Increasing numbers of children in Texas communities and across the U.S. are immigrants. One way to support students in exploring the history and contemporary topic of immigration through literacy is with inquiry, a teaching method that centers around students' questions, incorporates informational and narrative texts, and creates opportunities for…

Background: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to understand caregiver preferences for their children's instructional format for the start of the 2020 to 2021 academic year. The purpose of the current study was to assess caregiver preferences for on-campus versus virtual learning at home during the fall and factors associated with these…

Humanizing pedagogies present a promising framework for contesting dehumanizing practices all too common in U.S. urban schools. To co-construct such pedagogies, however, teachers and students must negotiate between the humanizing and dehumanizing discourses that circulate within their school context. Drawing from data collected from a qualitative…

The role of executive function (EF) in the reading process, and in those with reading difficulties, remains unclear. As members of the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, we review multiple perspectives regarding EF in reading and then summarize some of our recent studies of struggling and typical readers in grades 3-5. Study 1a found that a…

Building on theories of cross linguistic transfer, reading proficiency of Spanish-speaking Emerging Bilinguals may be enhanced by providing tiered instruction through multitiered systems of support. To realize the benefits of this systems-level framework, technically adequate universal screening assessments to support teachers' decision making are…

Air Tutors is an online tutoring organization that provides one-on-one and small group tutoring for K-12 students. Air Tutors uses live, online tutoring and an online platform that incorporates video conferencing and interactive whiteboards; recruits high-quality paid tutors with tutoring experience and engaging online personalities; and engages…

Music education has been shown to be related to a variety of positive outcomes, including student achievement in math. This study was conducted to examine the effect of integrating Hip Hop Literacy songs on fourth grade reading achievement scores. The framework for the study was Miendlarzweska and Trost's model of musical instrument training.…

This study sought to identify factors that predict positive STEM-related postsecondary outcomes for Hispanic students in Texas. The research team linked K-12 student academic data to college enrollment data for public high school students who enrolled in colleges and universities in Texas from the 2004/05 to 2010/11 (seven cohorts). Regression…

This article discusses the current contradictory policies surrounding the push for phonics instruction in Texas schools. Focusing on this current iteration of the reading wars, this article seeks to help teachers develop a historical context for reading instruction, review existing research on learning to read, and turn that knowledge into…

This paper considers an unavoidable feature of the school environment, class rank. What are the long run effects of a student's ordinal rank in elementary school? Using administrative data from all public school students in Texas, we show that students with a higher third grade academic rank, conditional on achievement and classroom fixed effects,…

Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this causal-comparative quantitative study was to investigate the effect of classroom audio distribution (CAD) technology implementation on the percentage of elementary school students in special education as a potential strategy to improve the learning process for at-risk students. Fourteen K-5 and K-6…

Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade (2009) wrote that if failure to provide quality education continues, it will not be because we lack the know-how to effectively educate all children, it is because we lack the resolve to do it. As a steadfast leader of teaching and collaborating with children, Duncan-Andrade mentors hope in students and teachers alike. This…

Popular culture texts, such as texts based on movies, television, sports, and video games are widely desired by elementary students. However, these texts are not always available for students due to limited funding, lack of teacher appreciation for such texts, and sparse quantities of popular culture texts found in classroom and school libraries.…

As political and economic instability coupled with natural disasters continue to displace people around the world, migration and resettlement remain necessary. Hosting countries and communities grapple with how to meet the diverse needs of the refugees. Given that over a half of the refugees are under the age of 18 years (i.e., school-age children…

In this investigation, the degree to which student enrollment (i.e., school size) at elementary schools was related to student progress on the State of Texas reading and mathematics state-mandated assessments was examined for White, Black, and Hispanic students. Archival data available on the Texas Academic Performance Report were analyzed for the…