The teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools focus both on students' concept mastery and character development. Teachers are encouraged to implement a learning model that integrates character values and yet promote learning interest. This study was aimed at investigating the mathematics learning interest of grade three elementary school students through the integration of thematic learning with character education, referred to as the character-integrated thematic learning model. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, this study involved 70 students and employed a questionnaire to obtain data, which were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Descriptively, the average scores of students' learning interest before and after the implementation of the character-integrated thematic learning model are respectively 117.54 and 140.69 with the gain index of 0.44 in the fair category. While score obtained for thematic learning model are 116.11 and 120.23 with the gain index of 0.07 in the low category. The results of the statistical inference analysis using the independent sample t-test were obtained t-count of 4.98 > t-table of 1,667. This indicates that there has been a significant increase in students' learning interest scores with the implementation of character-integrated thematic learning model. Thus, this learning model can be applied to pay attention to the development of student's character which has an impact on increasing student's learning interest.

This study aims to analyze the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) of teachers in teaching reading comprehension in fifthgrade elementary schools. A quantitative design was used in this experiment, with the population and samples containing 194 and 50 fifth-grade elementary school teachers in Barru City, South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. These samples were randomly selected from the population using a simple random sampling technique. Furthermore, the instrument used for data collection was a closedended questionnaire. Further, the obtained data were analyzed descriptively using a mean score formula and categorization of value ranges. The results showed that the mean score of teachers' TPACK was 77, subsequently belonging to the good category, indicating teachers' good TPACK in teaching reading comprehension.

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Product validity is one of the critical aspects of developmental research. Therefore, this research aimed to report the validity results of interactive Power-Point media developed based on a balanced literacy approach to improve early reading skills of first-grade elementary school students. The validity assessed was media and content aspects, and the data were collected through a Likert-scale questionnaire. Six validators were involved, namely four senior lecturers and two expert practitioners. The data from expert validation were analyzed using Aiken's V coefficient and categorized into three parts, namely highly valid, valid, and not valid. The results showed that the coefficient value on media validation was 0.84 and on the material aspect was 0.96. The analysis indicated that the validation results on both aspects were in the highly valid category. Thus, it was concluded that the interactive PowerPoint media developed based on a balanced literacy approach to improve early reading of first-grade students was valid and suitable for use at the next stage of developmental research conducted.