There are large gaps in reading skills by family income among school-aged children in the United States. Correlational evidence suggests that reading skills are strongly related to the amount of reading students do outside of school. Experimental evidence testing whether this relationship is causal is lacking. We report the results from a…

We estimate relative achievement effects of the four most commonly adopted elementary mathematics textbooks in the fall of 2008 and fall of 2009 in California. Our findings indicate that one book, Houghton Mifflin's "California Math," is more effective than the other three, raising student achievement by 0.05 to 0.08 student-level…

Efforts to support children in schools require addressing not only academic issues, but also out-of-school factors that can affect students' ability to succeed. This study examined academic achievement of students participating in City Connects, a student support intervention operating in high-poverty elementary schools. The sample included 7,948…

This program evaluation investigated differences in reading achievement for students receiving Reading Recovery or Developmental First Grade. The researcher examined DRA reading scores during the first and second grade and STAR reading scores from second grade through middle school for students in a rural public school district in Northeastern…

This article addresses the effects of 3-tiered comprehensive reading and behavior interventions on K-3 student outcomes in 7 urban elementary schools with a high prevalence of students considered difficult to teach. Specific features of each level of the implementation are described including screening and tier placement procedures, scheduling and…

This study provided 5 weeks of direct strategy instruction about narrative elements and relations in 4 first-grade classrooms (n = 83), all with materials that made minimal decoding demands on children's reading. Two comparison classrooms (n = 40) received comparable instruction on language development and poetry. A battery of assessments given at…

The purpose of this study was to contribute to and strengthen previous work that examined the long-lasting effects of Reading Recovery in statewide efforts aimed at bolstering early literacy achievement and reducing early learning difficulties. Specifically, the study explored the literacy achievement of Reading Recovery participants whose series…

Mindfulness is the cognitive propensity to be aware of what is happening in the moment without judgment or attachment to any particular outcome. This concept flies in the face of modern, Western philosophical outcomes-based thinking about events and activities. This article presents results of a formative evaluation of whether participation in a…