This research study examines the impact of teacher research on participants in a large-scale educational reform initiative in the United States, No Child Left Behind, and its strand for reading teachers, Reading First. Reading First supported professional development for teachers in order to increase student scores on standardized tests. The…

This study examines the use of research techniques to generate information that informs curriculum development, in order to develop more powerful social studies curricula for the primary grades. The paper describes the studies of four implementations of units, all done in self-contained second-grade classrooms in suburban schools with traditional…

This action research report describes a program to increase students' reading comprehension and fluency through the use of guided reading. The targeted population consists of second and fourth grade students in a northwest suburban area of a large city located in the Midwest. The problems of low reading comprehension and fluency scores were…

In this action research report 4 teachers and 1 teacher educator use the Japanese lesson study model of professional development for 15 months in rural Carlinville, Illinois. In March 2001, 4 teachers identified a goal to improve their students' understanding of two step word problems in 2nd grade elementary mathematics. Teachers completed three…

This report describes a method for increasing parental involvement in physical education and art in an elementary school in Illinois. The parents of second- and third-grade students in a well-developed, middle class community in Illinois participated in the study. The lack of parental involvement had been documented through data revealing the low…

This action research project sought to enhance parent, student, and teacher relationships and maximize academic time in the elementary school setting by implementing looping, the practice of teachers progressing with the same students through two or more grades. The targeted population consisted of second graders in a middle-class, blue-collar…