We evaluated a curriculum that focused on bolstering grit and locus of control in seventh grade students at a school in upstate New York. The intervention included lessons aimed at building a growth mindset and determination, along with writing projects and collaborative work. A pre-post design was utilized such that surveys measuring grit and…

The incidence of d/Deaf students with intellectual disabilities in schools for the d/Deaf has increased; however, the development of curricula for this population has not kept up with this trend. A literacy curriculum was developed at St. Joseph's School for the Deaf (SJSD) to address the special needs of these students using a reading and writing…

The purpose of this evaluation was to understand the development, implementation, and impact of Project Exc-EL (Excellence for English Learners), a school-wide intervention focused on providing teacher professional development and training to better support English learners (ELs) in New York. Project Exc-EL focuses on training teachers to use data…

Research across the decades has confirmed that effective school leadership is associated with better outcomes for students and schools. A high-quality school leader affects dozens of teachers and hundreds or thousands of students. It is a pivotal role. From 2011 to 2016, The Wallace Foundation, through its Principal Pipeline Initiative (PPI),…

The following study closely details how the East Moriches Union Free School District made the transition to college and career-ready standards (CCSS), the impact that change had on reading scores for students, and the alteration in attitudes of parents and teachers to the shift in standards. Specifically, this report focuses on the male students…

"Leveled Literacy Intervention" ("LLI") is a short-term, supplementary, small-group literacy intervention designed to help struggling readers achieve grade-level competency. The intervention provides explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, oral language skills, and…

Objective: To report experimental impacts of a universal, integrated school-based intervention in social-emotional learning and literacy development on change over 1 school year in 3rd-grade children's social-emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Method: This study employed a school-randomized, experimental design and included 942…

"Fable Writer" is an online reading, writing and research tool designed to facilitate synchronous, collaborative writing tool that enables learners to read and copy text and images from teacher-curated books and Web-based resources in the "Fable Reader" digital library. The "Fable Writer" project addressed two…

The 4Rs Program (Reading, Writing, Respect and Resolution) is a "dual focus" whole school universal intervention designed to promote literacy development and social-emotional learning, that is currently being rigorously evaluated using a school-randomized trial of 18 elementary schools (9 intervention, 9 control) in New York City. The…

Data published on the official website of the NYC DOE indicated that slightly less than half (42%) of NYC students in grades three through eight are not proficient in ELA, and one quarter of them (25%) are not proficient in Math. School reform based on Hirsch's Cultural Literacy provided an additional dimension to exploring school reform and…

The disparity between the results of state accountability tests in reading and the fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has left many educators dismayed and concerned. In this article the authors describe a comparison of assessment approaches evident in NAEP to the approaches taken in a sample of state tests. The authors…

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed example of effective professional development for teachers that resulted in positive changes to the effectiveness of the school's reading program. This study describes the results of an intervention school-wide program that was conducted in a large urban school with a majority of minority…

New York is in the process of transitioning to new English language arts and mathematics standards that will better prepare students to be successful in college and their careers. Time, effort, and resources must be dedicated to effective implementation in order to realize the promise of these new common core state standards. This paper captures…

THE EXTENT TO WHICH SCORES REPRESENTING PUPILS' STATUS ON CERTAIN DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS PREDICTED THEIR ACHIEVEMENT IN READING, ARITHMETIC, AND THE MEDIAN OF A BATTERY OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTS WAS PRESENTED. THE STUDY COVERED A PERIOD OF 4 YEARS DURING WHICH THE SAME PUPILS WERE STUDIED IN THE THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GRADES. STUDIES OF THESE…

This report summarizes evaluation results for an efficacy study of the Leveled Literacy Intervention system (LLI) implemented in Tift County Schools (TCS) in Georgia and the Enlarged City School District of Middletown (ECSDM) in New York during the 2009-2010 school year. Developed by Fountas & Pinnell (2009) and published by Heinemann, LLI is…