University of California, Irvine
Associated IES Content
Grant
Investigating the Impact of the LETRS Program on Teacher Knowledge, Instructional Practice, and Student Literacy Outcomes
In this study, the researchers will examine the effect of a teacher professional development program in literacy called Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). LETRS is a fully developed, commercially available, and widely used professional development program to support literacy (language, reading, writing) outcomes. LETRS is based on data from Lexia, the publisher and provider of LETRS. Approximately 450,000 educators in the U.S. have used LETRS between 2019 and 2...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A240315
Grant
Harnessing AI to Train Mindsets for Mathematical Higher Order Thinking
In this project, the researchers will develop and pilot test a digital technology-based classroom supplement that uses a trained generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology to improve grade 5 and 6 students' curriculum learning as well as train their attention to notice and attend to higher order thinking (HOT) opportunities within mathematics instruction. This tool will build upon the researchers' prior IES-funded work (R305A190467) that found the more students engage linguistically ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A240287
Grant
Meta-analysis of College Writing Interventions on Writing and Learning Outcomes
In this project, the researchers aim to inform postsecondary writing instruction and interventions in college and university setting by conducting a meta-analysis of prior impact studies. Many college faculty indicate that their students do not have appropriate writing skills to be successful in their courses, and many 2- and 4-year institutions of higher education require basic writing courses for students. Writing difficulties are compounded for students who are domestic or international E...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A240295
Grant
WORDS (Workshop on Reading Development Strategies) for Pandemic Recovery in Nebraska
The purpose of this project is to evaluate Workshop on Reading Development Strategies (WORDS), a comprehensive professional development (PD) program for teachers designed to support implementation of Tier 2 intensive interventions in reading for students with or at risk for reading disabilities in grades K-3. Many Nebraska schools have indicated that students with reading difficulties, especially those with cognitive or intellectual disabilities, have been disproportionately impacted by the ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R324X220115
Grant
Exploring Noncredit CTE Program Factors that Strengthen Workforce Pipelines
This project will explore malleable factors within postsecondary noncredit career technical education (CTE) programs that may influence students' academic and workforce outcomes. Despite the increasing role of noncredit CTE programs in workforce development, few research studies have addressed these programs, and very little is known about how to effectively support students enrolled in short-term CTE programs. Building on a long-standing partnership with the Virginia Community College Syste...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220224
Grant
Career Pathways for Research in Learning and Education, Analytics and Data Science (CP-LEADS)
The Career Pathways for Research in Learning and Education, Analytics and Data Science (CP-LEADS) at the University of California, Irvine (UC-Irvine) is designed to provide undergraduate juniors and seniors with experiences in conducting education research while preparing participants for doctoral study.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B210006
Grant
Developing A2i Spanish Adaptive Progress Monitoring Assessments for PK-3rd Grade
The purpose of this project is to create a complementary Spanish version of the psychometrically robust English Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) computer adaptive, progress monitoring assessments. The new instrument will be called A2i-Adquisición de Lectura en Español (A2i-ALE) and it will be 1) validated with a gold standard measure of Spanish literacy skills; 2) psychometrically comparable to the A2i English assessments, monitoring language and literacy learning in both languages; 3) able...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210136
Grant
Personalizing Literacy Instruction for English Learners
With growing numbers of English learners (ELs) in the U.S., there is a need to better understand how to support their literacy development during the early grades so that they can succeed academically. Three aims of this project are to: 1) examine the nature of literacy instruction in kindergarten through third grade EL classrooms; 2) examine child characteristics by instruction interaction effects on ELs' later language and literacy outcomes; and 3) investigate how the Assessment-to-Instruc...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210077
Grant
Developing Theory- and Evidence-based Oral Language Intervention: Integrated Multi-Component Oral Development for Literacy (iMODEL)
In this project, the research team will develop and examine the feasibility, usability, and potential promise of a multi-component oral language comprehension intervention called iMODEL (Integrated Multi-component Oral Development for Language and Literacy). iMODEL is designed for small group instruction for kindergartners with below-average oral language skills. This intervention targets multiple skills that contribute to listening comprehension such as foundational knowledge (vocabulary, g...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200312
