Preschool Teachers and Children’s Emergent Writing: Supporting Diverse Learners

Early literacy skill development is critical during the preschool years. Under that umbrella is emergent writing, a small but important component of overall literacy development. This article presents two writing strategies: (1) writers’ workshop and (2) dictation within the context of storybook reading that preschool teachers can utilize to target emergent writing development. Modifications for diverse learners are also included throughout.     

Success for All at 27: New Developments in Whole-School Reform

This article presents recent developments in Success for All, a whole-school reform approach for high-poverty schools. These include incorporation of Common Core standards, technology-enhanced methods for teaching and tutoring, and extensive use of video for students and teachers. The strong evidence base and success at scale give the program additional importance in policy.     

Early Learning in CRESPAR

The goal of the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk (CRESPAR) Early Learning program is to ensure that young children reach the 1st grade with the necessary skills and competencies to be effective learners. This goal has been accomplished by 2 integrated areas of research. One area of research focuses on the development of effective practices that promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. A 2nd area of research examines the systemic issues regarding school policies and teachers' beliefs and expectations that affect classroom practices. Over the past 5 years, the CRESPAR Early Learning Program has been conducting research in these areas, which has added to our understanding of how children learn and what teachers think that they can learn.     

Roots & Wings: Effects of Whole-School Reform on Student Achievement

Roots & Wings is a comprehensive reform model for elementary schools. It incorporates all elements of Success for All (Slavin et al., 1996), which includes programs for early childhood, Grades 1-6 reading, writing, and language arts, one-to-one tutoring for primary-grades children struggling in reading, and family support programs. To these it adds MathWings, an approach based on standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and WorldLab, a program for social studies and science emphasizing simulations and group investigations.

Research on Roots & Wings in its pilot sites, 4 schools in rural Maryland, found strong impacts on state performance measures in all subjects in Grades 3 and 5 as long as the program was being implemented. When funding cuts and a change of superintendents ended the intervention, test score gains leveled out, although scores were still ahead of baseline. A study in a Texas school found substantial gains on Texas state assessments in reading, writing, and math.     

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION AND PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION IN CAMPUS‐BASED CHILD DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY PROGRAMS

ABSTRACT

In an undergraduate families and communities course situated at a university in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico, early childhood majors have used Black feminist thought combined with photovoice to generate projects that explore family and community experiences with power and oppression. As a professor, teaching assistant, and student enrolled in the course, we share our conceptualization of Black feminist photovoice, student trends and issues engaging with photovoice throughout the semester, and provide an example culminating project that focuses on colonization. By describing students’ engagement with Black feminist photovoice, we illustrate how transformative spaces can be forged in early childhood teacher education, where students critically examine the struggles and empowerment of marginalized communities, and generate possibilities to serve as agents of social justice and change.     

Guardians of tradition: presentations of inclusion in three introductory special education textbooks

Textbooks contain information. They also contain attitudes, beliefs and values that are conveyed covertly through a variety of mechanisms such as the use of language, the choice of topic inclusion or exclusion, the focus on certain aspects of an issue, the simultaneous omission of other aspects, and other strategies. This paper analyses discussions of inclusion and ‘full’ inclusion in three best‐selling textbooks in the US college market. To analyse the texts, I employ Brantlinger’s method of ideological critique, which applied Thompson’s strategies of symbolic construction. Implications highlight the responsibility of teacher educators: (1) to analyse their course material for ideological underpinnings; (2) to teach future educators to develop a critical consciousness; (3) to model how to consider issues from a range of perspectives; and (4) to provide opportunities for future teachers to develop the habit of listening to the viewpoints of people with disabilities and their families.     

Student‐directed learning strategies to promote the progress of students with intellectual disability in inclusive classrooms

Student‐directed learning strategies involve teaching students to modify and regulate their own behaviour. Teaching students to self‐regulate behaviour has been identified as one means of promoting self‐determination, and promoting and enhancing self‐determination has become a valued outcome internationally. In addition, however, student‐directed learning strategies could prove important for including students with disabilities in general education classrooms by reducing the student's dependency upon others in the classroom setting. Four students with intellectual disability were supported to select an educational goal on which they wanted to work and were taught to self‐monitor their progress toward that goal in general education classrooms. Their progress toward the goal was evaluated through data collection activities and by using the Goal Attainment Scaling process. In general, students achieved their self‐selected goals. The potential contribution of student‐directed learning strategies to inclusion and promoting self‐determination are discussed.     

Strategic leadership for large‐scale reform: the case of England's national literacy and numeracy strategy

Both ‘strategic’ and ‘distributed’ forms of leadership are considered promising responses to the demands placed on school systems by large‐scale reform initiatives. Using observation, interview and survey data collected as part of a larger evaluation of England's National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, this study inquired about sources of leadership, the distribution of leadership functions across roles and how such distribution could also provide the strategic coordination necessary for successful implementation of such an ambitious reform agenda