The study was carried out to determine whether Turkish primary school 1st graders experienced reading loss during the summer holidays and whether giving book support to disadvantaged students during the summer holidays was effective in preventing this loss. The research was conducted with 26 students at a rural primary school. The pretest-posttest…

Technology is increasingly playing a role in the education of early learners. As such, it is vital that research demonstrates that the new suite of tools that are enabled by emerging technologies are both engaging and effective for all students. The Waterford Early Reading Program, a computer-assisted adaptive curriculum, was administered to…

This paper provides a secondary analysis of the May, Sirinides, Gray, and Goldsworthy (2016) evaluation of the Reading Recovery scale-up. We extend their findings to include analysis of the six subscales of the "Observation Survey (OS) of Early Literacy Achievement" (Clay, 2013) that the What Works Clearinghouse has previously used to…

The Waterford Early Reading Program is a computer-assisted instruction program that ensures individualized learning for kindergarten through second grade students. The Waterford curriculum was assigned to kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students in a school district in South Carolina for the 2015-2016 school year. The Developmental…

This study examines the effects of the summer period on value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher and school performance at the early grades. The results indicate that 40-62% of the variance in VAA estimates originates from the summer, depending on the outcome. Furthermore, when summer is omitted from the VAA model, 51-61% of the teachers and 58-61%…

This study considers whether children who have kindergarten and first grade teachers with certification in early childhood education experience greater gains in reading and math achievement compared to children whose teachers have only elementary education certification. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), the study…

This paper details how a 7-month reading-focused professional development initiative, centered on the assessment-to-instruction cycle, supported teachers' growth by combining small group sessions with related individualized literacy coaching. Analysis of participants' experiences revealed the significance of differentiated professional learning in…

The purpose of this session is to describe a research project that involved preservice teacher education candidates in a field experience incorporating individualized tutoring for at-risk elementary students. Specifically, do these struggling elementary readers improve their reading? The first and second graders (n = 190) were all given the…

The purpose of this study was to illustrate the use of Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) to investigate the effects of school and children's attributes on children' reading achievement. In particular, this study was designed to: (1) develop the HLM models to determine the effects of school-level and child-level variables on children's reading…

A study examined the effectiveness of both the informal and standardized readiness measures in predicting the literacy development of both normal first grade subjects and high-risk, language-delayed primary children. Subjects, 60 first grade and 27 language-delayed children were given three informal literacy measures, the "Writing Vocabulary…

A study evaluated reaching achievement for three groups of first-grade students: (1) those receiving phonics instruction utilizing the "Open Court" phonics materials integrated with the District's language arts curriculum; (2) those receiving phonics instruction in the context of guided and shared reading activities ("Phonics in…

Thirty-three first grade classrooms in Georgia were observed to determine the state of language experience instruction and to examine whether such instruction makes a difference in students' awareness of the reading purpose, their knowledge of instructional terminology, their reading attitudes, and their reading achievement. The Allen Level of…

In response to the interest in the potential good that may result from the development and implementation of parent education programs, the Dooly County (Georgia) school district organized several parent education efforts beginning in 1973-74. During the 1976-77 school year, the reading coordinator decided to conduct a parent education program…

Forty-eight first grade students participated in a three-fold study to (1) examine the effect of repeated exposure to text on memory for prose as determined through retelling, (2) determine how low and high comprehending students performed on this task, and (3) determine if males would perform as well as females on the task. The subjects were…

A study investigated the effect of phonemic awareness and cognitive flexibility training on the phonemic awareness, cognitive flexibility, reading, and spelling ability of kindergarten and first-grade students. Subjects were 280 students from 12 classrooms in 3 urban elementary schools. Four pre- and posttest measures were administered. Students…