Education Commons^™

Great Books For Late Summer Reading, Terrell A. Young, Barbara A. Ward

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

For decades now, reading experts have expressed concern that the competence gained by struggling readers during the academic year is lost during the summer months. While academic enrichment and remediation programs can reduce that loss, one of the best practices to build better readers is by having them read during breaks from school. At least one study clearly supports this suggestion. In his study of 1,600 elementary students in the mid-Atlantic area, researcher James Kim (2009) found that regardless of previous achievement level or race or socioeconomic level, children who read more books performed better on reading comprehension tests in …

Teaching To The Test: How Federal Mandates Affect Elementary Educators’ Teaching Styles, Ashley R. Vande Corput

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Recent mandates created by the federal government have placed a large emphasis on standardized testing in elementary schools. Educators now face the challenge of how to best prepare their students for these tests. In this qualitative case study research project, I collected data from four third grade teachers to determine how recent governmental laws impact their teaching styles; in this article I tell the story of two of those teachers. Interviews and classroom observations were conducted in a medium-sized, public elementary school outside a large metropolitan city in the Southeast. Preferred and perceived teaching styles as reported by the teachers …

Establishment And Maintenance Of Academic Optimism In Michigan Elementary Schools: Academic Emphasis, Faculty Trust Of Students And Parents, Collective Efficacy, Jill Van Hof

Dissertations

In response to heightened standards and calls for accountability, schools have dramatically intensified their work to meet the growing challenges. Schools require strategies for improvement that will transcend demographic factors such as SES. Research has shown the construct of academic optimism as contributing to student achievement despite a school’s socio-economic status (Goddard, LoGerfo, & Hoy, 2004; Goddard, Sweetland, & Hoy, 2000; Hoy, 2002; Hoy & Miskel, 2005; Hoy & Sabo, 1998; Hoy & Tarter, 1997; Hoy, Tarter, & Kottkamp, 1991; Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk, 2006; McGuigan & Hoy, 2006; Smith & Hoy, 2001; Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000).

There exists, …

Dialogic Conversations In An Embedded Literacy Assessment Field Experience, Lucy Spence, Amy Donnally, Amy Johnson Lachuk, Marcie Ellerbe

Faculty Publications

Preservice teachers often come into teacher education programs with a positivist view of assessment, which may have developed during their own schooling experiences. For this reason, purposefully constructed course work and field experiences must be offered to enable them reframe their conceptions of literacy assessment and to complicate the assessment practices that have become most familiar to them. This paper examines a course in which, the aim is to intentionally counter the positivist testing culture and invest in helping preservice teachers understand assessment as a multi-faceted, dynamic process of inquiry.