A new chemotherapeutic investigation: Piracetam effects on dyslexia

Piracetam, a new drug which is thought to enhance learning and memory consolidation, was given in a 3300 mg daily dose to half of a group of fifty-five (55) dyslexic boys aged eight to thirteen years in a twelve week, double-blind, placebo controlled study. All subjects met stringent criteria, including: normal intelligence, normal educational opportunities, no severe emotional problems, no neurological handicaps, good physical health, not taking other psychotropic medication, and scoring at least 1 1/2 years below their mental age equivalent on the Gilmore Oral Reading Test. The children’s perceptual, language, and memory skills were examined and their reading, spelling, and writing abilities were measured using standardized instruments. Compared to the placebo control group, individuals treated with Piracetam showed statistically significant improvements above their baseline scores on measures of effective reading accuracy and comprehension, reading speed, and writing accuracy. The medication was extremely well tolerated, and all medical examinations showed no untoward effects. These results encourage further study of Piracetam’s potential as an adjunct for the clinical remediation of dyslexia.     

语篇分析与俄语阅读教学

阅读在俄语教学中占有重要的地位。本文以语篇理论为依据,探讨如何运用语篇分析方法指导俄语阅读教学,指出语篇阅读不仅要注重语言的形式和功能,还要强调语篇信息的整合。树立学生的语篇阅读意识,培养学生的语篇分析能力,可以增强学生阅读的准确性,提高学生的语言交际能力。     

Mothers’ reading-related activities at home and learning to read during kindergarten

This longitudinal study investigates how the reading-related activities of mothers at home relate to the development of reading skills among their kindergarten children. A total of 1,529 children (5-to-6-year-olds) were tested on word reading twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of a kindergarten year. The mothers of the children (n = 1,529) answered a questionnaire on reading-related activities with their children at home (on shared reading, teaching letters, and the teaching of reading) and on their level of education, their child’s birth order, and the gender of the child. The results show that of the three reading-related activities, mothers’ teaching of reading is the best predictor of the development of reading skills among kindergarten children. The results also show that good reading skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year increase the maternal teaching of reading a child subsequently receives. The results further demonstrate that girls, firstborns, and children with more highly educated mothers are more likely to become good readers by the end of the kindergarten year.     

The relationship between home literacy practices and developmental trajectories of emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills for Korean children

Previous studies with English-speaking families in the North American context demonstrated that home literacy practices have positive influences on children’s literacy acquisition. The present study expands previous studies by examining how home literacy practices are related to growth trajectories of emergent literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary, letter-name knowledge, and phonological awareness) and conventional literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling), and by using data from Korean children and families (N = 192). The study revealed two dimensions of home literacy practices, home reading and parent teaching. Frequent reading at home was positively associated with children’s emergent literacy skills as well as conventional literacy skills in Korean. However, children whose parents reported more frequent teaching tended to have low scores in their phonological awareness, vocabulary, word reading and pseudoword reading after accounting for home reading. These results suggest a bidirectional relationship between home literacy practices, parent teaching in particular, and children’s literacy skills such that parents adjust their teaching in response to their child’s literacy acquisition. Furthermore, cultural variation in views on parent teaching may explain these results.

The Role of Parents in Adolescents’ Reading Motivation and Activity

Parent support for reading is one of the many elements that may play a role in the development and sustainment of children’s reading motivation; to date, however, research has focused much more on the role that parents play in their preschool and primary-grade children’s reading than in their older children’s reading. Thus, this paper examines the findings and methodology of empirical studies concerning the ways and extent to which parent support for reading relates to the reading motivations and habits of students in the fourth through 12th grades. The review includes discussion of extant quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, theoretical models from the reading domain applicable to the socialization of reading practices, and extensive recommendations for future research. The dual purpose of this review is to present a sketch of the role of parents’ in adolescents’ reading motivation based on extant work and to encourage research that will help develop this sketch into a fuller portrait.     

