Amanda Inns and colleagues from Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education have completed a research review on effective programs for struggling readers in elementary schools. A total of 61 studies of 48 programs met study inclusion standards. 84% were randomized experiments and 16% quasi-experiments. Results showed that: There were positive outcomes for one-to-one tutoring and positive but not as large for one-to-small group tutoring. There were no differences in outcomes between teachers and teaching assistants as tutors. Whole-class approaches (mostly cooperative learning) and whole-school approaches incorporating tutoring obtained outcomes for struggling readers as large as those found for one-to-one tutoring, and benefitted many more students. However, technology-supported adaptive instruction did not have positive outcomes. The article concludes that approaches mixing classroom and school improvements with tutoring for the most at-risk students have the greatest potential for the largest numbers of struggling readers.   Source (Open Access): Inns, A. J.,...

School climate includes factors that serve as conditions for learning and support physical and emotional safety, connection, support, and engagement, as the U.S. Department of Education suggests. In this study published in School Psychology Quarterly, Bear and colleagues examined how students in China and the U.S. perceive school climate differently and how it relates to their engagement in schools. 3,716 Chinese students from 18 schools in Guangzhou and 4,085 American students from 15 schools in Delaware were compared in this study. All schools were suburban schools or urban schools. The sample of American students was randomly selected from a larger dataset consisting of 37,255 students prepared by the Delaware Department of Education to match the student numbers of the Chinese student sample. Students who participated in this study were from grades 3-5, 7-8 and 10-12. Grade 6 and grade 9 were excluded from this study since students in these two...

Researchers at Child Trends, the Claremont Evaluation Center, and LA’s BEST—a large afterschool program in Los Angeles—have developed a white paper for program leaders, policymakers, and other afterschool stakeholders that examines promising practices for promoting positive youth development in afterschool programs. The research team conducted a review of the literature (limited to meta-analyses) on protective and promotive factors that (1) support positive developmental outcomes among youth, (2) are malleable through intervention, and (3) have direct relevance to the afterschool context. The literature review highlighted four categories of actionable, evidence-informed practices that afterschool program leadership and staff can implement to build protective and promotive factors. The four categories are as follows: Intentional organizational practices: practices that afterschool leadership can purposefully utilize to support the implementation of high-quality programming in afterschool programs (e.g., leadership engages in thoughtful staff hiring, onboarding, and training practices; leadership fosters collaboration among staff and across settings). High-quality learning environments:...

Si Chen and colleagues examined the efficacy of a picture book reading intervention on Uyghur children’s first language (Uyghur) and second language (Mandarin Chinese) learning. This study, supported by the Ministry of Education of China, was the first randomized controlled language education intervention conducted in Xinjiang kindergartens. This study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly followed Uyghur children from 31 classes in 12 kindergartens in two cities of Xinjiang in one year. Among the 265 participating Uyghur children aged 4 to 5 years old, 134 of them participated in the experimental group receiving the Xinjian Project intervention, while 131 of them were allocated to the control group. The intervention design was based on successful strategies learnt from previous book-reading interventions, including using picture books to provide high-quality second language input in reading and discussion, as well as providing a curriculum of vocabulary instruction and teacher training. Chinese-Uyghur bilingual picture books...

Math anxiety is the state of discomfort around the performance of mathematical tasks. Does math anxiety cause poor performance in mathematics, or is it poor performance in mathematics that causes math anxiety? The question is important, because it affects the “treatment” that results. Should the focus be on improving students’ confidence, or their math ability? A review in Frontiers in Psychology considers the evidence supporting the two models – The Deficit Theory, which claims that poor performance leads to high anxiety, or The Debilitating Anxiety Theory, which claims that anxiety reduces performance by affecting the pre-processing, processing, and retrieval of information. The review reveals that the evidence is conflicting – There is research to support the Deficit Theory, with the strongest evidence coming from longitudinal studies and studies of mathematical disabilities. Similarly, there is support for the Debilitating Anxiety Model from studies across all ages that have manipulated anxiety to reveal either...

This practice guide from the What Works Clearinghouse provides five recommendations for improving students’ mathematical problem solving in grades 4 through 8. The guide is geared toward teachers, math coaches, other educators, and curriculum developers who want to improve the mathematical problem solving of students. Recommendations include: Assist students in monitoring and reflecting on the problem-solving process. Teach students how to use visual representations. Expose students to multiple problem-solving strategies. The guide presents evidence-based suggestions for putting each recommendation into practice and describes roadblocks that may be encountered, as well as possible solutions. Each recommendation is rated based on the strength of the research evidence that has shown the effectiveness of the recommendation. The recommendations listed above have strong to moderate evidence of effectiveness.   Source (Open Access): Woodward, J., Beckmann, S., Driscoll, M., Franke, M., Herzig, P., Jitendra, A., …Ogbuehi, P. (2012). Improving mathematical problem solving in grades 4 through 8:...

Which preschool math competencies are most important for later math achievement? A study in Early Childhood Research Quarterly attempts to answer this question for low-income and minority children. The research looked at 781 children who completed the Research-based Early Mathematics Assessment (REMA) in preschool and a further math assessment in fifth grade. The children came from diverse classrooms in New York and Boston, with 53% of the children African-American and 83% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Using state-defined preschool mathematics standards documents, the researchers classified the REMA into a number of domains of mathematical knowledge: Counting and cardinality – basic counting (rote counting, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence) and advanced counting (cardinality, counting forward and back) Patterning – extend and duplicate patterns Geometry – identify, compare, and compose shapes Measurement and data – recognize shapes and identify their attributes by measurement It was found that: All the domains were significantly predictive of later achievement,...

Traditional teaching methods, where the teacher stands at the front and dictates to the class, may be affecting students’ attitudes toward math, suggested by researchers at the University of Manchester. More than 13,000 11- to 16-year-old students and 128 teachers at 40 secondary schools across England were asked to complete questionnaires detailing the kind of activities they experienced in math lessons. The study found that: Traditional activities such as copying the teacher’s notes from the board and being asked questions by the teacher were most frequently cited, ahead of alternative learning approaches such as using media-like magazines and videos in class. Students who reported a more traditional teaching experience in their lessons also named math as their least favorite subject. The results of a review in 2009 from the Johns Hopkins School of Education’s Center for Research and Reform in Education, Effective Programs in Middle and High School Mathematics: A Best-Evidence...

Teachers’ gaze patterns could reveal the different priorities expert teachers and novice teachers might have in their classrooms, according to a recent study published in Learning and Instruction. Using eye-tracking glasses, McIntyre and colleagues investigated how gaze proportions might be different for teachers of different expertise and culture, indicating differences in teachers’ priorities. Twenty secondary school teachers from Hong Kong and twenty secondary school teachers from the United Kingdom participated in this study. Teachers were considered as expert teachers if they had six years’ or more experience, were selected by their school leadership as experts in teaching, had professional membership within the field of teaching, and scored highly in performance ratings. Teachers’ gaze proportions were measured during questioning (information seeking) and lecturing (information giving) in normal timetabled lessons, for their gaze frequencies on the students, student materials, teacher materials and non-instructional regions (such as door, windows). The findings were as...