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…

We used the Stanford education data archive (SEDA) data to examine the heterogeneity among urban school districts in the United States. The SEDA 2.1 includes data sets on students' mathematics (Math) and English language arts (ELA) achievement from 2008 to 2014 at the district level. Growth mixture modeling was used to uncover the underlying…

ELA Guidebooks is an English language arts curriculum for core instruction. Made by teachers for teachers, the ELA Guidebooks units ensure all students can read, understand, and express their understanding of complex, grade-level texts, ensuring their readiness for college or a career. Each text collection has a shared idea and contains authentic…

This article explores various ways of teaching literary theory to high school and middle school students. The authors argue that incorporating a critical literacy approach in English education is important but challenging. Although the authors work to implement a critical literacy practice within their university classes, they don't always know…

The purpose of this study was to examine effective ways to integrate an interactive whiteboard, podcast, and digital storytelling for language proficiency development in English language learners. Researchers integrated these three technologies into a 60-hour intensive summer English program and investigated their impacts on student vocabulary…

"Project Read"[R] is a multisensory language arts curriculum designed for use in a classroom or group setting. Two main objectives of the program are to use language in all its forms, and to use responsive instruction rather than preplanned textbook lessons. The program emphasizes direct instruction, and lessons move from letter-sounds…

Having been taught for one year from a curriculum designed to enhance comprehension of syntactic structures, two groups (experimental and control) of fourth grade students were tested by two special cloze instruments to examine the effect of the curriculum on the comprehension of syntactic structures which the students encountered in reading.…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, this curriculum unit introduces third and fourth graders to variations in language. Students are led from recognizing that we associate certain sounds with specific settings to recognizing that we associate certain dialects with specific regions. Lessons 1 through 7 involve the use of three…

BASING ITS WORK ON INVESTIGATION OF SCHOOL PRACTICES AND ANALYSIS OF THE WRITING PROCESS OF CHILDREN, THE NORTHWESTERN CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER DEVELOPED A CURRICULUM IN COMPOSITION FOR THE LOWER SECONDARY GRADES. THE LESSONS DEVELOPED FOR THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADES HAD THEIR BASIS IN PESTALOZZIAN OBJECT TEACHING WHICH STRESSES SPECIFICITY AND…

This curriculum guide, one of a series designed for use in kindergarten and the elementary grades, has been compiled with the recognition that the basic ingredients of a language arts program--composition, speaking, listening, literature, and problem solving--are interrelated and constantly complement one another and that this entire process is…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, the eighteen lessons in this unit aim to interest third and fourth grade students in thinking about how sentences are made, to introduce some grammatical concepts, and to build on the instinctive knowledge students already have about the English language. The first three lessons are devoted to…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project for grades three and four, this second of two units on communication systems begins with a lesson which reinforces the concept that in order to communicate we must all have the same meaning for the signals used. Lessons 1 through 3 deal with the various kinds of communication signals used by…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, this curriculum unit intended for grades three and four aims to (1) help students become aware of some of the sounds of the language; (2) help students discover how some of these sounds are pronounced; and (3) help students understand that with a limited number of sounds they can produce an…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, this curriculum unit, intended for grades three and four, introduces students to some of the mechanics of writing and provides some practice in using these mechanics. The unit contains an introduction to writing and seven sections, covering beginning and end punctuation, commas, the apostrophe,…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project for grades three and four, this first of two units on communication systems examines some systems which function without the use of human language, i.e., highway signs, trail signs, railroad signals, and facial expressions and gestures. After having identified concepts about communication systems,…