<p>A Response-to-Intervention (RTI) model of educational service delivery is a multi-tiered, preventative approach designed to meet the educational and behavioral needs of all learners. While the New York State (NYS) Department of Education has mandated the use of this model in grades K&ndash;4, the extent to which RTI competencies are taught within teacher training programs is unclear. Therefore, examination of pre-service teachers' perceptions of RTI knowledge and skills, as well as their perceptions about the amount of focus on RTI skills within training programs was conducted. Participants were recruited from NYS-approved undergraduate teacher training programs leading to certification birth to grade six. Results indicated that pre-service teachers hold a positive view of the RTI model. More specifically, respondents reported high levels of self-confidence in consultation and collaboration skills, combined with moderate levels of self-confidence in teaching and intervention skills. Assessment and data-based decision making skills, including interpretation of universal screening and progress monitoring data, identification of reading skill deficits, and selection of interventions were rated the lowest. Respondents rated higher levels of self-confidence related to the use of general teaching principles compared to knowledge of reading development or the selection and implementation of interventions for at-risk learners. Additionally, participants from TEAC-accredited programs reported significantly higher perceptions about the RTI model than those from NCATE-accredited programs. Lastly, participants seeking a dual certification (i.e., general and special education) reported receiving significantly greater focus on RTI concepts within the training program than respondents enrolled in programs leading to only general or special education certification. Implications for research and practice are provided. </p>

<p> With increased dependence on computer-based standardized tests to assess academic achievement, technological literacy has become an essential skill. Yet, because students have unequal access to technology, they may not have equal opportunities to perform well on these computer-based tests. </p><p> The researcher had observed students taking the STAR Reading test (Renaissance Learning, 2009) and noticed a variance in scores in relation to classroom performance. The researcher intended, therefore, to explore variables that may affect the performance of students on a computer-based reading assessment. The researcher tested two different technology-related variables as students took a summative exam, the STAR Reading test. The purpose of this study was to explore how changes in visual stimuli affected the process of reading and student reading behavior. This quantitative study sought to ascertain whether changing the computer read-out to a black screen with white lettering made a difference in student engagement and comprehension among students in grades two through six during a computer-based adaptive test. </p><p> The research site was one K-6 elementary school in a large suburban school district. The participants of the study were 316 children in grades two through six. One hundred and sixteen students were randomly sampled for student engagement data analysis. The researcher conducted a stratified random process to further select data for analysis. Students were exposed to both color display background variables throughout the study process. Teacher observers collected tallies on student engagement behaviors during the test-taking process. </p><p> The researcher calculated the mean level of student engagement on each of five observed behaviors. The researcher also collected reading comprehension data for five subsequent benchmark sessions throughout the year. The engagement results of this study failed to support the hypothesis, which stated that elementary student behaviors during testing would verify a measureable difference in engagement when either a black or white display screen was presented. The results of the reading comprehension test also failed to support the hypothesis, which stated that there would be a measureable difference in elementary students' scores while taking computer-based tests when the computer screen was set to either black or white background.</p>

<p> Schools today continue to intensify the need to find effective interventions for students who are at risk for reading failure. Many have turned to a multi-tiered Response to Intervention (Rtl) model to provide reading interventions that will assist educators in improving reading outcomes. This one-group pretest-posttest design study examined the relationship between participation in Rtl reading intervention and reading outcomes among 117 students grouped in a Tier 2 reading intervention. Using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) Next reading assessment composite scores, I analyzed reading change for three benchmark time periods for the 2012-2013 school year. Results from descriptive statistics, <i>t</i>-test measures, and a multiple regression analysis produced positive results. The majority of students (95%) participating in a Tier 2 reading intervention demonstrated statistically significant growth in reading outcomes with a reading change mean of 95.93 points regardless of their gender, English learner status, or free and reduced-price lunch status. Improvement in reading outcomes occurred in all three designated time periods measured. This quantitative study indicates that the majority of students who participated in Rtl reading interventions improved reading outcomes from the beginning of the year to the end of the year and made gains in closing the achievement gap for reading.</p>

