Priorities for primary education? From subjects to life-skills and children's social and emotional development

To what needs and purposes should the primary curriculum be chiefly directed in the coming decades? In a first step towards revising the primary curriculum, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) invited responses to an open online call to ‘have your say’ on priorities for primary education. Respondents were asked to share their views in 100 words or less. Six priorities for primary education were identified across the 960 responses. These focused on developing children's life-skills; communication skills; well-being; literacy and numeracy skills; motivation and engagement; and their sense of identity and belonging. Across the priorities, there is recognition that skills learned in the primary years are related to one another and the extent to which children develop these is likely to have wide-ranging effects on their future experience as learners. Findings call for a revision of traditional, content-based curriculum subjects towards a better alignment with the needs of today's primary school children beginning with a more explicit focus on life-skills, and children's social and emotional development. Finally, we note the common ground across early childhood, primary and post-primary sectors and highlight the potential to align our values and vision for children and young people's education from the earliest years through adulthood.     

How does reading performance modulate the impact of orthographic knowledge on speech processing? A comparison of normal readers and dyslexic adults

Studies on proficient readers showed that speech processing is affected by knowledge of the orthographic code. Yet, the automaticity of the orthographic influence depends on task demand. Here, we addressed this automaticity issue in normal and dyslexic adult readers by comparing the orthographic effects obtained in two speech processing tasks that are or not sensitive to strategies developed by participants. Our finding showed that while participants’ performance in a metaphonological task, which is known to be strategy prone, was affected by their orthographic knowledge regardless of the childhood diagnosis of dyslexia or of their actual reading-related skills, this latter factor significantly modulated the orthographic influence found in a more natural speech recognition task. The finding supports the claim that while any individuals who know a reading code are able to resort to their orthographic knowledge when they process speech, a more profound modification of the speech processing system by the orthographic code takes place only in readers who have reached a certain level of reading expertise.     

Continuity and Change in the Home Literacy Environment as Predictors of Growth in Vocabulary and Reading

One hundred and ten English‐speaking children schooled in French were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (M_age: T1 = 5;6, T2 = 6;4, T3 = 6;11, T4 = 7;11). The findings provided strong support for the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002 ) because in this sample the home language was independent of the language of instruction. The informal literacy environment at home predicted growth in English receptive vocabulary from kindergarten to Grade 1, whereas parent reports of the formal literacy environment in kindergarten predicted growth in children's English early literacy between kindergarten and Grade 1 and growth in English word reading during Grade 1. Furthermore, 76% of parents adjusted their formal literacy practices according to the reading performance of their child, in support of the presence of a responsive home literacy curriculum among middle‐class parents.     

The role of nonspeech rhythm in Spanish word reading

Recent literacy research shows an increasing interest in the influence of prosody on literacy acquisition. The current study examines the relationship of nonspeech rhythmic skills to children's reading acquisition, and their possible relation to stress assignment in Spanish, a syllable‐timed language. Sixty‐six third graders with no reading difficulties were scored on measures of nonspeech rhythm, word‐level decoding skill, reading fluency and reading with correct assignment of lexical stress. After controlling for verbal intelligence and working memory, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that nonspeech rhythm predicted unique variance in reading fluency and correct stress assignment; it did not predict decoding skills. Given that Spanish is a syllable‐timed as opposed to stress‐timed language like English, the association between nonspeech rhythm, reading fluency and stress assignment found in our study suggests that nonspeech rhythm may be a universal factor in reading acquisition, independent of the type of linguistic rhythm.     

Youth Social Justice Engagement in the Face of Anti-Latina/o Immigrant Illegitimacy

Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, in this research I examine how a group of newcomer Mexican immigrant high school students counteracted a hostile school climate, educational practices and adverse relationships with mainstream peers and adults. The purpose of this study is to help educators and policy makers understand how engaging in social justice movements in the educational context has helped immigrant students to counteract and reconstruct their adverse schooling experiences into positive contributions to their success. This study suggests that Mexican immigrant youth demonstrate agency through civic engagement and intra-tactical strategies that strengthen their linguistic, cultural, and learner identities. The article concludes with recommendations on how educators and policy makers can facilitate engagement in order to support and improve education for immigrant and Latina/o students.     

Assessment criteria for competency-based education: a study in nursing education

This study examined the effects of type of assessment criteria (performance-based vs. competency-based), the relevance of assessment criteria (relevant criteria vs. all criteria), and their interaction on secondary vocational education students’ performance and assessment skills. Students on three programmes in the domain of nursing and care (N = 93) participated in the study. Results show that students who were given the relevant criteria made more accurate assessments of an expert model, performed better on a test and achieved higher instructional efficiency (defined as the relationship between performance and mental effort) compared to students who were given all criteria. Students who were given performance-based assessment criteria made more accurate assessments of an expert model and scored higher on task performance during practice compared to students who were given competency-based assessment criteria. They invested less mental effort in the assessments, resulting in higher instructional efficiency. An interaction effect for the concreteness of answers shows that the combination of performance-based and relevant criteria leads to superior analysis of worked examples compared to the other combinations of criteria.     

Early emotional and communication functioning predicting the academic trajectories of refugee children in Canada

Abstract

We examined how emotional and communication functioning at kindergarten predicted the academic trajectories of refugee children. Drawing from a population-based Canadian cohort, the study followed 629 refugee children from age 5 to 13 and (i) modeled kindergarten, Grade 4, and Grade 7 academic trajectories via group-based trajectory modeling and (ii) investigated to what extent teacher ratings of kindergarten emotional and communication functioning predicted academic trajectory group membership. Three groups were identified: ‘Average’ (n?=?438), ‘Declining’ (n?=?119), and ‘Low-But-Improving’ (n?=?72) groups. Logistic regression analyses revealed that, in comparison to the Average trajectory, lower emotional functioning at kindergarten was associated with an increased likelihood of a Declining academic trajectory, whereas lower communication functioning at kindergarten was associated with a greater likelihood of a Low-But-Improving trajectory (versus an Average trajectory). The findings indicate that refugee children are more likely to overcome early communication challenges versus emotional challenges to achieve academically, and this has important implications for early mental health support.     

Strengthening internal quality assurance processes: facilitating student evaluation committees to contribute

Student evaluation committees play a crucial role in internal quality assurance processes as representatives of the student body. However, the students on these committees sometimes experience difficulty in providing constructive and structured feedback to faculty in an environment characterised by a strong power differential between student and staff. This study aimed to evaluate a leadership and quality assurance training implemented for students involved in internal quality assurance. Furthermore, we explored how students give shape to their internal quality assurance role. Students from three health sciences programmes participated in a mixed methods study to evaluate the training and reflect on their internal quality assurance role. Overall, the students were very enthusiastic about the training. Qualitative data analysis indicated that in their internal quality assurance role, students: (1) harnessed the power of the entire student population; (2) tried to create focus and take charge; (3) searched for a common ground with staff, and (4) they explained how they dealt with the power differential. Providing training for students with internal quality assurance roles is a valuable endeavour. Future research needs to investigate further ways to help students to contribute to internal quality assurance processes in higher education.