Purpose: The overarching purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which differences existed in Grade 4 STAAR Writing performance by student economic status, gender, and language status. In the first article, the purpose was to investigate the extent to which student economic status (i.e., Not Poor, Moderately Poor,…

This article adds to a growing body of research tracing the influence of neoliberal education reforms on policy and practice by showing the ways in which student writers are positioned within market-oriented discourses and values through Texas state exam writing prompts. As a genre-in-use, the writing prompts are seemingly mundane texts that…

Writing is a critical skill for success in all areas of life, but it is one of the least taught skills in school. Teachers consistently report being unprepared to teach writing. In this study, set in a Southern U.S. boomtown, teachers received two days of practice-based professional development for a ten-week implementation of self-regulated…

The simple view of writing suggests that written composition results from oral language, transcription (e.g., spelling/handwriting), and self-regulation skills, coordinated within working memory. The model provides a number of implications for the interpretation of psychoeducational achievement batteries. For instance, it hypothesizes that writing…

Researchers studying curriculum-based measurement of written expression have used a variety of writing prompt types and durations when establishing criterion validity of these tools. The purpose of this study was to determine through meta-analytic procedures whether any prompt type or duration was superior to others in terms of criterion validity.…

The simple views of reading (SVR) and writing (SVW) provide useful foundations for the interpretation of psychoeducational achievement batteries. Research has established that oral language, decoding, and transcription explain significant variance in reading comprehension and written composition, respectively. However, the specific task demands of…

Identifying effective means of ameliorating achievement gaps and addressing literacy deficits is essential. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) is one avenue for providing this effective instruction to the students that can most benefit from it. In the current study, kindergarten students in a public school district in Illinois received…

Theories of reading and writing development suggest that the factor structure of achievement batteries could change across development. As a result, it is important to test achievement batteries for invariance across development. The purpose of these analyses is to determine whether the factor structure of reading, writing, and oral language…

Standardized tests provide information about student achievement that are vital to understanding how well students are learning the state standards. The problem addressed in this study was the underachievement of 52% of third-grade students in the target district in English Language Arts on a state standardized test. Poor reading skills can cause…

The prevalence of academic underachievement or learning disabilities in children with autism or ADHD (two groups at increased risk for such problems) has been extensively researched, but little is known about overachievement in these groups. The frequency of overachievement across academic domains compared to nondiscrepant achievement and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a morphological awareness intervention on the spelling and writing of second-grade (n = 16) and third-grade (n = 10) students at risk for learning disabilities. The intervention was provided for 25 min per session 4 to 5 times per week for 5 weeks. Students were randomly assigned to the…

This article reports on a qualitative secondary data analysis of a study of upper elementary students' narrative writing progress in U.S. rural schools. It compares students working online in pairs with those working alone. We explain why the intervention had some positive effects for struggling writers but few effects for skilled writers. The…

To better understand the writing skills of juvenile offenders and the components of their writing abilities, this study explored extant data from six measures of adolescents' writing skills administered upon their entrance into a juvenile justice facility. Overall, the 235 students (ages 13-16; Grades 5-11) exhibited low scores on all writing…

Meeting standardized test benchmarks is a challenge for elementary school students in Texas. The problem is that some elementary schools do not meet the performance standards of the fourth-grade STAAR state test average. Problem-based learning is a model used in schools to initiate problem-solving skills with a hands-on approach to real-world…

During the academic year in the state of Georgia, EL students in public schools take the Georgia Milestones End-of-Grade and the ACCESS 2.0 assessments, which are in line with the state-mandated subject area standards in mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies, as well as English language proficiency standards (Georgia Department…