<p> Students today are spending a significant amount of time engaged in media activity, yet even with an increase of e-reader compatible smart devices, reading has not increased in popularity among elementary school age children. It is critical that students spend time engaged in meaningful reading activities to become proficient readers. Thus, as educators of these 21^st century learners, we must find a way to increase reader motivation and bridge the gap between home leisure activities and school activities. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of reading enhanced e-books on the iPad vs. traditional storybooks with regard to motivation to read, reading comprehension and fluency. Qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were used, over a period of four weeks with 22 first grade student participants. The results of this study suggested that e-books are more appealing than traditional print books and as equally appealing, if not more appealing to students than educational apps. By the end of the study, all students were fluently reading books at least one guided reading level higher. The results from this study showed that students benefited from the combination of e-books and traditional storybooks, with this method resulting in increased fluency and comprehension among readers.</p>

<p> This mixed methodology study investigated the arts integration practices of music teaching artists participating in four selected elementary school arts integration projects in the United States. This study also explored the possibility that music teaching artists&rsquo; formal education, arts integration training and professional development, and their own attitudes as well as different stakeholders&rsquo; attitudes about arts integration and music education impacted their arts integration practices. The explanatory two-phase design of this study began with the collection and analysis of quantitative data and was followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data, thus connecting the results from the former to those from the latter. The quantitative data provided information for purposefully selecting the interview participants who provided the qualitative data collection in phase two.</p><p> The data gathered in this study indicate that the music teaching artists shared similar beliefs about arts integration but that they believed their school leaders&rsquo; goals and objectives differed from their own. The data also provided evidence for concluding that the music teaching artists believe that the most successful arts integration projects are those that are collaborative partnerships between an arts specialist or classroom teacher and a teaching artist. A unexpected finding in this study was the teaching and exploration of <i>sound</i> in arts integration projects team taught between a sound teaching artist,&ndash;some without musical backgrounds or formal training&ndash;a music teaching artist, and a classroom teacher.</p><p> The statistical analysis in this study regarding the degree to which formal education, arts integration professional development and training, music teaching artists&rsquo; attitudes about arts integration, and the beliefs held by music teaching artists regarding school leaders&rsquo; and their arts organization&rsquo;s administrators&rsquo; attitudes about arts integration were predictors of the arts integration practices as self-reported by music teaching artists produced results that were non-significant.</p><p> The content analysis of curriculum documents and student products submitted by the study participants revealed information to support the findings from the interview and survey data.</p>

<p> In this qualitative study, comprised of interviews and observations, I explore how discourses of disability circulating within the epistemologies and practices of four general education teachers at two different public elementary schools. Utilizing a Foucauldian lens, I am particularly interested in how these teachers responded to the power/knowledge claims asserted through the dominant medicalized discourse of disability institutionally employed and deployed through special education and the public school system writ large. Moreover, I have looked for acts of resistance, or in the parlance of Foucault (1983), "modes of action," recognizing that the formation of resistance is both a precondition and consequence of the exercising of power, and that power is the medium through which social change occurs. </p><p> In one of the schools, Taft, I encountered a school culture in which the institutional and discursive authority of special education and a medicalized discourse appeared deeply entrenched in the school culture encasing teachers, administrators and children within a network of power relations. This network discursively produced children identified with disabilities as unable to learn in general education classrooms, and general education teachers as unable to teach all children. Within this environment, opportunities for interrogation and resistance were nullified. In the other school, Bedford, I encountered a school culture in which the institutional and discursive authority of special education and a medicalized discourse appeared diminished, absent the institutional authority of special education. In its stead, appeared an internal bureaucratic discourse of assessment and accountability, concerned primarily with issues of compliance. With instruction and classroom management discursively organized, teachers were produced as officers of compliance, mobilized as agents in the discursive production of docile and compliant children. </p><p> Yet, with a weak administration and in the absence of an institutionalized special education apparatus within the school, I posit that at Bedford a localized alternative discourse circulated within the school, and that opportunities for interrogation and resistance arose in particular classrooms, with particular teachers, and in particular moments of time. However, despite an apparent disassociation from a medicalized discourse at Bedford, escaping the underlying assumptions of the medicalized discourse proved unreachable, if not impossible, and it continued to shape classroom teachers, and their notions of disability and inclusion as well as their perceptions and interactions with special education.</p>

