Pacific Institutes for Research

In this project, the researchers proposed to design a read-aloud intervention to enhance first-grade children's vocabulary, use of comprehension strategies, and complex thinking about text. The researchers on the project contended that explicit teaching of these skills was necessary to develop reading proficiency. However, in the early 2000s, most first-grade teachers spend substantial time reading aloud to their classrooms but not explicitly teaching comprehension skills (retelling a story,...

In this project, the researchers proposed to test the effectiveness of the Read Aloud Curriculum, which they had developed under a previous IES grant (R305G020057), and to investigate factors that count for its impact. This first-grade read-aloud curriculum was designed to expose children to narrative and expository text and to provide instruction about the structural elements of text, key vocabulary, and how to make connections across related texts. Although much reading instruction in firs...

Providing high quality reading instruction to English language learners in the early grades is one of the most challenging and increasingly demanding instructional issues facing schools. Often, schools are turning to the use of comprehensive reading programs to support students, including English language learners who are at-risk for reading failure. However, the use of core reading programs typically requires substantial, and sometimes time-consuming, modifications to support the reading ac...

In recent years, low levels of mathematics performance have been found among U.S. students in relation to national standards and in international comparisons. Signs of these problems appear early in students' schooling. Unless these differences are addressed as early as kindergarten, they are likely to persist and become more difficult to remediate over time. One approach to improving achievement is to deliver effective instructional programs to all students as they enter school. Few experim...

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) was authorized as part of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The program provided grants to states for the purposes of preventing students' use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit substances as well as to prevent violence in and around schools. SDFSCA was funded at close to $295 million in Fiscal Year 2009. This study sought to inform the SDFSCA by providing rigorous evidence on the impacts of a violence prevention p