This study examined the effects of an intensive remedial program, Wilson Reading System (WRS), on 43 struggling readers from second to twelfth grade. The students, who attended a large southwestern urban school district, were all at least two grade levels below their peers in reading. Participants received 20 hours of WRS instruction over the course of one month as part of a WRS teacher certification course. Using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement, students were evaluated prior to and following their participation in the intensive summer program using five subtests (Letter-Word Identification, Reading Fluency, Spelling, Word Attack, and Spelling of Sounds) and two clusters (Basic Reading and Phoneme/Grapheme Knowledge) to assess gains in students' reading achievement. Since the intervention was delivered for such a brief period, this study was designed to provide a snapshot measure of initial reading skill gains. While a failure to perform significantly better was observed on the Letter-Word Identification, Reading Fluency, and Spelling subtests, students demonstrated significant improvement on Word Attack and Spelling of Sounds subtests following WRS instruction. Furthermore, students significantly improved on the Basic Reading and Phoneme/Grapheme Knowledge clusters. Study limitations and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Growing popularity of alternatively certifying teachers has created challenges for teacher preparation programs. Many non-traditional routes into classroom include no full-time mentor teacher. Absence of a mentor teacher in the classroom leaves teachers with a deficit. This study follows ten teachers on the intern certificate enrolled in both an alternative certification teacher preparation program and the Teach for America organization as they pursue a master's degree in education and state teaching certification from a large southwestern university. The five randomly chosen for the treatment group and the control group contained 1 male and 4 female teachers, some of whom teach at public schools and others at charter schools. All were secondary education language arts teachers ranging in age from 22- 29. The treatment used in this study is a job-embedded, professional development, software tool designed to help teachers track their classroom practices called MyiLOGS. The purpose of this action research project was to study the effect using MyiLOGS had on six of the nine areas evaluated by a modified version of the Teacher Advancement Program evaluation rubric, alignment with Opportunity To Learn constructs, and the tool's influence on the efficacy of these first year teachers. The data generated from this study indicate that the MyiLOGS tool did have a positive effect on the teachers' TAP evaluation performances. Also, the MyiLOGS tool had a large impact on the teachers' instruction as measured by the constructs of Opportunity to Learn and their teaching self-efficacy. Implications suggested the tool was an asset to these teachers because they tracked their data, became more reflective, and self-sufficient.

The rise in the number of students found to have autism has been staggering over the past ten years. Accommodating these students effectively and appropriately in a public school is a challenge many teachers are deemed with, sometimes without adequate training. This study was aimed at affecting the underlying social misunderstandings inherent to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and an at-risk general education peer through a comprehensive intervention consisting of peer mentoring, interactive social stories and video modeling strategies. Observations, student interviews, vignettes and student and researcher journals served as data sources. Three fourth grade boys, including a student with autism, a peer with behavioral concerns and a model peer, participated in an intervention designed using a multiple baseline across behaviors. The target students, including the student with autism and the peer with behavioral concerns increased their ability to demonstrate three distinctive skills, attending to task, raising hand and academic responding. Analysis of the data also showed an overall increase in levels of engagement and motivation. Strong friendships developed among all three participants. Implications suggest that a comprehensive approach is effective in reducing unwanted social behaviors and promoting positive social skills and gives further insight into the target students' motivation.

The theory of learning centered academic advising states that the purpose of advising is to teach undergraduate students about the logic and purpose of their education. Previous scholarship on learning centered advising has focused on the theoretical or on implementation by faculty at small colleges and universities. Methods for supporting learning centered advising in other contexts are lacking. This mixed methods, action research study investigates the efficacy of FaculTea, a professional development program designed to promote learning centered advising practices among professional academic advisors at a large state university. The study also measured frequency of learning centered advising and student perceptions of learning centered advising. Participants were 57 academic advisors in a liberal arts and sciences college at a large state university, who reported on their advising practices. In addition, the investigator interviewed four advisors, and observed them during 15 advising appointments. Also, six students were interviewed to determine their response to learning centered academic advising. Results showed the FaculTea program model was effective in promoting learning centered advising. In addition, advisors used learning centered advising to a moderate extent, depending upon the context of the appointment, the developmental level of the student, and experience level of the advisor. Student responses varied. These findings suggest learning centered advising can be incorporated into various academic advising contexts and structures and that FaculTea is an excellent model for learning centered academic advisor professional development.

The presence of certain chromosomal disorders is not always immediately apparent at birth. Children with relatively high-incidence, but non-heritable disorders may receive delayed identification due to the sometimes subtle manifestation of their disorder. Delayed identification may result in various undesirable outcomes for affected children and their families. In addition to parents, teachers can be valuable participants in the identification process. Chromosomal disorders are associated with generally predictable physical and behavioral characteristics, known as phenotype. In the present study, the influence of phenotype on teachers' student-related concerns was examined. Teachers looked at a photo and read a vignette about a fictional elementary-age student who, although not identified, showed varying degrees of the Turner syndrome phenotype. A follow-up questionnaire indicated significantly greater concerns when a student showed many versus few characteristics of behavioral phenotype. However, the effect of morphological phenotype on teacher responses was not significant. The implications for identification of chromosomal disorders are discussed.

