Extensive reading (ER) research has suggested that completing the equivalent of 7,200 standard words of extensive reading per week facilitates substantial reading rate gains. Research has also suggested that 100 minutes per week is sufficient to complete this goal for most English language learners (Beglar & Hunt, 2014). However, experimental…

Researchers explored how 13 states in which policymakers have adopted an A-F school letter grade accountability system performed on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) post-policy implementation. Researchers found mixed results, with approximately half of these 13 states increasing achievement post-policy, and the other…

The UPSTART Summer program is a federally funded i3 validation project that uses a computer-based program to maintain and develop the literacy skills of elementary school students in rural Utah during the summer months when school is out of session. Researchers used a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the impact of the program in forestalling…

Charter schools represent an increasingly important form of school choice in the United States. Charter schools are public schools, with a difference. Compared to traditional public schools, they are exempted from some of the state laws and regulations that govern traditional public schools. In this way, parents come to have a greater number of…

The purpose of this report is to provide formative and summative feedback to the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) regarding evidence of implementation and impact for the Interventions for Reading Difficulties Pilot Program. The report, while addressing the effects of the Interventions for Reading Difficulties Pilot Program, is also designed to…

Using data from interviews with 111 reading policy actors from California, Connecticut, Michigan, and Utah, this study explains how individuals acquire central positions in issue networks. Regression analyses showed that the greater a policy actor's reputed influence was and the more similar their preferences were to other members in the network,…

This study evaluated the effect of online instruction on the academic achievement of K--12 students in ten states as measured by the percentage of proficient students in reading and mathematics at the school level. We used publicly available data provided by the Department of Education in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the cumulative progress of English learner students in Utah in English language proficiency (ELP) and in academic content knowledge in both English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. This study identified students in grades kindergarten, 3, and 6 who were designated as English learner students in 2006/07…

Although there have been any number of national reading reform efforts over the years, there is little evidence that such efforts have been sustained in schools over time. This study focused on addressing 2 questions: To what extent have Reading First schools in 2 states sustained the key elements of this reform over time? To what extent has…

In October 2010, WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) won an i3 "Validation" grant to scale up and validate the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) model in three core secondary content area classes: U.S. history, biology, and English language arts. SLI's proposal stated two goals. Goal 1: To transform academic literacy teaching and…

Background: The state of Arizona has recently mandated the Structured English Immersion Model (SEI) in the state's public schools, and as a result the local flexibility that existed regarding the choice of program models for ELLs has ended. In the school year 2008-09, these regulations were made even more restrictive after the implementation of…

The Advanced Placement (AP) program is an educational program that permits high school students to take introductory college-level courses and receive college credit by passing a standardized end-of-course exam. Data were obtained from a statewide database of 2 high school graduating cohorts (N = 90,044). We used a series of propensity score…

In October 2010, WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) won an i3 "Validation" grant to scale up and validate the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) model in three core secondary content area classes: U.S. history, biology, and English language arts. SLI's proposal stated two goals. Goal 1: To transform academic literacy teaching and…

In October 2010, WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) won an i3 "Validation" grant to scale up and validate the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) model in three core secondary content area classes: U.S. history, biology, and English language arts. SLI's proposal stated two goals. Goal 1: To transform academic literacy teaching and…

In a professional development project, six teaching practices were posited as necessary for improving affective and cognitive outcomes for identified advanced readers. These practices were identification, organization for instruction, content, instructional strategies, continuous improvement assessment, and ambassadorship. Sixty-one teachers…