The education research library.
The state of the evidence for schools, classrooms and families — reading science, maths learning, classroom practice, policy trials, and child development. Every article is citation-first; Future Proof Education™ appears only where the evidence earns it.
The science of reading & writing
Phonics vs Whole Language: What the Evidence Says
Phonics vs whole language research: how the National Reading Panel and the meta-analyses ended the reading wars —…
Read →Reading Fluency: The Bridge Skill
Reading fluency research: why one-minute oral reading counts predict comprehension so well, what repeated reading…
Read →Reading Comprehension Strategies: The Early Plateau
Reading comprehension strategies evidence: strategy teaching works fast, then plateaus — long-run comprehension is…
Read →The 30-Million-Word Gap, Re-Examined
The 30 million word gap study, its replication trouble, and what holds up: an honest guide to early talk for…
Read →Dyslexia Interventions: What Works, What Doesn’t
Dyslexia interventions evidence, sorted: structured phonics-based teaching works; coloured overlays and vision…
Read →Evidence-Based Writing Instruction
Evidence based writing instruction: the Writing Next effect sizes, strategy instruction and sentence combining — and…
Read →Handwriting vs Typing in Early Literacy
Handwriting vs typing children research: forming letters by hand wires the young reading brain in ways keyboards…
Read →Reading Aloud: What Shared Reading Actually Does
Reading aloud to children research: what dialogic shared reading really does for early language — and why the newest…
Read →Mathematics & STEM learning
Math Anxiety: The Feeling That Costs Marks
Math anxiety research: the fear-performance link, how anxiety passes from parents and teachers to children, and the…
Read →Early Numeracy: The Strongest Predictor Nobody Teaches
Early numeracy skills research shows number sense at school entry predicts later achievement better than early…
Read →Math Manipulatives and Concreteness Fading
Math manipulatives research says hands-on objects help conditionally — the meta-analysis, why concrete can backfire,…
Read →Math Fact Fluency: How Automaticity Develops
Math fact fluency evidence: how children move from counting strategies to instant recall, why some don’t, and which…
Read →Word Problems: Schema-Based Instruction
Word problem solving instruction works when it teaches schemas, not keyword tricks.
Read →Science Misconceptions and Conceptual Change
Science misconceptions teaching evidence: wrong ideas survive ordinary lessons.
Read →Discovery Learning in Science: The Guidance Verdict
Inquiry based learning research: unassisted discovery fails and guided inquiry works.
Read →The STEM Gender Gap: Stereotype Threat on Trial
Gender gap STEM research: maths scores are nearly identical, stereotype threat is contested, and the real gap sits…
Read →Inside the classroom
Class Size: What Tennessee STAR Really Found
Class size research evidence: what Tennessee’s STAR experiment really found, why Hoxby found nothing, and when…
Read →Homework: The Age Gradient Nobody Quotes
Homework effectiveness research: near-zero effects in elementary school, moderate in high school — and why homework…
Read →Ability Grouping and Tracking: The Evidence
Ability grouping evidence, sorted by form: between-class tracking moves achievement almost nowhere, flexible small…
Read →Grade Retention: Holding Back, Held Back
Grade retention research reversed course: meta-analyses found harm, then Florida’s regression-discontinuity studies…
Read →Teacher Expectations: Pygmalion on Trial
The teacher expectations effect, retested: Pygmalion’s famous IQ gains, the accuracy critique, and the modern causal…
Read →Classroom Management: The Good Behavior Game
Classroom management evidence: the Good Behavior Game’s 1969 debut, the Baltimore randomized trials that followed…
Read →Wait Time: The Three-Second Intervention
Wait time teaching research: Mary Budd Rowe’s three-second finding, Tobin’s replications, the questioning-depth…
Read →Classroom Walls, Seating and Attention
Classroom environment learning research: busy walls and attention, the HEAD project, air, light and noise evidence,…
Read →School systems & policy
School Start Times and the Teenage Clock
School start times research is unusually consistent: teen body clocks run late, and later bells buy real sleep,…
Read →Summer Learning Loss: Finding vs Artifact
Summer learning loss evidence in two acts: the classic losses and widening gaps — and the measurement critique that…
Read →Does School Funding Matter?
School funding outcomes research reversed a long stalemate: quasi-experimental studies show money moved by policy…
Read →One Laptop Per Child: What 1:1 Programs Deliver
1:1 device programs evidence: meta-analysis shows modest gains when laptops land inside real teaching — and the OLPC…
Read →High-Stakes Testing: What Accountability Did
High stakes testing effects research: NCLB raised maths scores, left reading flat, and taught schools to inflate…
Read →Attendance: The Cheapest Achievement Lever
School attendance interventions: chronic absence hits 5-7.5 million US students, yet a $6.60 mailed letter cut it by…
Read →COVID Learning Loss: Magnitude and Recovery
COVID learning loss studies converge: pupils lost roughly a third of a school year, poorer children lost most, and…
Read →Preschool Programs: Perry, Heckman and Tennessee
Preschool programs’ long-term effects, reconciled: Perry and Abecedarian’s decades-long returns, Head Start’s fade…
Read →The developing learner
Play-Based Learning: The Guided-Play Evidence
Play-based learning research points one way: guided play matches or beats direct instruction for early maths and…
Read →Executive Function Training in Schools
Executive function training for children improves the trained skill but rarely transfers.
Read →The Marshmallow Test, Re-Run
The marshmallow test replication cut the famous delay–success link by roughly two-thirds.
Read →Screen Time and Learning: Content Beats Clock
Screen time learning research: the toddler video deficit, Sesame Street’s natural experiment, and why content beats…
Read →Movement and the Learning Brain
Physical activity learning research: what movement breaks, recess and aerobic fitness do for children’s attention,…
Read →School Meals and Cognition
School breakfast cognition research: breakfast protects morning thinking — most where children arrive hungry — and…
Read →Music Lessons and the Transfer Question
Music lessons make kids smarter?
Read →Bilingual Education: Advantage, Debate, Evidence
Bilingual education research splits in two: a contested cognitive-advantage debate, and solid dual-language…
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