Academic transitions are a necessary and important part of an ASD student's life. Parental involvement and perspective is a vital part of each transition planning process. The primary goal of this research is to identify trends in parent perspectives regarding ASD academic transitions through meta-synthesis of current research. The research also seeks to identify shifts in parent perceptions of the importance of specific transitional program elements during different academic transitional periods. Results indicate a clear trend within each academic transition category as well as trends throughout the transition periods. The main trend in parental perspective throughout the transitions is the de-structuration of the transition planning process and increased personalization with the advancement of each academic transition. Possible uses of research results to ease the transition planning process for parents are summarized and discussed.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to provide insight into immigrant Latino parents' perspectives on parental involvement in elementary school settings as influenced by the Title I Family Literacy Program (TFLP). A comparison is made of Latino parents who have been participating in the TFLP for more than one year, participants new to the program and Latino parents who chose not to participate in the TFLP. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via a survey and individual interviews of randomly selected members of each comparison group. All research participants were immigrant Latino parents with children at one of ten Title I elementary schools operating a TFLP. The schools are part of a large, urban school district in the Southwest. Findings indicate the TFLP has a positive effect on parental involvement practices of immigrant Latino parents. Participating parents showed increased confidence in their ability to support their children's education and program participants are more engaged in school activities. The results of this study imply participation in the program for one year or more has the most impact on families. Parents who participated for more than one year communicated a high sense of responsibility toward their influence on their child's education and upbringing and an understanding of strategies needed to effectively support their children. This research also identifies barriers parents face to participation in the TFLP and parental involvement in general. Implementation of family literacy programs in other districts would need to follow guidelines similar to this TFLP to achieve comparable results. More research is needed on the effects of this program on parents, children, and school staff.

Bullying impacts as many as one in three children (or more in some studies). The impact of bullying on children is similar to other forms of abuse like sexual abuse or physical abuse, far-reaching and potentially long term. The impact isn't solely on the child who is being bullied, it also impacts the child who is doing the bullying. It may have short and long term consequences as well. Martial arts has often been suggested to reduce bullying behaviors (and sometimes suggested as increasing bullying behaviors) but there has been limited research on this level of violence between kids and martial arts as an intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of martial arts (in particular the Karate for KidsTM program) on bullying behaviors. 223 children were given a standardized questionnaire (the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire) and their parents/guardians were given a short parent survey to measure bullying behaviors in beginner, intermediate and advanced martial arts students. Results showed significant differences between the groups and indicated a reduction in the incidence of children being bullied and a strong indication in a reduction in the child's tendency to bully others after extended martial arts training. These findings suggest that parents, guardians or other child professionals who are interested in reducing bullying behaviors should consider martial arts classes for children.

Many schools have adopted programming designed to promote students' behavioral aptitude. A specific type of programming with this focus is School Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS), which combines positive behavior techniques with a system wide problem solving model. Aspects of this model are still being developed in the research community, including assessment techniques which aid the decision making process. Tools for screening entire student populations are examples of such assessment interests. Although screening tools which have been described as "empirically validated" and "cost effective" have been around since at least 1991, they have yet to become standard practice (Lane, Gresham, & O'Shaughnessy 2002). The lack of widespread implementation to date raises questions regarding their ecological validity and actual cost-effectiveness, leaving the development of useful tools for screening an ongoing project for many researchers. It may be beneficial for educators to expand the range of measurement to include tools which measure the symptoms at the root of the problematic behaviors. Lane, Grasham, and O'Shaughnessy (2002) note the possibility that factors from within a student, including those that are cognitive in nature, may influence not only his or her academic performance, but also aspects of behavior. A line of logic follows wherein measurement of those factors may aid the early identification of students at risk for developing disorders with related symptoms. The validity and practicality of various tools available for screening in SWPBS were investigated, including brief behavior rating scales completed by parents and teachers, as well as performance tasks borrowed from the field of neuropsychology. All instruments showed an ability to predict children's behavior, although not to equal extents. A discussion of practicality and predictive utility of each instrument follows.

This study compared a stimulus fading (SF) procedure with a constant time delay (CTD) procedure for identification of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonsense words for a participant with autism. An alternating treatments design was utilized through a computer-based format. Receptive identification of target words was evaluated using a computer format and the researcher conducted a generalization probe for expressive identification evaluation. Neither treatment condition resulted in consistent gains on the receptive identification measure. Both treatment conditions resulted in gains on the expressive identification assessment. The SF treatment condition was more efficient due to 1) accuracy in identifying all of the SF target words in fewer sessions than the CTD target words and 2) incidental learning that occurred as a result of exposure to additional SF words as distracter choices and in receptive identification assessments. Implications are discussed.