La gestion des contre-arguments dans le texte argumentatif ecrit chez les elèves de 8 à 12 ans et les adultes compétents

The objective of this research is to determine to what extend children from 8 to 12–13 years old become able to compose coherent counter-argumentative texts. 116 children and 26 quasi expert adults were asked to write a text beginning and ending with 2 imposed counterargumentative sentences. In that specific metalinguistic situation, pupils from 8 to 10 hesitate what text type (whether argumentative or not) to produce. When 10–11 years old, they seem aware the situation needs an argumentative response, but that does not necessary enable them to counter-argue. By children from 11–12 years old and adults, texts are most frequently counter-argumentative. It is proposed to explain this evolution by a progressive mastery of a possible argumentative prototypical text schema which could enable pupils to understand the 2 imposed sentences as knots to be expanded from a complexe argumentative text, and, in the same way, to compose this text. This explanative hypothesis is apparently sustained by the positive effects on the performances of 40 pupils from 8 to 12–13 years old of didactic interventions intended to make them sensible to argumentative text properties.     

The role of oral language in ­underpinning the text generation ­difficulties in children with specific ­language impairment

Children with specific language impairments (SLI) have difficulties in producing written text. It was hypothesised that the constraints on writing in children with SLI were similar to typically developing younger children with the same level of vocabulary knowledge. Twenty‐three children with SLI (aged 10:5) were matched with 23 children for chronological age (CA) and 23 children for vocabulary levels (VC). Children with SLI performed significantly below their CA peers but not their VC peers on all aspects of writing including spelling. Regression analyses indicated that written text measures of spelling errors and oral language measures of vocabulary were significant predictors of writing products for both the children with SLI and their VC peers. This highlights the importance of oral and written language for the quality of children's written text and indicates that the writing of children with SLI was commensurate with their vocabulary and spelling levels. The results point to the role of both phonological and non‐phonological processes in written text production in struggling writers.     

Social perspective taking: a benefit of bilingualism in academic writing

The task of writing arguments requires a linguistic and cognitive sophistication that eludes many adults, but students in the US are expected to produce texts that articulate and support a claim—simple written arguments—starting in the fourth grade. Students from language-minority homes likewise must learn to produce such writing, despite their relatively limited experience with the English language, reflected in the availability of smaller mental lexicons and more restricted syntactic constructions. Yet some features of bilingual children’s cognition, such as precocious development of theory of mind and strong metalinguistic awareness, might support the crafting of arguments in writing, where the explicit consideration of multiple points of view can serve to strengthen one’s case for a claim. In this study we examine the incidence of social perspective-taking acts in the argumentative essays of language-minority and English-only students in Grades 4–6 and find that language-minority students match or surpass the English-only students on two critical measures of perspective taking (perspective acknowledgment and perspective articulation). We also explore possible links between students’ use of perspective taking in their argumentative essays and a validated formal measure of the same skill, uncovering different relationships between them in the two language groups. Links to previously attested bilingual advantages and to the development of argumentation are discussed.     

听写障碍儿童汉字学习的认知干预研究

本研究基于听写障碍儿童存在视觉辨别、形音联结缺陷的研究结果,对听写障碍儿童进行有针对性的认知干预训练,并进行实验比较.研究表明:视觉辨别、形音联结的干预能相应地提高听写障碍儿童的视觉辨别能力和形音联结能力;对于汉字学习来说,形音联结、视觉辨别相结合的综合干预训练比单一的视觉辨别、形音联结干预训练效果好.视觉辨别与形音联结相结合的综合认知干预方案更能提高听写障碍儿童相应的认知能力,促进听写障碍儿童的汉字学习质量.     

The Beautiful and the Ugly: Reading Ability Modulates Word Spacing Effects in Chinese Children

There are no salient word spaces in Mandarin Chinese. Thus, it is unclear whether word spacing information differentially affects the reading speed of children with and without reading difficulties (RD). In the present study, native Chinese-speaking children of differential reading abilities were tested with Chinese text in un-spaced versus spaced versions at different time points during training. The results indicated that spaced texts slow down reading speeds in children without RD. In contrast, spaced texts improved reading speeds in children with reading difficulties after some training took place. These findings suggest that the effect of word spacing information on Chinese reading might vary as a function of individual differences in reading abilities. We argue that children with RD can accommodate to the spaced text better than children without RD and that they can take advantage of using bottom-up spacing information to segment and recognize words in text.     

Materiality and ideology in children's perceptions of past historical writing

This article summarizes a small-scale investigation into 10- and 11-year-old children's perceptions of how the attitudes and values of different times in the past are reflected in historical writing for children. The research involved observation, reading and discussion of historical stories written at different times in the past about a particular period and character in the distant past, familiar to the children from their history lessons. The study investigated how children interacted with these texts in order to derive meaning from them. This article analyses the strategies children used and how they began to unpack the complex, multiple layers of meaning in ‘history stories’ by first examining the material properties of their texts. It considers how these material properties influenced the children's understanding of the texts' contents. It also seeks to discover whether young children are capable of comprehending the broader meanings of texts, beyond a literal reading of them, and how they explore texts critically in terms of their ideology. Findings suggest that able readers between the ages of 10 and 11 are indeed able to understand how ideologies are transmitted in such texts written for children, how these ideologies are conveyed to the child reader, and how they differ from the values and attitudes of the present.     

