White Paper: From Science to Solution: Research Support for the Burst®:Reading Approach to Reading Intervention

Burst:Reading is the first program to fully utilize the power of new technologies for storing and retrieving a comprehensive bank of targeted, scientifically based lesson content, optimized for readers with greatest skill needs; helping teachers match this lesson content to student needs based on scientific assessment data; and allowing teachers — not computers — to teach these lessons in powerful small-group settings.…

White Paper: The Role of Formative Assessment in Pre-K through Second Grade Classrooms

While summative assessments confine how students display their knowledge for comparative purposes, formative assessments try to find the optimal conditions for making visible a young child’s understanding in order to enhance it. The importance of drawing out early learner’s thinking cannot be overstated…

White Paper: An Analysis of Technology-Assisted Progress Monitoring to Drive Improved Student Outcomes

This paper examines the effects that progress monitoring has on student achievement and teacher practice by reporting on the findings of two studies… Research also shows that if those struggling readers are identified within the first few years of schooling and provided with targeted and intensive instruction, they are more likely to make the progress necessary to catch up with their peers who are reading at grade level (American Federation of Teachers, 2004)…

White Paper: Assessment Administration Using Handheld Devices

Handheld assessments tools have been in use for approximately 5 years. Their use has been heavily stimulated by the federal requirement that all Reading First teachers administer diagnostic assessments several times a year to their K-3 students...

White Paper: Using Response to Intervention to Foster Achievement for All Students

In recent years, faced with escalating rolls of special education students and armed with new research on how children learn, strong support and momentum have gathered around a new instructional model...

White Paper: Using Technology to Learn What Children Know and Help Them Learn

This paper describes the research and theoretical underpinnings supporting the development of mCLASS®:Math. Effective assessment of early mathematics is a vital step toward reversing the dramatic failures of mathematics education in the United States…

White Paper: Identifying Technically Adequate Early Mathematics Measures

This paper describes a study that was conducted to examine the technical adequacy of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) measures of early numeracy…

Position Paper on Use of DIBELS for System-Wide Accountability Decisions

The importance of accountability in education is greater now than perhaps at any other time in history. Accountability refers to the systematic collection, analysis, use and reporting of valid and reliable information for making systems-wide decisions.

Position Paper on Use of DIBELS for Diverse Learners

DIBELS are appropriate for all students for whom a goal is learning to read in English with a few exceptions: a) students who are deaf; b) students who have fluency-based speech disabilities, e.g., stuttering, oral apraxia; c) students who are learning to read in a language other than English; d) students with severe disabilities.

Position Paper on “The Truth About DIBELS”

Ken Goodman and his associates have recently published a book called The Truth about DIBELS which, unfortunately, contains numerous errors based on misuses of and misconceptions about this assessment tool.

Using Technology-Assisted Progress Monitoring to Drive Improved Student Outcomes

In recent years much attention has focused on the essential role that early reading instruction plays in later academic success.

Results in the palms of their hands: Using handheld computers for data-driven decision making in the classroom

This chapter addresses teachers’ use of handheld computers to support data-driven decision making. Increasingly, districts and schools are turning to technology-based applications, such as handheld computers, to make assessment data immediately available to teachers.

Formative Feedback Systems and the New Instructional Leadership

Formative feedback systems are systems of structures, people, and practices that help teachers and administrators translate testing data into practical information for everyday use. Formative feedback systems live at the heart of systemic school improvement efforts.

Survival of the Skilled

Despite an intense focus on accountability and standards in every state, there’s ample evidence to suggest that American students don’t have the skills necessary to meet the demands of the digital future.

Developmental Dynamics of Math Performance from Preschool to Grade 2

This study investigated the developmental dynamics of mathematical performance during children’s transition from preschool to Grade 2 and the cognitive antecedents of this development.