Support for Parents, Educators, and the Community

For parents and othersinterested in pursuing improved student and/or school performance, the links below should serve as a starting point.

Books by Elaine McEwan
Former educator and administrator Elaine McEwan has written several books on school leadership and improvement. These include:

• Ten Traits of Highly Successful Schools: How You Can Know If Your School Is a Good One
• How to Raise a Reader
• Making Sense of Research: What's Good, What's Not, and How to Tell the Difference

Others can be found at her website.

Online Instruction
Two resources to consider:

• HeadSprout
• Sylvan Learning

Direct Instruction
Despite its proven effectiveness, Direct Instruction has not been universally accepted in education. Those familiar with the controversy, but unfamiliar with the method itself, may be surprised by effective it is, and how well-liked it is by parents and students.

• This section of the ECF site presents information from the Foundation's "Prepared to Learn" event in April 2009; it features information on the success of the Kennewick, WA school district in reaching impressive levels of reading proficiency through the use of Direct Instruction. You can also go here for videos on DI and here for a chart showing DI's performance against other approaches in Project Follow Through, the largest federal education research project in history.
• Go here for a series of online videos made available by the Fairfield-Suisun (CA) Unified School District.
• Teaching Needy Kids in Our Backward System - a new book by Siegfried Engelmann, father of Direct Instruction, chronicling the development of Direct Instruction from 1964 through 2006.

Independent Achievement Testing

• Thurber's Educational Assessments
• Family Learning Organization's Testing and Assessments

Other Resources

• Research and Innovation: Let the Buyer Beware
• How to Promote Change In Your School