A process model of writing development across the life span

In this article, we provide an overview of writing development from a product perspective and from a process perspective. Then we discuss modifications of the most influential process model of skilled adult writing to explain beginning and developing writing, including a proposed developmental sequence of the emergence of cognitive processes in writing. Next we report the results of two recent dissertations by the second and third authors supervised by the first author aimed toward contrasting developmental issues: (a) specifying the algorithms or rules of thumb beginning and developing writers may use during on-line planning; and (b) investigating the further development of writing processes among skilled adult writers. In the first study, development was conceptualized as a linear process across age groups. In the second study, development was conceptualized as a horizontal process within skilled adult writers who expanded their expertise. Finally, we consider the developmental constraints and the instructional constraints on writing development and argue for a model of writing development in which endogenous and exogenous process variables interact to determine the outcome of the writing development process.     

Text comprehension strategy instruction with poor readers

The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of teachingtext comprehension strategies to children with decoding andreading comprehension problems and with a poor or normallistening ability. Two experiments are reported. Four textcomprehension strategies, viz., question generation, summarizing,clarification, and predicting were taught through directinstruction and reciprocal teaching. In both experiments, effectswere measured according to a pretest – posttest – retentiontest – control group design. Dependent variables wereexperimenter-developed strategic reading and listening tests, andstandardized reading and listening comprehension tests. In thefirst experiment the subjects were 9 to 11-year-old poor readersfrom special schools for children with learning disabilities. Inthis experiment, the intervention program's texts and strategyinstructions were presented in listening settings only. Thesubjects in the second experiment were 10-year-old children fromregular elementary schools and 9 to 11-year-old children fromspecial schools. They were also poor readers but their decodingperformance was not as poor as in the subjects in experiment 1.In experiment 2, the intervention program involved textpresentations in alternating reading and listening lessons.Although in general, normal listeners performed better on allcomprehension tests than poor listeners, there were nodifferential program effects for the two listening levels. Cleareffects of both programs were found on strategic reading andlistening tests administered directly after the interventions. Inthe first experiment, maintenance test performance showedprolonged program benefits, whereas in the second experimentthese maintenance effects were blurred by unexpected gains of thecontrol groups of students, especially from regular schools.Finally, apart from some local successes, neither of the twoexperiments offered stable evidence of transfer of comprehensionstrategy training to standardized general listening and readingcomprehension tests.     

Computer support for the development of writing abilities

This paper discusses children's development of writing abilities and suggests ways in which children can be helped to develop their writing abilities by exploring the patterns, constraints and possibilities of language and by developing an awareness of the processes of written composition. The paper describes Boxes, a program to explore patterns in language and reports a small study of the program in use with children aged 9 to 10.     

Cognitive performance and academic achievement of Japanese, Chinese, and American children

Chinese, Japanese, and American children at grades 1 and 5 were given a battery of 10 cognitive tasks and tests of achievement in reading and mathematics. Samples consisted of 240 children in each grade in each culture. 2 major purposes of the study were to determine possible differences in cognitive abilities of Japanese, Chinese, and American children and to investigate the possible differential relation of scores on cognitive tasks to reading by children of the 3 cultures. Similarity was found among children of the 3 cultures in level, variability, and structure of cognitive abilities. Chinese children surpassed Japanese and American children in reading scores; both Chinese and Japanese children obtained higher scores in mathematics than the American children. Prediction of achievement scores from the cognitive tasks showed few differential effects among children of the 3 cultures. The results suggest that the high achievement of Chinese and Japanese children cannot be attributed to higher intellectual abilities, but must be related to their experiences at home and at school.     

认知心理学视域中的写作过程

认知心理学从成熟写作者和初学写作的儿童两个维度研究写作过程.成熟写作者的写作过程主要体现在写作认知模型和个体--环境模型中,前者从认知角度揭示了写作过程的结构,后者强调写作过程是认知过程、动机、情感、工作记忆、长时记忆、环境诸因素的整合过程;初学写作的儿童对信息加工的能力有限,因而在写作中使用"提取-写作"的线性程序,其写作过程是知识陈述的过程.     

Cognitive Development of Chinese Urban Only Children and Children with Siblings

142 first- and 188 fifth-grade only children and children with siblings from the Beijing area were given 11 cognitive tasks to investigate the difference in cognitive abilities that may exist due to the special conditions resulting from the Chinese 1-child family planning program. Overall superiority of grade 1 only children over children with siblings appeared in cognitive abilities involving memory processes, language skills, and mathematics. No differences existed for perceptual tasks. However, the differences in cognitive abilities between only children and children with siblings at grade 5 were less prominent than at grade 1. The cognitive superiority of these younger Chinese only children over children with siblings may be explained by the fact that the fifth-grade only children were born before 1980 when the 1-child family planning program was not strongly enforced. Parents may have tended to treat these children and children with siblings alike. In contrast, the first-grade only children were born at a time of government policy intervention that resulted in special investment in these children by parents and elders, suggesting the possibility of a time-related cohort effect.     