边疆民族地区高校研究生古文献教学中存在的问题及对策——以延边大学历史学科为例

汉文古文献的阅读能力直接影响硕士研究生治史能力和学术水平的提高。朝鲜族学生与汉族学生因母语差异而对古文献的阅读和理解存在不同的困扰,传统教学中的方法也有一定的积弊。对策是在教材的选编上加大注释与研究的力度,教学模式也应做适应性调整,对学生的阅读能力和应用能力进行有的放矢的培养与强化训练,以适应学术研究和相关工作的要求。     

语篇分析与报刊阅读教学

在对外汉语教学中,报刊阅读一直是学习者学习的难点。报刊阅读教学应以语篇分析理论为依据,从新闻语篇特点出发,通过介绍背景知识、分析新闻标题、解读正文几个步骤对报刊选文进行整体阅读教学,以提高学习者的阅读理解能力和中文自学能力。     

The relation of knowledge of textual integration devices to expository text comprehension under different assessment conditions

In this study we propose a theoretical construct (called rhetorical competence) that represents the ability of readers to detect, understand, and use the linguistic cues or discourse markers that texts contain. We measure one of the three postulated components of rhetorical competence (knowledge of textual integration markers), assessing whether readers correctly interpret these markers while reading. The influence of this skill on reading competence is examined in a correlational study of 185 sixth-grade pupils (aged 11–12 years) using different assessment materials (a standardized test and an academic text) and reading conditions (habitual and aided). Multiple regression analyses of the data indicate that knowledge of textual integration devices makes a significant independent contribution to expository text comprehension under most assessment conditions when the effects of working memory, prior knowledge, and word recognition skills are controlled.     

Teachers’ opinions of the whole language approach to reading instruction

This article reports the findings of a study of the opinions of first- and first/second-grade teachers of certain comments made about the whole language approach to reading instruction by leading advocates of this procedure. The investigation revealed that these teachers rejected as “false” more of these comments about the whole language approach than they accepted as “true.” The findings of this study, apparently the first of their kind that have been reported, suggest that less progress has been made in persuading teachers that the whole language approach to reading instruction is the preferred teaching procedure than some leaders of the whole language movement previously have claimed.     

中小学"数学情境与提出问题"教学的实验研究

This research tends to make the experimental study on the mathematics teaching model of “situated creation and problem-based instruction” (SCPBI), namely, the teaching process of “creating situations—posing problems—solving problems—applying mathematics”. It is aimed at changing the situation where students generally lack problem-based learning experience and problem awareness. Result shows that this teaching model plays a vital role in arousing students’ interest in mathematics, improving their ability to pose problems and upgrading their mathematics learning ability as well.      

Critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability

This paper argues for the need for critical reading comprehension in an era of accountability that often promotes reading comprehension as readily assessable through students answering multiple choice questions of unseen texts. Based upon a 1 year study investigating literacy in Years 4–9 the ways strong-performing primary schools develop serious and in-depth reading for learning are explored. School and teacher features which allow for the development of sophisticated pedagogical repertoires and space for critical reading comprehension, without losing the complexity of curriculum offerings, are outlined. How one experienced middle primary teacher operates strategically, ethically and critically in supporting her ESL students to learn to read is illustrated. The teacher’s work is situated within the complex accountability demands faced by classroom teachers. This was accomplished by a teacher whose pedagogical repertoire has been assembled across a career teaching in low-SES high ESL communities in a school with a balanced literacy program and high level of collegial support. Risks for schools and teachers whose circumstances work against their capacities for prioritisation and strategic decision-making are identified and discussed.     

Teamwork — teach me, teach me not: A case study of three Australian preservice teachers

Explicit training in teaming skills (both preservice and inservice) has been identified as a key means of facilitating the effective functioning of teaching teams (Main, 2007). This case study explored how groupwork tasks within university coursework can prepare preservice education students to work effectively in teaching teams. Three students in their final year of study were primed to the skills that have been identified as necessary for successful team practices. The students then participated in a semi-structured interview about their groupwork experiences at university. Results from this study of preservice teacher education students reflected findings from studies of students’ groupwork experiences in other disciplines (i.e., business). Students reported opportunities to practise teamwork. However, they were not explicitly taught “how” to work effectively together. It was also found that the assessment focus was entirely on the final “product” and not on the group “process”.     

