Recent debates about the utility of teacher education have raised questions about whether certified teachers are, in general, more effective than those who have not met the testing and training requirements for certification, and whether some candidates with strong liberal arts backgrounds might be at least as effective as teacher education…

This study sought to determine the effects of the Junior Great Books program on the higher level thinking skills of gifted/able learners and on interpretive reading skills development. Three groups of students were observed. They consisted of 83 elementary students in 2 experimental groups, all of whom participated in a Junior Great Books program,…

A study examined the effect of the Reading Recovery program on the reading achievement of first-grade students. Subjects, 60 third-grade students in a Chicago public school with 97% Hispanic and 3% White student population, completed the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. Test scores for the 30 students who were tutored using Reading Recovery lessons in…

We report on an evaluation of the effectiveness of Project ARIES, an astronomy-based physical science curriculum for upper elementary and middle school children. ARIES students use innovative, simple, and affordable apparatus to carry out a wide range of indoor and outdoor hands-on, discovery-based activities. Student journals and comprehensive…

This consideration of effective ways to educate low-income, educationally at-risk students in kindergarten documents an approach that has been effective in accelerating academic growth. Results of a longitudinal study of children who received Direct Instruction in primary school indicated benefits when participants were in the ninth grade. (RH)

Processes and outcomes associated with Reading Recovery and Success for All reading instruction programs were studied for first graders in 3 schools (n=184). Reading Recovery strongly benefited tutored students, but Success for All was more beneficial for special education students and untutored students. (SLD)

A growing body of evidence indicates that the test scores of low-income children drop significantly relative to their higher-income counterparts during the summer months. This study finds that a well-implemented summer learning program can improve reading skills and increase the extent to which parents encourage their children to read during the…

Prior to college-level mathematics coursework, students are not routinely provided with the opportunity to engage in the kind of sustained mathematical thinking necessary to solve complex, multistep problems, most likely because of the difficulties that school mathematics teachers face in communicating problem settings and contexts that are…

The Augmenting Thinking through Language Acquisition Skills (ATTLAS) program was designed to increase analytical thinking abilities and English language capabilities of limited English proficient (LEP) elementary school students. The program concentrates on first through third grades, although there are some pull-out classes for grades 4-6; and…

To determine whether the Reading Recovery (RR) program would be more effective if systematic instruction in phonological-recoding skills were incorporated, first-grade at-risk readers were divided into 3 groups of 32 children each (modified RR, standard RR, and standard intervention groups). Reading progress was strongly related to…

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…

A study investigated whether the writing outcomes of first-grade pupils participating in the Writing-to-Read (WTR) program differed significantly from the writing outcomes of pupils in a traditional language arts curriculum (No-WTR). The study also investigated whether differences were attributable to gender, race, socioeconomic status, individual…

Project Special Elementary Education for the Disadvantaged (SEED) is a nationwide program in which professional mathematicians and scientists from universities and research corporations teach conceptually oriented mathematics to full-sized classes of disadvantaged elementary school students as a supplement to their regular mathematics instruction.…

Project Special Elementary Education for the Disadvantaged (Project SEED) is a nationwide program in which mathematicians and scientists from academia and industry teach abstract, conceptually oriented mathematics to full-sized classes of elementary school students as a supplement to their regular arithmetic classes. A Socratic group-discovery…

Project Special Elementary Education for the Disadvantaged (SEED) is a national program in which professional mathematicians and scientists from universities and industry teach abstract, conceptually oriented mathematics to full-sized classes of elementary school children as a supplement to their regular mathematics instruction. In the Dallas…