Schools have an obligation to assess the literacy skills of their students, and the provision of reading instruction to students includes the ability to measure progress in this area. However, the design of reading tests includes the ability not only to read words, but also the ability to verbalise them. This presents a particular challenge for…

Writing is used for various purposes: to accomplish political agendas, build relationships, assert identities, positioning texts as meaningful beyond printed letters on a page. Therefore, teaching children to write is a cultural practice, an invitation to enter into a larger community where identities are created, practiced, and re-imagined using…

In English, gains in decoding skill do not map directly onto increases in word reading. However, beyond the Self-Teaching Hypothesis, little is known about the transfer of decoding skills to word reading. In this study, we offer a new approach to testing specific decoding elements on transfer to word reading. To illustrate, we modeled word-reading…

This study examined the effectiveness of Zipfian frequency at facilitating the acquisition of English prenominal past participles. Chinese middle school students (N = 103) were randomly assigned to a sequenced Zipfian frequency (SZF) group, a random Zipfian frequency (RZF) group, a balanced frequency (BF) group, and a control group. A mixed…

With increasingly tight budgets, many public school districts lack research personnel to evaluate program efficacy or investigate best practices that raise student achievement. We highlight an example of a successful university-district partnership that offers district-driven research support while providing opportunities for practitioner-scholars…

Increasing standardized test scores and identifying factors that impact student performance are always on the minds of educators. Educators are continually challenged by experts to consider professional learning communities (PLCs) as a viable pathway to school reform. This treatise will report on the results of a quantitative research study…

This study examined the academic impact in reading and mathematics when Collaborative, Co-Teaching Team Model of high incidence special education student service delivery implemented in a suburban school district. This study hypothesized that the implementation of an inclusive collaborative co-teaching model of service delivery could possibly…

Accelerated Reader™ is a computerized supplementary reading program that provides guided reading instruction to students in grades K-12. It aims to improve students' reading skills through reading practice and by providing frequent feedback on students' progress to teachers. The Accelerated Reader™ program requires students to select and read a…

The federal government has allotted funding to a local education agency for the purpose of assisting migrant students in receiving a high quality education and performing at-least at proficiency level on state standardized test, but there remains some debate concerning whether or not there have been improvements. Migrant students are facing many…

This study investigates the relationships between test takers' metacognitive and cognitive strategy use through a questionnaire and their test performance on an English as a Foreign Language reading test. A total of 593 Chinese college test takers responded to a 38-item metacognitive and cognitive strategy questionnaire and a 50-item reading test.…

Comprehension tests often compare accuracy on inferential versus literal questions and find inferential harder than literal, and poor comprehenders performing worse than controls. Difficulties in integration are assumed to be the reason. This research explores another reason--differences in memory for the passage information underlying the…

Most of the world is multilingual--multilingual at the national level (policies), at the community and family level (practices), and at the individual level (cognitive)--and each of these has implications for teaching and learning. Yet, at present, most reading decisions are not based on empirical research of how children learn to read in…

This technical report documents findings from a study of the internal consistency and split-half reliability of the easyCBM© CCSS Reading measures, grades 3-8. Data, drawn from an extant data set gathered in school year 2013-2014, include scores from over 150,000 students' fall and winter benchmark assessments. Findings suggest that the easyCBM©…

Under Texas Administrative Code (TAC) §89.1225(h), districts are required to use the exit criteria represented in the chart titled "2013-2014 English Proficiency Exit Criteria Chart" found at (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=4098) to exit English language learners (ELLs) from bilingual/ESL programs. The exit criteria under TAC…

This study examined the similarities and differences in the functioning of component processes underlying first language (L1) and second language (L2) word reading in Chinese. Fourth-grade Chinese children in Singapore were divided into L1 and L2 reader groups based on whether they used Mandarin or English as their home language. Both groups were…