Grant
Project VIEW (Visual Impairments Education in Writing)
The purpose of this study is to examine how a set of malleable teacher-level factors is related to the writing instruction practices of teachers of students with visual impairment (TVIs) and the general education teachers with whom they work, as well as the writing outcomes of students with visual impairment (VI). The teacher-level factors include preparation to teach writing, preparation to teach students with VI, beliefs and expectations about writing among students with VI, and collaborat...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R324A220270
Cooperative agreement
WRITE Center for Secondary Students: Writing Research to Improve Teaching and Evaluation
In an information society and knowledge economy, writing is a ubiquitous requirement for full civic and workforce participation. The evolution to more source-based, analytic writing can be seen in current educational standards and assessments, including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS); Next Generation Science Standards; and College, Career, and Civic Life Framework. Recent national education statistics indicate that U.S. students are not prepared to meet the challenges of this complex...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C190007
Grant
Designing Crowdsourced Mentorship to Support Low-Income High School Students' College Enrollment
This partnership will develop and test a mentorship model for extending advising to college-accepted high school graduates during the summer months after graduation. Prior research has documented a pattern of "summer melt" in which motivated and academically-prepared high school graduates who have been accepted to college decide not to enroll in college. Summer melt is especially prevalent among low-income, African American, and Latinx students. Through prior research, the partnership team i...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H180051
Grant
What Does It Take to Develop Writing Skills for Spanish-speaking English Learners? A Longitudinal Examination of Co-development of Language, Cognitive, and Writing Skills
Writing remains a challenging and understudied skill for all students, including Spanish-English emergent bilingual learners. Although research has produced considerable information about reading for Spanish-English emergent bilingual learners, less is known about the component skills of writing for these students. The purpose of this study was to identify linguistic, cognitive, and transcription factors that contribute to writing development for Spanish-English emergent bilingual learners b...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180055
Grant
Developing Electronic-Books to Build Elementary Students' Word Knowledge, Comprehension Monitoring, and Reading Comprehension
In this project, researchers will develop and test a series of digital books that embed strategies to improve word knowledge, comprehension monitoring, metacognitive skills, and overall reading comprehension for students in grades 3 to 5. While Kindles, iBooks, tablets, and electronic-books have become ubiquitous and offer affordances and have strong potential to improve readers' understanding, little content has been developed specifically for educational settings and few technologies provi...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170163
Grant
SRSD+: Development of a Powerful Writing Program for Children in Grades 1 and 2
In this project, researchers will develop and test the promise of a writing intervention called SRSD+ for children in grades 1 and 2. SRSD+ will be an adaptation of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), a writing instruction approach that has been shown to be effective for improving writing outcomes for students in upper elementary and secondary school grades. Many students have difficulty writing by the time they get to upper elementary school, and research shows that oral language, t...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170113
Grant
It's Worth It! Securing Persistence, Performance and Progress within Postsecondary Gateway Science Courses through Utility Value Interventions
Postsecondary students in gateway physics and chemistry may struggle to succeed in their courses and persist in their majors for reasons beyond just the difficulty of the subject matter. Previous research with postsecondary biology students found that helping students see the utility of their studies increased their persistence, leading to better academic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend that work, focusing on physics and chemistry students. Additionally, the s...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170160
Grant
Optimizing Learning Opportunities for Students' (OLOS) Early Learning Observation System
A Research Network involves several teams of researchers who are working together to address a critical education problem or issue. The objective is to build new knowledge, encourage information sharing, and assist policymakers and practitioners to strengthen education policies and programs and improve student education outcomes. Members of the Early Learning Network will identify malleable factors that support early learning from preschool through early elementary school grades. They will a...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N160050
Grant
Digital Scaffolding for English Language Arts
