The unprecedented growth of Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in new destination states (e.g., Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee) calls for better understanding of the relation between their bilingual vocabulary skills and English reading achievement. The current study focused on school-age Spanish-English DLLs (N = 60) in…

At a Title I School located in Central Georgia, 91% of the student population is performing below grade level. Lexia-Core 5 is a reading software program purchased by a Central Georgia school district to help students improve in reading. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive and causal-comparative study was to examine the impact of the…

Background: Reading comprehension is an essential skill not only during learning but also to successfully navigate everyday life. However, reading comprehension is a task that is challenging even among some adept readers. Thus, in the present investigation, we explored how to improve reading comprehension skills among a sample of middle school…

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…

Teacher turnover has adverse consequences for student achievement and imposes large financial costs for schools. Some have argued that high-stakes testing may lower teachers' satisfaction with their jobs and could be a major contributor to teacher attrition. This study uses data on individual students and teachers from Georgia's statewide…

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…

This study finds that, breaking with decades of slow improvement, U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. This descriptive analysis is designed to…

In Georgia, students with disabilities are falling behind students without disabilities in reading. Students with disabilities need to learn how to read fluently and comprehend because reading is embedded in all academic areas. Guided by LaBerge and Samuels's theory of automatic information processing in reading, the purpose of the study was to…

With increasing emphasis being placed on teachers to show an improvement in student achievement, schools are relying on indicators such as reading fluency and reading comprehension to gauge student progress throughout the year. Since the growth on these assessments are used in calculating teachers and administrators' yearly job evaluations, the…

The purpose of this quantitative retrospective quasi-experimental study was to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between sixth, seventh, and eighth grade special education students receiving multiple instructional strategies and sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students receiving traditional instructional strategies.…

The authors present findings from a data-driven account in which they followed ten fifth-grade students receiving intervention in reading through Georgia's test-based grade retention policy. Under the policy, the students had little confidence in themselves as readers and felt that reading test passages was unnecessary and difficult. Consequently,…

Data-driven instruction is simply good educational practice. In the deaf education certification program--which confers master's degrees in education at Valdosta State University, Georgia, through a variety of online options--the professors address this issue directly with graduate students, all of whom are teacher candidates. One of the ways they…

The purpose of this research project was designed to test the hypothesis that students taking part in this study would increase their reading comprehension and reading fluency skills by taking part in the Daily 5 Model and The CAFÉ System during the literacy block. The researcher sought to answer the question, "What impact do The Daily 5…

Third grade is a critical checkpoint in a child's educational journey. By the end of third grade, children need literacy skills that prepare them for increasing curriculum demands in fourth grade and beyond. Students who are not reading on grade level by this point are significantly more likely to drop out of high school or fail to graduate on…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Imagine Learning, a computer assisted language learning (CALL) program, on addressing reading achievement for English language learners (ELLs). This is a measurement used in the Accessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State (ACCESS for ELLs or ACCESS) reading scale…