Modern educational settings have been heavily integrated and dependent upon the use of technology. To keep up with the rigorous demands of Common Core State Standards, California schools have emphasized technology dependency to augment academic performance with today's schools. The purpose of the study focused on parental perception of technology…

Grade-level retention is a common educational practice with the goal of improving academic performance, but the evidence of its influence is mixed. This study examines the academic effect of repeating kindergarten, first grade, second grade, or third grade on English Language Arts performance at the end of fourth grade. This study also examines…

Students in Title 1 school districts continue to fall far behind their peers academically in comparison to neighboring suburban districts. School reform has unsuccessfully attempted to improve test scores by consistently changing reading curriculums and mandating the use of various resources that fail when implemented. Struggling school districts…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational systems worldwide have faced unprecedented challenges, particularly concerning the support of students based on traditional face-to-face instruction. This study focused on the concerns surrounding 2nd grade students at LEA and DRA, two urban elementary schools, who have faced multiple layers of…

The problem addressed in this study was that in response to low standardized test scores, instructional strategies were required to be implemented in English Language Arts (ELA), but teachers in Grades 1 through 5 in the study site experienced challenges using these strategies to meet student learning needs. The explored teachers' experiences and…

The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group design study was to investigate the effects of Response to Intervention (RtI) and computer-based programs on addressing literacy acquisition skills. This study is important because there is an inordinate number of students who are designated as requiring special…

The rapid growth of the English Language Learner (ELL) population in Indiana has raised challenges for English language arts (ELA) instruction. This research adopts collective case studies and mixed-methods studies to explore the quality and quantity of ELA instruction (time allocation to literacy components and group configuration) for ELLs in…

The purpose of this research study was to investigate teacher perspectives of implementing standards-based grading in kindergarten through fifth grade in language arts and math in Southern Illinois. This mixed-methods explanatory research study examined the challenges teachers encountered when implementing standards-based grading, and the changes,…

Highly effective elementary teachers faced challenges to professional development which differed from their urban or suburban peers. With the increasing need for student proficiency in reading, strategies to help grow their engagement and motivation were necessary to investigate and apply to instructional habits. The purpose of this basic…

This non-experimental, quantitative study explored how factors related to teachers' beliefs, curricular orientation, training and support received, and their identity and background experiences are associated with their use of curriculum. Specifically, this study sought to examine teachers' use of a curricular resource specifically designed to…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the meaning of a class of second graders' fairy tale learning experiences. This study is unique four key reasons. First, it focuses on a group of students whose school has been lagging in state English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency tests; second, it provides perspectives on how fairy tales affect the…

This study provides an in-depth examination of how a second-grade teacher used interactive read-alouds of informational texts to engage her students across four disciplines--science, math, social studies, and language arts. Data included ten semi-structured interviews with a Midwestern public school second-grade teacher as well as nine…

This action research study examined how the integration of technology in a second grade ELA classroom impacted levels of student engagement. Research was conducted to investigate how utilizing various technological tools to meet learning goals and objectives in the classroom impacted levels of student engagement as perceived by the students and…

This mixed-methods study examined reading instructional practices at Smalltowne Elementary, as almost 30% of their third grade students were not scoring proficient in the area of English Language Arts (ELA) on the state assessment. Smalltowne is a rural elementary school located in a southeast Georgia town with a population of just under 10,000. A…

The goal of the present study was to examine how effective use of teaching strategies predict reading growth among a sample of English Language Learners. The study specifically examined whether the types of teaching strategies that predict growth in decoding skills also predict growth in comprehension skills. The sample consisted of students in…