In this article, the authors unveil the Trade Book Inquiry Design Model (IDM) blueprint. Anchored in a compelling question inspired by a trade book, the new blueprint is broken into two instructional blocks: "Reading and Comprehension" and "Living Social Studies." The inquiry template is designed to be instructionally efficient…

Previous research on participation in mathematics classrooms has focused on adults' perspectives, which overemphasize the role of talk. Drawing on sociocultural theory, I define participation as a complex and situated phenomenon. I describe a participatory research collaboration where a Spanish immersion third-grade teacher, and I brought the…

Public policies targeting individuals based on need often impose disproportionate burden on communities that lack the resources to implement these policies effectively. In an elementary school setting, I examine whether community-level interventions focusing on similar needs and providing resources to build capacity in these communities could…

This paper provides evidence on the effect of local prescription opioid use on academic achievement of 3rd-8th graders between 2009 and 2018. Using county fixed effects models, I find that when counties have higher levels of prescription opioid use, students score lower on standardized assessments two to three years later, with variation by…

The Early Literacy Program focuses on the development of early literacy skills, with additional emphasis placed on intervention for students at risk of not meeting grade-based reading benchmarks. Resources available to aid these students include interventions and supports for students in grades kindergarten through third grade, standards and…

Students in the 3rd and 4th grade often encounter what has been called a reading "slump" when their class curriculums increasingly ask them to comprehend and learn from texts. Students are more likely to struggle if they have not been offered sufficient opportunities to build world and domain knowledge and engage in challenging…

A theoretical model describing young students' (Grade 3) arithmetic-algebraic structure sense was formulated and validated empirically (n = 130), hypothesizing that young students' arithmetic-algebraic structure sense consists of five distinct but correlated factors; structure in numerical equivalence and word-problem modeling, structure in…

This testimonio examines how a 3rd grade bilingual teacher unpacks the learning process as it relates to her agency in implementing culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, Am Educ Res J, 32(3):465-491, 1995, Soc Stud Curric Purp Probl Possib, pp 201--215, 2001; Quiocho and Rios, Rev Educ Res, 70(4):485-528, 2000) and culturally sustaining (Paris,…

This paper discusses the relevance of using physical situations to introduce the concept of angles at elementary school. We compare the effectiveness of two geometry teaching sequences. In the first one (physical sequence), the pupils learned the angle concept by experimenting on the playground (i.e. mesospace) and then modelling the situation. In…

This report finds that participation in Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (DPIL) has a number of short term and sustained benefits for students, regardless of family income level. DPIL participation was associated with lower retention rates in kindergarten, 3rd grade, and at any point from kindergarten through 3rd grade. Participants in DPIL also…

The advent of a democratically-elected government in South Africa in 1994 disrupted the erstwhile synchrony between the schooling system, teacher education system, curriculum and pedagogy. Yet many South African teachers continue to express their teacher identities much like they did prior to 1994. The explanations posited for why this is the case…

This article addresses the question: Why teachers of mathematics have yet to 'take up' progressive roles? Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and its methodological equivalent, social realism, we analyse interview and observation data of four grade 3 teachers, with the view to identifying the mechanisms conditioning the expression of…

Developing scientific literacy about water systems is critical for K-12 students. However, even with opportunities to build knowledge about the hydrosphere in elementary classrooms, early learners may struggle to understand the water cycle (Forbes et al., [Forbes, C. T., 2015]; Gunckel et al., [Gunckel, K. L., 2012]; Zangori et al., [Forbes, C.…

This article combines theory on comics, narrative, and discursive psychology and analyses how the gutter is co-constructed for storytelling in classroom interaction. Closure of the gutter has previously been treated as a cognitive aspect. Here, interactional video data are analysed, with participants organizing ten separate comic panels. The…

Background: South African learners face the double disadvantage of living in low socioeconomic conditions with access to few resources and attending schools with challenging learning conditions. Mathematics performance reflects such conditions with extreme performance gaps between wealthier and poorer learners. The need for early intervention is…