Examining the Impact and School‐Level Predictors of Impact Variability of an 8th Grade Reading Intervention on At‐Risk Students’ Reading Achievement

The purpose of the present article is to report on a large‐scale investigation of six school districts’ implementation of an initiative aimed at reducing dropout rates by improving reading achievement in the middle grades. Data for the Middle School Intervention Project (MSIP) were collected in 25 middle schools across the state of Oregon. We examined (a) the degree to which the schools improved reading achievement for struggling readers in 8th grade, and (b) whether we could account for school differences in the treatment effect through measured explicit and intensive intervention factors. At the end of 8th grade there was no evidence of significant or positive effects on the two primary reading outcome measures.     

Human-based social interaction can reward a rat’s behavior

Rats were trained to leverpress in a conventional operant test chamber; however, their behavior was rewarded solely by social interaction with a human being. This training was successful for half the subjects tested; success was confined to animals for which social interaction had occurred prior to training. Similar findings with other species are discussed. Although the effects of social interaction with a human are by no means as robust as those of food to a hungry animal, the present results suggest that the human-rat interaction may be a positive adjunct to conventional behavioral training techniques, and a possible confound where its effects are uncontrolled.     

How immediate is language understanding? Investigating reading in real time

Oral and silent reading was studied for moving-window text displayed on a computer screen. Experiment 1 investigated whether local linguistic properties of text being read aloud affect speed in performing a dual task or the distance which a reader's voice lags behind the text seen. Regression analyses showed that choice reaction time during reading is not predicted by any linguistic properties of the immediate text considered, and that these properties instead predict a measure of eye-voice span. Experiment 2 investigated whether, in silent reading, reference is assigned to expressions in text while, or after, they are being viewed. In nearly all contexts, readers were observed to confirm that a given character in a story was being referred to only after the source expression in text had passed out of view. In general, the results tend to speak against an hypothesis about reading which holds that a reader completes processing of an expression in text while still looking at it.     

School-wide Positive Behavior Support: Addressing Behavior Problems that Impede Student Learning

The school-wide application of positive behavior support (PBS) is a prevention-oriented approach to student discipline that is characterized by its focus on defining and teaching behavioral expectations, rewarding appropriate behaviors, continual evaluation of its effectiveness, and the integration of supports for individuals, groups, the school as a whole, and school/family/community partnerships. Although school-wide PBS has been implemented in hundreds of schools thus far, many professionals in education and psychology remain, for the most part, unfamiliar with this proactive alternative for increasing positive student behavior. This article reviews the foundations and core components of school-wide PBS, provides a case example of the implementation and preliminary evaluation of school-wide PBS in an urban middle school, and summarizes critical issues and future research directions in this area of considerable importance to professionals in educational psychology and related fields.