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…

Mechanistic reasoning, or reasoning systematically through underlying factors and relationships that give rise to phenomena, is a powerful thinking strategy that allows one to explain and make predictions about phenomena. This article synthesizes and builds on existing frameworks to identify essential characteristics of students' mechanistic…

This study examines unintended consequences during a 6th-grade book club discussion of Bette Bao Lord's (1984) In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. The participants modeled a book club discussion, otherwise known as the fish bowl, for a newly enrolled student. Unintended consequences occurred within the realm of deviating from the rules of…

Although it is likely that plans to attend a 4-year college are made much earlier than the last 2 years of high school, few researchers have assessed the pre-high school factors that influence high school performance and course-enrollment decisions, which, in turn, affect college attendance. The data presented in this article were collected as…

Five fifth grade and five sixth grade textbooks commonly used in Michigan public schools were examined to determine the extent to which they (1) reflected the pluralistic nature of the U.S. society and also (2) showed scholarship, educational soundness, and appropriate readability. Six of eight independent and qualified educators reviewed and…

Five seventh grade and four sixth grade social studies textbooks most commonly used in Michigan public schools were examined (1) to determine the extent to which these textbooks reflected the pluralistic nature of the global society, past and present, and (2) to ascertain the quality of scholarship, educational soundness, and readability levels.…