The principal of a southern Arizona elementary school, to be referred to as SMD Elementary School, had seen a drop in the standardized test scores for reading among the fourth and fifth graders, and she wanted to enable the students to improve their reading achievement. The goal of this study was to determine if New Century Reading, a…

Reading is an essential foundation for learning. In 2016, Alaska's Education Challenge was developed with five measurable goals. Supporting students to read at grade level by the end of third grade is the priority as the department seeks to meet the goals established in 2016. Reading proficiency impacts students, state, and society far beyond the…

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between Acadience reading curriculum-based measures (CBMs) and the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) mathematics assessment for students in grades three, four, five, and six. Furthermore, multiple linear regression equations were created from…

LXD Research conducted a third-party, mixed-methods efficacy study of 95 Percent Group's Phonics Core Program (95 PCP) to determine the program's impact on fourth and fifth grade students' literacy outcomes. Outcomes included Istation's Indicators of Progress (ISIP) Advanced Reading and the State of Texas Assessments of Readiness (STAAR). LXD…

The Common Core has emphasized reading for comprehension, including making inferences. However, little is known about the instructional materials included in core literacy programs for teaching inferences. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of background, anaphoric, predictive, and retrospective inferences in instructional…

The importance of alignment between identification processes and program design is widely noted in gifted and talented education literature. We analyzed publicly available district gifted program plans (Grades 3-5) from two states to examine the extent to which district identification practices matched intervention strategies. Our team developed a…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among (1) special education teachers' knowledge for teaching reading fluency, (2) the specific instructional practices they used in fluency instruction, and (3) gains of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) on a performance measure of oral reading fluency (ORF). Analyses…

Over 18 million children in Ethiopia are enrolled at the primary level with a net enrollment rate of 100 percent. Unfortunately, the positive achievement of getting more children into school has strained the capacity of the system, and student learning has suffered. USAID's 2018 Early Grade Reading Assessment suggests that only 40 percent of…

Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. But how do you strike the "right" balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential? The answer lies in the…

In this study, we examine the social practices related to literacy in classrooms in Chile in order to examine school-based literacy practices. We also examined the constraints and affordances literacy learning offered Chilean students. Through our case study and cross-case analysis, we discovered that although the classrooms contained an…

In this study, we tracked elementary preservice teachers' (N = 41) perceived ability to teach reading as they moved through their teacher preparation program. After graduation, we conducted follow-up teaching observations and interviews with five of these novice teachers to explore their perceptions about their ability to teach reading. An…

The purpose of this article is to inform teachers about the ways technology can be integrated to add value to literacy instruction. Artistic technology-integrated literacy and disciplinary instruction in preK through grade 4 classrooms is described through the stories of five teachers who were identified as both strong teachers of literacy and…

As teachers and leaders move forward in implementing the Common Core State Standards within classrooms across 46 states, it is essential to consider the question of what knowledge is included in the English Language Arts Standards, and what knowledge is not present. The authors of the Common Core delineate an increasingly complex body of knowledge…

With all of the reform models, research-based programs, leadership training, and professional development focused on reading and writing, we certainly know more about literacy today than we ever have before. So why are schools still suffering with low literacy levels? The answer lies in ineffective and unbalanced literacy instruction. Through the…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative is a state-led effort that establishes a set of clear educational standards for English language arts and mathematics that states can voluntarily adopt. The standards have been informed by the best available evidence and the highest standards across the country and the world. They have been…