The purpose of this quantitative methods study was to determine a relationship between instructional reading strategies and standardized test performance for third-grade students in Phoenix, Arizona, and counties in Arizona school districts. The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015…

Federal and state legislations continue to mandate high-stakes testing for American students. Consequences of high-stakes testing include but are not limited to, low teacher efficacy, narrow teaching strategies, lack of student motivation, and the feeling of insecurity in classrooms by the students. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper…

Mathematical fact fluency, particularly in addition and subtraction, is crucial for students' success in later mathematical concepts and is often a focus of elementary education. Educators are exploring tools to enhance math fluency, such as Reflex Math, a digital program designed to accelerate students' fact fluency through adaptive learning…

The problem addressed in this study was that in response to low standardized test scores, instructional strategies were required to be implemented in English Language Arts (ELA), but teachers in Grades 1 through 5 in the study site experienced challenges using these strategies to meet student learning needs. The explored teachers' experiences and…

Over the last 62 years, mathematics reform has occurred due to a political push after results from a major survey or report were released stating that the United States scored lower than other countries. With each reform effort, teaching methods were changed to match the new initiative. Math curriculum was a key point in each of these reform…

This qualitative case study addressed instructional practices used by third-grade teachers teaching at Title I schools to provide strategies to teach higher-order thinking skills in reading comprehension. In Texas, third-grade students were required to take the reconstructed STAAR assessment at the end the 2022-2023 school year. The teachers…

This paper discusses educational insights drawn from a mixed-methods study in Religious Education (RE). The study involved 238 teachers and school leaders, working in 65 Catholic schools in Western Australia (WA). The focus of the study was the educators' perceptions of a large-scale, standardised assessment (LSA) called "The Bishops'…

Students with special educational needs (SEN) are systematically hindered in their participation in test-taking and, as a result, are also excluded from participating in high-quality learning. Hence, participation in the assessment situation is connected to power relations and future prospects and possibilities to participate in society. This…

National, state, and local governmental authorities have researched and reported the impacts of poverty on academic performance for multiple decades, providing guidance, legislation, accountability, equal access initiatives, and continuous monitoring for educators to address the ongoing dilemma. However, poverty performance achievement gaps are…

A Vygotskian approach to assessment is proposed by invoking the distinction between the development of lower and higher psychological functions. Higher psychological functions are specifically human and develop with the use of cultural tools via mediation. Accordingly, a distinction is made between tests that are based on association, which have…

Pioneer Valley Books (PVB) contracted McREL International to investigate the effects of the third grade Literacy Footprints (LFP) guided reading system on English language arts (ELA) performance on state assessments. LFP is a research-based, comprehensive, small-group literacy tool that facilitates explicit and systematic guided reading…

This mixed methods action research dissertation examines the effects of implementing growth mindset teaching practices in third grade math as a means to improve student math self-efficacy, math mindset and student achievement. Since the transition to the Pennsylvania Core Standards, students across the state including those in this district have…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an instructional package, Self-Regulated Strategy Development, a cognitive strategy instructional model (POW + TREE), in combination with video self-modeling (VSM) on the improvement on the written expression of three third-grade students with learning disabilities (LD). This…

Although spelling skill progress has typically been studied within the context of students' responses to written story starters (Deno, Marsten, & Mirkin, 1982; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011; Hosp, Hosp, & Howell, 2007; Shinn & Shinn, 2002), there has been little research conducted within a curriculum-based measurement framework that has…

Students living in poverty are now the majority of the K-12 student population in the United States. Growing up in poverty results in lower self-regulation, executive function, and readiness to learn. Researchers suggest that mindfulness practices, such as yoga, can enhance student self-regulation and executive function, thereby increasing student…