Reading is arguably the most important skill that children learn in school--and yet many children struggle to become strong readers. This is especially true of African American children. Children growing up in low-income, under-resourced neighborhoods often struggle with reading. But even among Black children in wealthier neighborhoods, learning…

Young adults today are the least happy demographic group, departing from a long-established U-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age in many countries worldwide. The longstanding U-curve reflects the unhappiness and stress that most people experience in the midlife years as they juggle financial and family constraints while both the…

"Whole-child development" can mean different things to educators, researchers, other child- and youth-serving professionals, and policymakers. Multiple bodies of research and methods of analysis affirm that child development (and human development in general) is dynamic, bi-directional (i.e., the child and context influence each other),…

This article is excerpted from "More Urban Myths about Learning and Education: Challenging Eduquacks, Extraordinary Claims, and Alternative Facts." The authors discuss some of the most often asked questions related to one basic principle in particular: "transfer of learning." Transfer of learning is seen as the use of…

The last 15 years have witnessed a quiet revolution in the understanding of spatial skills, and the authors are finding that these all-important science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competencies are rooted in spatial knowledge. Spatial skills are the tools use to visualize and navigate the world. Spatial skills allows people to…

Following a shooting at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students from that school began to take matters into their own hands, meeting and networking on social media, speaking to the media, participating in vigils, organizing walkouts and demonstrations, establishing coalitions with others who share their outrage and goals, and…

Academically underprepared postsecondary students make up a large proportion of college campuses. Recent estimates indicate that up to 70 percent of incoming students at two-year community colleges and up to 40 percent of incoming students at four-year colleges enroll in developmental courses. There has been some criticism of the effectiveness of…

Together, a school district and a local union are working to ensure that educators are trained in restorative practices in order to improve school climates and keep students in school and learning. This article describes how, in recent years, administrators and teachers have shifted from traditional school punishments, such as suspension, to…

In New York City, as in many places across the country, there is much discussion about strengthening career and technical education (CTE). New York City's approach to Career and Technical Education (CTE) is held up as a model for getting this type of education right. A recent conference highlighted six schools that represented only a fraction of…

When teachers wonder "What should I do?" in response to challenging student behaviors, the answers are not as simple as they might seem. What teachers can do also depends, at least in part, on external demands (e.g., discipline codes, principal expectations, time pressures on teaching content and testing) that can either facilitate or…

In a project-based learning approach, students work over an extended time period for a purpose beyond satisfying a school requirement--to build something, to create something, to respond to a question they have, to solve a real problem, or to address a real need. For example, students might work to plan, plant, and cultivate a garden to help feed…

Career and technical education is the part of American high school that provides the link between the needs of the labor market and the needs of young people to be fully prepared to move into the workforce or continue their career-focused education and training beyond high school. Concerns about how to strengthen the economy as well as complaints…

Explains the "Questioning the Author" approach to reading comprehension, which is designed to get students to build understanding of text ideas by becoming actively involved as they read. Suggestions are given for constructing meaning by going back and forth between the text and discussing the ideas. Some examples illustrate the process.…

Gives suggestions for teaching decoding to the beginning reader. It is important to align decoding with the stages of reading development as well as with the structure of the English language. Systematic, explicit instruction ensures the success of most children. Keeping instruction connected to meaning respects the ways that children learn…

The 51 lessons in the full curriculum show how children can be brought step-by-step to understand the architecture of their language through phonemic awareness and how this understanding prepares them for reading and writing. Activities, some of which are presented, are developed for kindergarten but can be used in first grade or special…