Of all aspects of education, none receives as much attention, justifiably so, as early grades reading. The primacy of literacy skills and the necessity of a good start in this area cannot be overstated. This research brief takes a longitudinal look at reading profieciency.The study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R66912>.

From the abstract; "In the scope of our oral reading exercise for 5-8-year-old children, models need to be able to precisely detect and diagnose reading mistakes, which remains a considerable challenge even for state-of-the-art ASR systems. In this paper, we compare hybrid and end-to-end acoustic models trained for phoneme recognition on young learners' speech. We evaluate them not only with phoneme error rates but through detailed phoneme-level misread detection and diagnostic metrics. We show that a traditional TDNNF-HMM model, despite a high PER, is the best at detecting reading mistakes (F1-score 72.6%), but at the cost of a low specificity (74.7%), which is pedagogically critical. A recent Transformer+CTC model, to which we applied our synthetic reading mistakes augmentation method, obtains the highest precision (81.8%) and specificity (86.3%), as well as the highest correct diagnosis rate (70.7%), showing it is the best fit for our application."Citation: Gelin, L., Daniel, M., Pellegrini, T., & Pinquier, J. (2023). Comparing phoneme recognition systems on the detection and diagnosis of reading mistakes for young children's oral reading evaluation. SLaTE 2023-INTERSPEECH 2023 Satellite workshop on Speech and Language Technology in Education, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland-August 18-20, 2023.

From the abstract: "This qualitative study delves into student perceptions and experiences with Nearpod, a web-based educational platform, with a specific focus on understanding its impact on modern education. Thematic analysis of data collected from twenty students provides valuable insights into the platform's effectiveness. The findings reveal that Nearpod plays a crucial role in enhancing student engagement and attentiveness. The interactive nature of Nearpod, including features such as interactive presentations, quizzes, and real-time collaboration tools, significantly contributes to increased student participation. This thematic analysis underscores the platform's potential to create a more engaging and participatory learning environment. Additionally, the study highlights the positive impact of Nearpod's visual aids, simulations, and virtual reality components on student comprehension, making complex concepts more accessible. However, the research also identifies technical glitches and platform stability issues that need attention to ensure a seamless and uninterrupted learning experience. Furthermore, the thematic analysis suggests that greater customization options and a wider array of diverse interactive activities could cater to individual learning preferences, thereby further enhancing student engagement. Despite the study's limitations, such as a small sample size and a focus solely on student perspectives, the thematic analysis underscores Nearpod's potential as a valuable educational tool. It emphasizes the need for ongoing refinement to maximize its effectiveness in the ever-evolving educational landscape. In conclusion, this research highlights the significance of Nearpod in the digitized era of learning and its potential to transform modern education."Citation: Paramita, P. E. (2023). Exploring student perceptions and experiences of Nearpod: A qualitative study. Journal on Education, 5(4), 17560-17570. The study is available online: <https://doi.org/10.31004/joe.v5i4.4249>.

From the abstract: "The ACCESS assessment is administered to English Learners (ELs) annually each winter to measure their progress toward English proficiency. Star Computer Adaptive Tests (CATs) are a suite of assessments administered 3-4 times during the school year to students in grades K-12 that measure students’ reading and math skills, monitor achievement and growth, and track how well students understand skills aligned to state and Common Core standards. Although some ELs are excused from participation in Star, most take Star Reading and Math. This report examines EL performance on the ACCESS and EL performance on Star within the context of ACCESS performance.."The Full Report is available online: <https://www.philasd.org/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2023/08/English-Learner-Performance-2021-22-ACCESS-Star-Reading-and-Star-Math-August-2023.pdf>. The Full Addendum is available online<https://www.philasd.org/research/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2023/08/Addendum-English-Learner-Performance-2021-22-ACCESS-Star-Reading-and-Star-Math-August-2023.pdf>.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, classification accuracy, and score definitions for Star Reading.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, classification accuracy, and score definitions for Star Early Literacy.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, classification accuracy, and score definitions for Star Math.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, and score definitions for Star Reading Spanish.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, and score definitions for Star Early Literacy Spanish.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measure precision, validity, norming, and score definitions for Star Math Spanish.Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical manual is a compendium of all relevant information about content and item development, item and scale calibration, reliability and measurement precision, validity, norming, and score definitions for Star Math High School (Algebra and Geometry).Email research@renaissance.com to request a copy of the technical manual from the Renaissance Research Department.

This technical report contain a linking study between the WY-TOPP and FastBridge aMath and aReading.The study is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R67840>.

To develop Pathway to Proficiency reports for North Carolina Star Reading Enterprise and Star Math Enterprise schools, we linked our scaled scores with the scaled scores from North Carolina's achievement test. This technical report details the statistical method behind the process of linking North Carolina's state test (EOG) and Star Reading and Star Math scaled scores. The full report is available online: <https://docs.renaissance.com/R45814>.