University of Cincinnati

The purpose of this project is to teach complex language skills (that is, how to use information to draw inferences, use and understand syntactic/semantic relationships, and use and understand academic vocabulary) to preschool-age children during interactive book reading, mapping, and hands-on activities using informational texts.

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the impact of a spatial skills training curriculum on mathematics achievement for middle school students. Well-developed spatial skills have been shown to be important to success in a variety of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. However, causal studies showing a link between spatial skills training and future STEM performance represent a significant gap in our understanding of the link between spatial skills and STEM a...

The purpose of this project is to examine writing instruction for kindergarten students and to explore the relationship between writing instruction and writing outcomes for these students. Writing is critical for success in both school and career. The Common Core State Standards emphasize the importance of writing and outlines the skills students at each grade level need to accomplish, and provide a roadmap for writing instruction. However, little is known about what effective writing instru...

Language Impairment (LI) is a common disorder among the school-age population, affecting approximately 7.4 percent of children. Approximately half of the children identified with LI at a young age will go on to be later identified with a reading disability. Young children with impaired language are six times more likely to be identified with a reading disability at school age than non-impaired children. One intervention demonstrating significant and positive effects on preschool children's e...

The purpose of this study is to develop and implement a whole school, sustained, collaborative, and technology-enhanced science professional development program for elementary school teachers (grades 4-6). The program is adapted from a previously successful professional development program with middle school teachers. A national elementary science needs assessment survey of a representative sample of 7,000 elementary teachers nationwide found that 79% of them reported a lack of content know...

At the time of this project, many middle school students were not meeting state minimum standards in science. In this project, the researchers proposed to design and test the potential efficacy of a professional development program for middle school science teachers with an emphasis on improving the science achievement of Latino students.