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Understanding the factors associated with variation in the implementation of educational programs has emerged as a key research focus, in an effort to identify how promising programs can be scaled up across their targeted contexts. The current study explored demographic-related variation in program dosage using a novel source of implementation data from the treatment group in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Word Generation, a curriculum designed to support deep reading comprehension and academic language. Both student- and teacher/classroom-level predictors were associated with variation in the proportion of curricular activities students completed. We also evaluated how variation in treatment-group program dosage distinctively predicted growth on the RCT's key outcome measures of taught vocabulary words, academic language, and deep reading comprehension. We conclude that design and evaluation of future RCTs would benefit from procedures to predict implementation variation and its consequences prior to randomization.

This review and case example describes the key components of elementary reading instruction and intervention within multitiered systems of supports (MTSS) and ways to enhance and scaffold reading instruction and intervention for language as a means of supporting the learning of students who are emergent multilingual (EM) learners. First, we provide an overview of elementary reading comprehension skills and describe culturally, linguistically, and ecologically situated learning principles and overview the essential elements of MTSS rooted in these principles. Next, we present research-based practices that enhance reading instruction and intervention among elementary EM students. We then illustrate the PLUSS framework to highlight how educators can implement these practices across MTSS. Finally, we present considerations for reading instruction and intervention and provide resources that may be useful to educators and policymakers with respect to MTSS.

This study examined the development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional narratives using a storytelling/story-acting practice where children told stories to and for their friends. Evaluative language orients the audience to the teller's cognitive and emotional engagement with a story's events and characters, and we hypothesized that this STSA context might yield new information about the early development of this language, prior to elementary school. We analyzed 60 stories: the first and last story told by 10 children in each of three preschool classrooms (3-, 4-, and 5-year-old classes) that used STSA throughout the school year. Stories were coded for evaluative expressions and evidential expressions. Five-year-olds used significantly more evaluative language than did 3-year-olds, and children at all ages used significantly more evaluative language at the end than at the beginning of the year. The number of stories told throughout the year explained unique variance in children's evaluative language growth.

A surprising comprehension-production asymmetry in subject-verb (SV) agreement acquisition has been suggested in the literature, and recent research indicates that task-specific as well as language-specific features may contribute to this apparent asymmetry across languages. The present study investigates when during development children acquiring Mexican Spanish gain competence with 3rd-person SV agreement, testing production as well as comprehension in the same children aged between 3;6 and 5;7 years, and whether comprehension of SV agreement is modulated by the sentential position of the verb (i.e., medial vs. final position). Accuracy and sensitivity analyses show that comprehension performance correlates with SV agreement production abilities, and that comprehension of singular and plural third-person forms is not influenced by the sentential position of the agreement morpheme. Issues of the appropriate outcome measure and the role of structural familiarity in the development of abstract representations are discussed.

We paint a picture of preadolescent students' thinking on a topic of everyday importance: the right to use and the responsibility not to abuse digital technology in school. We analyzed the writing of students in grades 4-7 in response to an essay prompt about classroom iPad (tablet computer) use after a hypothetical cyberbullying incident, focusing on the solutions that students proposed to avoid a repeat infraction. Solutions were categorized into six types, each of which, in turn, tended to embody one of the two orientations toward this issue: One emphasized restricting rights to device access, and the other placed responsibility for appropriate device use on the students themselves. We explored students' focus on rights or responsibilities in light of their social perspective-taking skills and their grade level. Findings suggest that grappling with urgent, personally relevant social and moral issues stimulates analytic and writing skills.

Most U.S. classrooms serve students with various linguistic and academic needs. Tier-I universal approaches support English language learners (ELLs) without segregating them into a different track and thereby constraining future learning opportunities. The current study examines whether Word Generation (WG), a Tier-I discussion-based program designed to build academic literacy and linguistic practices, provides differential gains for non-ELL and ELL students in vocabulary, social perspective-taking skills, academic language, and reading comprehension. We found that WG had positive impacts for both non-ELL and ELL students on taught academic vocabulary and social perspective positioning skills. Furthermore, WG had additional positive effects for ELLs in social perspective articulation and academic language in the second year of implementation. These results provide evidence that WG supports those linguistic and sociocognitive skills that precede development of deep reading comprehension for ELLs as well as non-ELLs.

A novel instrument, the Features of Excellent Arguments task (FEXA), was developed to elicit adolescents' judgments about argumentative essays displaying to varying degrees features characteristic of strong persuasive writing: academic language, rich evidence, multiple perspectives, and rhetorical appeal. We collected students' categorical choices about the purposes to which the essays were suited (e.g., convincing a friend, impressing a language-arts teacher), discussions of those choices, and a revision of their selected "least persuasive" essay. In this first study using the FEXA, we found that the essays judged most persuasive largely overlapped with those judged most likely to earn a good grade (i.e., those with rich evidence and academic language). Students explained their preferences by mentioning formal language, use of evidence, and essay structure, while their revisions of their "least persuasive" selections focused on linguistic features and on adding or elaborating reasons. Implications for argumentative writing instruction and assessment are discussed.

A surprising comprehension-production asymmetry in subject-verb (SV) agreement acquisition has been suggested in the literature, and recent research indicates that task-specific as well as language-specific features may contribute to this apparent asymmetry across languages. The present study investigates when during development children acquiring Mexican Spanish gain competence with 3rd-person SV agreement, testing production as well as comprehension in the same children aged between 3;6 and 5;7 years, and whether comprehension of SV agreement is modulated by the sentential position of the verb (i.e., medial vs. final position). Accuracy and sensitivity analyses show that comprehension performance correlates with SV agreement production abilities, and that comprehension of singular and plural third-person forms is not influenced by the sentential position of the agreement morpheme. Issues of the appropriate outcome measure and the role of structural familiarity in the development of abstract representations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]