<p>The study used an embedded qualitative, historical, explanatory, case study design with a dominant quantitative, quasi-experimental pre-post, longitudinal, retrospective design. The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of Ludus Reading&mdash;a new reading program&mdash;in terms of kindergarten students&rsquo; reading perceptions and performance between the control and experimental group addressing the problem of illiteracy and aliteracy. Study participants included 73 kindergarten students. The results of the study were statistically significant (alpha = .05). The null hypothesis H1 was rejected (<i>F</i> (1,70)=15.01, <i>p</i> &lt;. 001). Consequently, the experimental group had higher means on KDRA2 (<i>M</i>=9.25, <i> SD</i>=5.11) than the control group (<i>M</i>=5.07, <i> SD</i>=4.25). The null hypothesis H2 was rejected (<i>F</i> (1,69)=6268.69, Wilks Lambda=0.68, <i>p</i> &lt; .001). Therefore, the experimental group had higher means on KDIBELS NWF-CLS (<i>M</i>=53.31, <i> SD</i>=21.51) than the control group (<i>M</i>=32.20, <i> SD</i>=18.99). The sub-null hypotheses were retained, signifying that moderating factors, gender and speech language services, did not influence the students&rsquo; reading performance. Qualitative data from learning profiles were explored, and emerging themes indicated that the experimental group enjoyed reading more than the control group because students from the experimental group used more descriptive emotion words to describe reading, and expressed a higher intensity level of enjoyment. </p>

<p> Elementary teachers educating both students with and without disabilities require access to effective, easily implemented classroom management techniques to address challenging behaviors. One such intervention is a contingency contract. A review of literature suggests that contracts are implemented for students experiencing challenges with academic and social behaviors both with and without formally diagnosed disabilities in general and special education settings. However, there was little consideration of the social significance of behaviors, and contract goals were not often set according to behaviors of comparison peers. The purpose of the current study examined the effects of contingency contracts on engagement for three students in an elementary general education classroom for three participants exhibiting high rates of disengaged behavior during instruction. Contingency contracts were written with consideration of social significance and function of behavior, preference surveys, observation of comparison peers to set goals, and reinforcement for desired behaviors. Using an ABAB withdrawal design, duration of engagement and frequency of instances of engagement were both recorded. Experimental effects were observed when participants&rsquo; duration of engagement increased and frequency of engagements decreased while under contract. The results suggest that contingency contracts can successfully be implemented to increase a desired behavior (engagement) with students in the general education classroom. Implications and future research directions immediately follow a discussion of the results.</p>

<p> The academic achievement gap between African American and Caucasian students continues to be a major concern for policymakers and educators. This gap started to shrink in the 1970s and 1980s with integration, but the 1990s showed the achievement gap was on the rise again. The characteristics of the neighborhoods where children live and attend school have a great impact on their academic performances. This research study examined the relationship between poverty, community violence and the academic performance of elementary school age children, especially African American students. Seventy-eight public elementary schools were randomly chosen in Los Angeles County that had at least 10% African American students who completed the reading achievement test in each primary grade level (2-5 grade levels) in April 2012. The results showed that poverty and community violence had a significant negative impact on reading achievement test scores for African American students. Furthermore, the impact of community violence was twice that of poverty on academic performance. On the other hand, Caucasian students&rsquo; test scores were significantly impacted by poverty and not community violence. One explanation for this difference was that African American students experienced twice as much community violence in their neighborhoods as compared to Caucasian students. Since educators cannot change neighborhood characteristics, they need to focus on developing educational models that mitigate the impact of community violence and trauma on African American students.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-06, Section: A, page: 2416. Adviser: Sarah McCarthey. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-175) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.