Teachers spend most of their time in school in classrooms, and their instruction and teaching practices may be affected by classroom context such as class size. We examine whether teacher effects interact with classroom context such as class size. Specifically, we seek to determine whether teacher effects are more pronounced in small classes than…

In this paper, we report on 2 studies developing, testing, and using an observation tool for measuring primary literacy instruction, the Developing Language and Literacy Teaching (DLLT) rubrics. In Study 1 (an instrumentation study), we show that the DLLT has a high level of internal consistency, that there are high levels of inter-rater…

Using data from the U.S. Department of Education's (2000) "Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99" (ECLS-K), this study investigates the relationship between school efforts to engage parents, average socioeconomic status (SES) of families within a school, and kindergarteners' end-of-year reading and…

The current study examines the impact of alternative education on children's early school engagement in terms of school enjoyment and independent participation. A sample of 2,776 children from traditional (e.g., mainstream) and alternative (Freinet and Waldorf) Flemish schools was followed from their 3rd year of kindergarten until 3rd grade. The…

Chinese society is accustomed to using feelings, reasons, and institutionalizations to determine how to deal with events, which raises a number of questions. How can the directors of early education institutions incorporate feelings, reasons, and institutionalizations into their management? How can they enhance the job performance of teachers?…

This longitudinal study examined the effect of all-day kindergarten programs on the academic achievement of students from racial language minority and low socioeconomic class. The study employed a series of 3-level longitudinal multilevel analyses using a nationally representative database, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS). The study…

Summer learning studies have been set up to investigate the evolution of initial group differences in academic achievement, for example, between low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) children. Moreover, this approach has been used to demonstrate the absolute effect of going to school on children's learning. In the present study, we used…

This study examined the school and student predictors of early reading outcomes for kindergarten students enrolled in schools that participated in a beginning reading reform program. The study employed a nested design with students nested within schools and applied hierarchical linear modeling analyses to account for the organizational structure…

The study explored differences in story comprehension and vocabulary learning in children in native and multicultural kindergarten classrooms when listening to a story read to them by the computer or the teacher. The results showed that children (41 native and 30 immigrant) learned new words, both from listening to their teacher and from listening…