Targeted instruction is one of the most effective educational interventions in low- and middle-income countries, yet reported impacts vary by an order of magnitude. We study this variation by aggregating evidence from prior randomized trials across five contexts, and use the results to inform a new randomized trial. We find two factors explain…

Albert Bandura's social learning theory focused on the interaction of personal, behavioral, and environmental factors. This article honors Bandura's legacy with the real-life application of his theories regarding modeling, enactive rehearsal, vicarious learning, and self-efficacy. Included are excerpts from a discussion of a group of teachers from…

Goal setting is an activity that adult literacy educators should be doing with their students, but it often becomes difficult to monitor the progress of student goals given the many other things they are responsible for in their classes, programs, and schools. While there is little doubt as to the importance of goal-setting and its connection to…

Reading consists of many interconnected skills. Research recommends that beginning readers focus on a set of basic skills, specifically referred to as the "foundational skills" (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGACBP], Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010). Essential to forming the base for…

This article discusses student leadership developed through an instructional approach to teach basic skills instruction within the context of climate hope, regeneration, and transformational resilience. The purposes of this approach are threefold: to develop student leadership, enhance basic skills instruction, and better prepare students for the…

While adolescent foundational skills interventions can be critical levers for reading improvement, district leaders, teachers, and researchers must make complex decisions about how to evaluate their effectiveness in context. In this discussion article, we explore three issues and tensions we experienced during a 2-year research-practice…

One avenue for improving reading outcomes is to ensure children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) enter school with the foundational skills needed to learn to read. Our research team developed an early literacy curriculum specifically for DHH children. Teachers use Foundations for Literacy (FFL) in a one-hour literacy block for the school…

Federal legislation requires every student receive access to and make progress in the general curriculum. Teachers have reported difficulties in meeting this requirement for students with extensive support needs (ESN) who do not yet demonstrate foundational academic skills, such as in the areas of literacy and numeracy. Once students enter high…

Low- and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) are currently facing a myriad of challenges in education; from large increases in school enrolments putting pressure on already strained school resources, to having millions of children out of school, with a sizable proportion of those in school learning poor. Education stakeholders in high- and…

The relation between mathematical achievement in early childhood and future academic success is well established. However, the effect of instruction on mathematical performance is less well-documented and often reliant upon self-report instruction measures and standardized achievement measures. Therefore, this study seeks to use observational data…

Although generic skills have received widespread attention from both policymakers and educationalists, little is known regarding how students acquire these skills, or how they should best be taught. Hence, the aim of this study was to identify what kinds of pedagogical practices are behind the learning of eight particular generic skills. The data…

Using the "Three Phase Lesson" model, teachers identify prior knowledge that the student must possess in order to be successful in learning the new concepts. Teachers then delineate specific components inherent in the concepts that need to be mastered and identify tasks which will enable the student to practice these new concepts.

Teaching soft skills (i.e., grit, empathy, collaboration, perseverance, communication, ethics, self-management) is a task that might seem overwhelming to new teachers, but this article offers practical advice from students about how to incorporate the lessons into the classroom.

Most students have gaps in their background knowledge and basic skills-gaps that can stand in the way of learning new concepts. For example, a student may be excited about studying probability--until he realizes that today's lesson on probability will require him to use fractions. As his brain searches frantically for his dim recollection of the…

"Embodied trainings" allowing children to move their whole body in space have recently been shown to foster the acquisition of basic numerical competencies (e.g. magnitude understanding, addition performance). Following a brief summary of recent embodied training studies, we integrate the different results into a unified model framework…