Development of dyslexic subgroups:

There is a consensus that dyslexia is on a continuum with normal reading skill and that dyslexics fall at the low end of the normal range in phonological skills. However, there is still substantial variability in phonological skill among dyslexic children. Recent studies have focused on the high end of the continuum of phonological skills in dyslexics, identifying a “surface” dyslexic, or “delayed” profile in which phonological skills are not out of line with other aspects of word recognition. The present study extended this work to a longitudinal context, and explored differences among subgroups of dyslexics on a battery of component reading skills. Third grade dyslexics (n=72) were classified into two subgroups, phonological dyslexics and delayed dyslexics, based on comparisons to younger normal readers at the same reading level (RL group). The children were tested at two points (in third and fourth grade). The results revealed that the classification of dyslexics produced reliable, stable, and valid groups. About 82 percent of the children remained in the same subgroup category when retested a year later. Phonological dyslexics were lower in phoneme awareness and expressive language. Delayed dyslexics tended to be slower at processing printed letters and words but not at rapid automatic naming of letters, and relied more heavily on phonological recoding in reading for meaning than did phonological dyslexics. A subset of the delayed dyslexics with the traditional “surface dyslexic” pattern (relatively high pseudoword and low exception word reading) was also identified. The surface subgroup resembled the RL group on most measures and was not very stable over one year. The results are discussed in light of current models of dyslexia and recent subgrouping schemes, including the Double-Deficit Hypothesis.     

Evidence for phonological processing deficits in less-skilled readers

Although weaknesses in metaphonological skills are well-documented in poor readers, prior studies have yielded inconsistent findings as to whether less-skilled readers also have deficits in the more primary phonological processes entailed in verbal working memory and speech production tasks. The present study was designed to examine this issue by comparing less-skilled third-graders readers (n=30) with younger children at the same reading level (n=30) and with more-skilled agemates (n=30) on a variety of tasks that require phonological processing (i.e., three “verbal memory” tasks [word span, span with concurrent processing, pseudoword imitation] and three “speech production” tasks [word-pair repetition, tongue twisters, rapid naming]). The results were striking: the less-skilled third-grade readers had significantly lower accuracy scores than both their agemates and the younger normal readers on the word span, pseudoword imitation, word-pair repetition, and tongue twister tasks. Measures of accuracy were more related to reading ability than were measures of speed. Performance on a pseudoword imitation task was the variable most strongly linked to reading achievement.     

形式图式在英语泛读教学中的应用研究

通过分析不同体裁(记叙文、说明文和议论文)文章的篇章结构,探讨英语泛读教学的实践过程以及形式图式训练对学生阅读能力的影响,以此进行新的英语泛读教学模式的研究.教学实验研究表明:(1)形式图式阅读训练可较大程度地提高学生的阅读能力;(2)在泛读教学中,对学生进行形式图式阅读训练对写作能力具有正迁移作用.该研究对外语泛读教...     

Measuring strategy use in context with multiple-choice items

A number of authors have presented data that challenge the validity of self-report of strategy use or choice of strategy. We created a multiple-choice measure of students’ strategy use based on the work of Kozminsky, E., and Kozminsky, L. (2001), and tested it with three samples as part of a series of studies testing the fit of the DIME model of reading comprehension. One study was conducted at the high school level (N = 175) and two at the undergraduate level (N = 185 and 737). Over the three studies with three different samples, we found good evidence for the internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity of this type of measure. Commonality analysis suggested that strategy use mainly makes a shared contribution to comprehension with other predictors, especially inference, and to some extent vocabulary, background knowledge, and word reading. The measure was relatively easy to construct and easy to administer to large numbers of students, and showed much higher evidence of concurrent validity than self-ratings of frequency of use of strategies.     

高职高专大学英语阅读课读前活动策略探讨

阅读教学的成功与否在很大程度上取决于教学的策略性,教师在教学中尽早给学生传授阅读技巧和策略,是激发学生的阅读兴趣和动机,提高其阅读能力的重要手段之一。本文主要对大学英语阅读课读前活动策略进行探讨和研究,旨在激发学生的阅读兴趣和阅读动机,从而提高其阅读能力。