The authors address instruction in morphological analysis, a vocabulary-learning approach that involves teaching students the meanings of affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and word roots and a strategy for using knowledge of these morphemic elements to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words. The authors discuss their development of a list of affixes…

Despite the long history of the study of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), two facts remain obvious. First, there are almost as many conceptions regarding the definition of PCK as there are researchers interested in it. Second, it is largely unclear which methods enable teacher educators to best prepare teacher candidates to use PCK. Recently,…

The history of strategies research during the past quarter century has been a story of significant conceptualizations and reconceptualizations regarding the nature, development, and teaching of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Theoretical models, empirical research, and discussions contributed by Michael Pressley have been central to…

"Practitioner research" is an ongoing, reflective process in which inservice teachers (i.e., practitioners) ask questions about their day-to-day teaching practice, develop plans of action to investigate these questions, draw conclusions supported by evidence as they gather, and use what is learned to facilitate changes in their pedagogy.…

The focus of this paper will be one of the authors' transformation from reluctant teacher-researcher to empowered teacher-researcher. The authors will describe Shayla's journey through action research because it was this journey from circumspection to empowerment that strengthened her in ways that she had not foreseen or anticipated. It allowed…

Social promotion has long been the normal practice in American schools. Critics of this practice, whereby students are promoted to the next grade regardless of academic preparation, have suggested that students would benefit academically if they were made to repeat a grade. Supporters of social promotion claim that retaining students disrupts them…

The authors introduce readers to the research documenting racial and ethnic gaps in school readiness. They describe the key tests, including the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), and several intelligence tests, and describe how they have been administered to several important national samples of…