMPANYING THE GINN BASIC READING SERIES, (B) A LEVELS-DESIGNED PROGRAM STRESSING EARLY INTENSIVE LETTER…

Two-thirds of schoolchildren in America attend class in states with mediocre (or worse) expectations for what their students should learn. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluates state academic standards. The average state grade is a "C-minus"--the same as six years earlier, even…

THE DEVELOPMENTAL HYPOTHESIS OF THE SUBSTRATA-FACTOR THEORY WAS TESTED BY DETERMINING WHETHER SUBSTRATA FACTORS AT SUCCESSIVELY HIGHER GRADE LEVELS HAVE SYSTEMATIC CHANGES IN MAGNITUDE AND/OR ORGANIZATIONAL POSITION. A BATTERY OF TESTS WAS ADMINISTERED TO 927 STUDENTS IN GRADES 3 THROUGH 6 FROM 6 SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA. THE TESTS MEASURED MENTAL…

TEACHERS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, TESTED THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF AN EXPERIENCE APPROACH (EA) AND THE TRADITIONAL METHOD (TM) APPROACH TO THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGE ARTS AT THE SECOND-GRADE LEVEL, CONTINUING A STUDY BEGUN WITH THE SAME PUPILS IN FIRST GRADE THE PREVIOUS YEAR. GOALS OF THE PROJECT WERE TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE RELATIVE…

SEVERAL DEVELOPMENTAL HYPOTHESES DRAWN FROM THE SUBSTRATA-FACTOR THEORY OF READING WERE TESTED AT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL. TO ELABORATE ON THEORETICAL ASSERTIONS THAT READING ABILITY IS AN AUDIOVISUAL PROCESSING SKILL OF SYMBOLIC REASONING, THE SUBSTRATA FACTORS ACCOMPANYING DEVELOPMENT OF SPEED AND POWER OF READING WERE DEPICTED IN…

CASAS, in cooperation with the CASAS National Consortium Policy Council, conducted a study to provide guidance to program and instructional staff regarding student readiness to take the GED Tests. The study looked at the relationship of CASAS reading and math scores to official 2002 GED test results from five states--California, Hawaii, Iowa,…

A City Building Education System uses the process of city planning to teach basic reading, writing, and math skills to children from kindergarten through junior high school and to stimulate creative thinking and problem solving abilities. (JMF)