In this project, researchers will examine the efficacy of Visual Syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF), a technology for reformatting text to make it easier to understand, on 7th and 8th grade students' reading and writing outcomes. Students are expected to read and understand more and more complex texts as they get older, and many of these texts are complicated both in their language and their structure. One way to help students better understand the complex text they read is to adjust the print...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A150429
Grant
Exploring Effective Reading Comprehension Instruction: Classroom Practice, Teacher, and Student Characteristics
In general, instructional approaches for improving reading comprehension are not as well developed as are those for decoding. As of 2013, most recent studies had focused on improving reading comprehension in the upper elementary years and beyond, but these have often not shown significant effects. The purpose of this project was to identify aspects of effective instruction in reading comprehension instruction that predict students' reading comprehension gains in first, second, and third grad...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160399
Grant
Making Individualized Literacy Instruction Available to All Teachers: Adapting the Assessment to Instruction (A2i) Software for Multiple Real-World Contexts
The purpose of this project is to complete development of Assessment to Instruction (A2i) software, which is an integral part of the Individualizing Student Instruction (ISI) intervention. A2i was originally developed and funded under an earlier IES grant (Child Instruction Interactions in Early Reading: Examining Causal Effects of Individualized Instruction) as a research tool to compute recommended amounts and types of instruction taking into account that the effect of specific types of re...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160404
Grant
Academic Language and Writing for Children in Kindergarten to Fourth Grade—A Longitudinal Study
Writing is an important skill for communication and self-expression in school and in the workforce, but the majority of students in the United States do not write at a proficient level. Some research has suggested that early precursors to writing may be identifiable, and theory suggests oral language may be one such precursor. However, there has been very little systematic examination of association between oral language and writing development. Further, academic (or decontextualized) langua...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160408
Grant
Postdoctoral Training Program on Human Capital Interventions in Development
This program trained four postdoctoral fellows in a variety of methodological techniques within studies that explored the effects of education interventions across childhood and adolescence.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B120013
Grant
Development of Oral and Silent Reading Fluency and Their Relation with Reading Comprehension in First Through Third Grade Students
Despite the recognized importance of reading fluency for reading comprehension development, research has tended to focus on oral reading fluency with little knowledge of how silent reading fluency develops over time and how to best support children during the transition from oral to silent reading. The goals of this study were to: (1) explore development of oral and silent reading fluency (including reading prosody) and their relation with reading comprehension for first through third grade ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A150589
Grant
Spatial Temporal Mathematics at Scale: An Innovative and Fully-Developed Paradigm to Boost Math Achievement Among All Learners
In typical instruction, elementary school students experience math concepts and solve mathematics problems through language and symbol minimized representations. The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of Spatial Temporal Math (ST Math™) in improving student achievement in mathematics as measured by standardized tests in grades 2 through 5, and to ascertain if the program has differential effects for subgroups of students. This fully developed instructional software includes ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A090527
Grant
Preschool Program Impacts on School Readiness; Variation by Prior Child Language and Attention Skills, and the Quality of Infant/Toddler Care
The purpose of the study is to learn whether the achievement gap separating children of low-income and higher income families can be substantially reduced by high quality preschool care alone, or whether preschool participation must be combined with high-quality infant/toddler care to reduce the gap. This research project will examine whether the advantages of preschool for school readiness differ depending on children's initial language and attention skills, and whether infant care followe...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A090467
Grant
The Pathway Project: A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for Teachers of Secondary English Language Learners
Through this project, researchers planned to replicate an impact study of an existing, successful professional development program based on a reading and writing intervention designed to enhance the higher level academic literacy of secondary (high school) English language learners (ELs). The researchers' objective was to improve the practices of classroom teachers in ways that positively impact student learning and school achievement.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305W060016
External Person
Katherine Rhodes
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