The purpose of this article was to offer guidance to educators in evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and most effective uses of commercial reading assessment suites. We provide three resources to help educators who are responsible for making instructional decisions in reading using formal screening, benchmark, interim, and progress-monitoring…

The focus of this special edition is students' literacy development over the school years. Drawing on data that includes classroom interactions, analyses of texts, and interviews with students, this edition builds on the seminal treatment of the question of literacy transitions provided in Christie and Derewianka (2008). This paper aims to…

In this article we examine the profiling of human rights and children's rights in religious education (RE) and its secular alternative in Finland. We use the term 'worldview education' to describe the combination of these subjects. We analyse what kinds of human rights and ethical issues are raised in Finnish worldview education. One specific…

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to overwhelm the functioning and outcomes of educational systems throughout the nation. The public education system is under particular scrutiny given that students, families, and educators are under considerable stress to maintain academic progress. Since the beginning of the crisis, school-systems…

It has been common knowledge for decades that poor and working-class students tend to experience "summer learning loss," a drop in performance between spring and fall that serves to widen the gap between students. However, new research shows that the reality of summer learning loss is more complex. Megan Kuhfeld draws on data from the…

The language of instruction for Deaf children in the American educational system has long been the subject of debate: Should Deaf children learn language via American Sign Language (ASL), English-based visual communication systems, or spoken English only? It has long been the practice of the standard epistemology to encourage the use of verbal…

"Achieve3000®" is a supplemental online literacy program that provides nonfiction reading content to students in grades preK-12 and focuses on building phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills. "Achieve3000®" is designed to help students advance their nonfiction reading skills…

In Texas, English language learner (ELL) students are assessed annually in academic subject areas using the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) at elementary and middle school levels. This supplemental report describes continuously enrolled Austin Independent School District ELLs' performance as compared with all AISD…

"Houghton Mifflin Reading"© is a reading program designed for grades K-6. The program provides step-by-step instruction in reading using Big Books (fiction and nonfiction literature), anthologies, Read Aloud books, and audio compact discs. The product is designed to be used as a full-year curriculum program with instruction on developing…

The use of high-stakes assessment to measure students' mathematical performance has become commonplace in schools all over the world. Such assessment instruments provide national or international comparisons of student (and potentially teacher performance). Each form of assessment is specialised in nature and is characteristic of the culture and…

The media and the contemporary consumer culture are central categories in modern childhood. They have opened new kinds of experiences and learning situations for children. In this article we are interested in the role of the media and consumption in schoolchildren's daily life. The data consist of writings and drawings of 7-12-year-old…

How does understanding the decimal system change with age and experience? Second, third, sixth graders, and adults (Experiment 1: N = 96, mean ages = 7.9, 9.23, 12.06, and 19.96 years, respectively) made number line estimates across 3 scales (0-1,000, 0-10,000, and 0-100,000). Generation of linear estimates increased with age but decreased with…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contribution of working memory at the word and sentence levels of language to reading and writing outcomes. Method: Measures of working memory at the word and sentence levels, reading and writing, were administered to 2nd (N = 122), 4th (N = 222), and 6th (N = 105) graders. Structural equation…

In the beginning of the first decade of this century, some highly-publicized extremistic acts of terror occurred. A hostage tragedy in a school in Beslan (North Ossetia) was followed in the Netherlands by the brutal murder of the controversial Dutch filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, bomb attacks in Bali and Madrid and other acts of…

In the present study it has been examined how children's creative writing tasks may contribute to teachers' understanding of children's values. Writings of 300 elementary school children about what they would do if they were the boss of The Netherlands were obtained and seemed to reflect different types of values. Most children were concerned with…