This book addresses critical issues related to pre-adolescent and adolescent literacy learners with a focus on closing the achievement gap. Despite efforts by educators and policymakers during the past several decades, certain groups of students--primarily African American students, English language learners, and students from low-income homes--continue to underperform on commonly used measures of academic achievement. Too often, teachers and administrators lack both proper preparation and good ideas to confront these issues.

This book addresses critical issues related to pre-adolescent and adolescent literacy learners with a focus on closing the achievement gap. Despite efforts by educators and policymakers during the past several decades, certain groups of students—primarily African American students, English language learners, and students from low-income homes—continue to underperform on commonly used measures of academic achievement. Too often, teachers and administrators lack both proper preparation and good ideas to confront these issues. Part I of this volume contains essential background information about specific populations of learners who are not achieving as well as expected. Part II provides descriptions of promising programs that are authored and co-authored by practitioners and researchers working collaboratively. The result is a valuable resource for those involved in teaching and setting policy for literacy education in grades 4 through 12.

The achievement gap between white students and African American and Hispanic students has been debated by scholars and lamented by policymakers since it was first documented in 1966. The average black or Hispanic secondary school student currently achieves at about the same level as the average white student in the lowest quartile of white achievement. Black and Hispanic students are much less likely than white students to graduate from high school, acquire a college or advanced degree, or earn a middle-class living. They are also much more likely than whites to suffer social problems that often accompany low income. While educators have gained an understanding of the causes and effects of the education achievement gap, they have been less successful in finding ways to eliminate it—until now. This book provides, for the first time in one place, evidence that the achievement gap can be bridged. A variety of schools and school reforms are boosting the achievement of black and Hispanic students to levels nearing those of whites. Bridging the Achievement Gap brings together the findings of renowned education scholars who show how various states, school districts, and individual schools have lifted the achievement levels of poor and minority students. The most promising strategies include focusing on core academic skills, reducing class size, enrolling students in more challenging courses, administering annual achievement assessment tests, creating schools with a culture of competition and success, and offering vouchers in big-city school districts. While implementing new educational programs on a large scale is fraught with difficulties, these successful reform efforts offer what could be the start of widespread effective solutions for bridging the achievement gap.

One of the most popular literary genres, memoir can provide literary and literacy access to reluctant adolescent readers and writers, and help bridge the achievement gap by motivating students to read more critically and write more meaningfully about what matters most to them. The introspective nature of memoir helps students learn about themselves and connect with their environment or community, while also meeting a variety of Common Core standards. In this way, memoirs and creative nonfiction can provide a bridge between fiction and nonfiction reading, narrative and informative writing, reading and writing, and can afford a “way in” to literacy for all adolescents. Special features of the book: examples of multiple mentor texts in each chapter teacher examples with think-aloud exercises a variety of student samples from diverse learners activities to engage all learners an appendix of teacher resources a reference list of over 150 full-length memoirs for grades 5-12 for whole-class, book club, or independent reading a list of writing resources for students and teachers 12 full-size reproducible materials for teacher and student use a variety of reading, writing, speaking, and listening strategies and activities across-disciplines applications and adaptations for diverse learners daily writing focus lessons in gradual-release-responsibility format Common Core State Standard connections at the end of each chapter

Fourth grade is a momentous year for literacy learning. Having left the primary grades behind, students must grapple with more demanding texts and content material--and effective, motivating instruction can help them succeed. This book helps teachers vanquish the dreaded "fourth-grade slump" by creating an energized and organized learning environment in which all students can improve their reading and writing strategies. Taking readers into the classroom of an exemplary fourth-grade teacher, the book includes useful assessment tools, differentiation techniques, mini lessons, unit plans, reproducibles, and examples of student work. Special attention is given to meeting the challenges of high-stakes testing without sacrificing instructional quality.

Sponsored by Division 15 of APA, the second edition of this groundbreaking book has been expanded to 41 chapters that provide unparalleled coverage of this far-ranging field. Internationally recognized scholars contribute up-to-date reviews and critical syntheses of the following areas: foundations and the future of educational psychology, learners’ development, individual differences, cognition, motivation, content area teaching, socio-cultural perspectives on teaching and learning, teachers and teaching, instructional design, teacher assessment, and modern perspectives on research methodologies, data, and data analysis. New chapters cover topics such as adult development, self-regulation, changes in knowledge and beliefs, and writing. Expanded treatment has been given to cognition, motivation, and new methodologies for gathering and analyzing data. The Handbook of Educational Psychology, Second Edition provides an indispensable reference volume for scholars, teacher educators, in-service practitioners, policy makers and the academic libraries serving these audiences. It is also appropriate for graduate level courses devoted to the study of educational psychology.

Statistical models attempt to describe and quantify relationships between variables. In the models presented in this chapter, there is a response variable (sometimes called dependent variable) and at least one predictor variable (sometimes called independent or explanatory variable). When investigating a possible cause-and-effect type of relationship, the response variable is the putative effect and the predictors are the hypothesized causes. Typically, there is a main predictor variable of interest; other predictors in the model are called covariates. Unknown covariates or other independent variables not controlled in an experiment or analysis can affect the dependent or outcome variable and mislead the conclusions made from the inquiry (Bock, Velleman, & De Veaux, 2009). A p value (p) measures the statistical significance of the observed relationship; given the model, p is the probability that a relationship is seen by mere chance. The smaller the p value, the more confident we can be that the pattern seen in the data 2 is not random. In the type of models examined here, the R measures the prop- tion of the variation in the response variable that is explained by the predictors 2 specified in the model; if R is close to 1, then almost all the variation in the response variable has been explained. This measure is also known as the multiple correlation coefficient. Statistical studies can be grouped into two types: experimental and observational.