While there is a strong research base that supports intervening early in mathematics, research investigating the importance of mathematics vocabulary is still emerging. Practitioners and researchers may benefit from understanding how mathematics interventions support mathematics vocabulary acquisition, particularly for students who struggle with…

This study explores how the primary school teacher preparation curriculum prepares pre-service teachers to teach reading in lower primary schools in Kenya. High-quality reading teacher preparation is among the critical aspects that need to be addressed in order to curb the literacy challenges faced by early grade students living in low-resource…

This paper focuses on the implications of the transformative student-centred curriculum being developed in Wales for tackling educational inequalities. Informed by long-standing debates within the sociology of education about the role of school knowledge in social and cultural reproduction, our research outlines some of the challenges that those…

Literacy levels for children leaving primary school, internationally, remain a cause for concern. There is a limited evidence base for whole school reading programmes and resources in the first two years of primary school compared to studies of interventions for children with reading difficulties. This study used a longitudinal randomised control…

This study examines four of the most commonly-used core mathematics curricula in the USA for evidence of support for research-based instructional strategies for mathematics vocabulary in first and second grade. Content analyses of the teachers' editions of two units for each grade level were analyzed per curriculum (n = 16). Statistically…

This study, using a mixed methods design, examined the use of a photograph-based model to improve students' language and writing skills. Classes were assigned to receive the photograph-based intervention (experimental) or to receive the regular language-based curriculum (control). Both second and fifth grade students in the experimental group…

School-based curriculum development (SBCD) has been advocated to enhance the quality of early childhood education within the context of modernization and globalization. However, few studies have examined how the social change and globalization may shape the early childhood curriculum. This study examined SBCD in two Shenzhen kindergartens via…

Why has large-scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large-scale tests in a sample of low…

This article explores the process of Learning to Learn from the pupils' perspective. The Learning to Learn in Schools Project started in 2003 and includes teachers and pupils from primary and secondary age phases in four local authorities. Key to the project has been a focus on the collaborative exploration of metacognition in practice. With the…

This article reports findings from a survey of the values and perceived practices of 1212 members of staff in 32 schools in England participating in the "Learning How to Learn" (LHTL) project in relation to teachers' professional learning. Through factor analysis four underlying dimensions of teachers' learning practices were developed.…

Scotland's "Assessment is for Learning" initiative (AifL) seeks to introduce a co-ordinated national system for assessment in schools. Formative assessment is a major plank in this. The initiative has moved beyond its pilot phase and it is intended that it will be adopted by all Scottish schools by 2007. This article draws upon the…