THE ROLE OF PERSONALITY IN THE REGULATION OF GIFTED CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT

Experiments on problems of development of abilities have been carried out for five years with pupils in different age groups. The basis of the approach was development of psychodiagnostic approaches that would help in speeding up the development of cognitive activity in children with ordinary abilities. Gifted children display a high level of self‐regulation, master complicated psychological processes faster, react positively to novelty and complexity, and can differentiate more clearly. Teaching of gifted children is carried out in the Small Academy of Sciences, where programs on the development of interests and abilities take account of each specific pupil's characteristics. Gifted children can predict the future better, their plans are directed to the future. They are interested in renewing society, because their aims are more motivated by a strongly developed future perspective. Further work requires coordination with the International Council on Children's Talents and Gifts, especially regarding teacher training programs involving the study of special endowments and their development.     

高中议论性文体写作知识和训练策略新论

议论写作是培养学生理性思维的重要途径。现行人教版普通高中课程标准实验教科书《语文》在习作程序、思维训练、"网络作文建议"及写作命题方式上都体现了积极意义。但现行教材议论阅读教学与议论写作教学脱节严重,二者无法形成互动互补的关系;逻辑知识片面,修辞知识及写作策略知识缺位,还无法完全应对写作教学实际。高中语文教材应根据以上不足增加相应的阅读鉴赏篇目和议论知识及训练计划,这是扎实推进议论写作训练的需要,并不违逆课改精神。     

The use of source-related strategies in evaluating multiple psychology texts: a student–scientist comparison

Multiple text comprehension can greatly benefit from paying attention to sources and from using this information for evaluating text information. Previous research based on texts from the domain of history suggests that source-related strategies are acquired as part of the discipline expertise as opposed to the spontaneous use of these strategies by students just entering a field. In the present study, we compared the performance of students and scientists in the domain of psychology with regard to (a) their knowledge of publication types, (b) relevant source characteristics, (c) their use of sources for evaluating the credibility of multiple texts, and (d) their ability to judge the plausibility of argumentative statements in psychological texts. Participants worked on a battery of newly developed computerised tests with a think-aloud instruction to uncover strategies that scientists and students used when reading a text. Results showed that scientists scored higher in all of the assessed abilities and that these abilities were positively correlated with each other. Importantly, the superior performance of scientists in evaluating the credibility of multiple texts was mediated by their use of source information. Implications are discussed in terms of discipline expertise.     

Reading–writing connections: Discourse-oriented research

As reading and writing are both language processes, one can assume relationships between them, but the exact nature of these relationships has not yet been determined. While a large body of research has addressed reading comprehension and written production independently, very little investigation has examined the possible relationships between these two psycholinguistic processes, particularly from a discourse and cognitive perspective. Argumentative texts were analyzed in the present investigation on reading–writing connections. Four tests were designed and tested on 439 eighth graders. The tests assessed psycholinguistic variables that account for the microstructural, macrostructural and superstructural levels of comprehension/production processing. Correlation results showed significant coefficients between reading and writing of argumentative texts in all the psycholinguistic levels analyzed. These results suggest that the processes involved in both activities share some common knowledge-based strategies.     

Reading and writing to learn in secondary education: online processing activity and written products in summarizing and synthesizing tasks

The research reported here employed a multiple-case study methodology to assess the online cognitive and metacognitive activities of 15-year-old secondary students as they read informational texts and wrote a new text in order to learn, and the relation of these activities to the written products they were asked to generate. To investigate the influence of the task, students were required to perform two different tasks which differed in complexity and familiarity. The first task was reading a single text and making a written summary of it, while the second consisted in reading two texts and making a written synthesis of them. To gather information about how students construct meaning from informational texts, we asked students to think aloud as they read and wrote in order to provide us with information about their comprehension and composition processes. We also examined their reading and writing activities during the tasks. The results show that to a large extent secondary school students lack the cognitive and metacognitive processes that would enable them to make strategic use of reading and writing. They also show that, although there are no major differences in the way secondary school students tackle these different tasks, those who create the most elaborate products evidence a more recursive and flexible use of reading and writing. The most obvious conclusion as far as the repercussions of these findings are concerned is that there is an urgent need for work on tasks of this kind in the classroom.     

Emergence of morphographical markers in written French: what children following a special education programme say about plurals

Research conducted with average apprentice writers demonstrated that the main difficulty they are facing in the acquisition of written French is the acquisition of the morphology of the writing system, hence studies with slow writers show that morphological traces are late to emerge and often fail to meet the grammatical demands of French. This exploratory research conducted with slow mono- and multilingual learners attempts to identify the qualitative aspects of the emergence of morphological traces, which in the written French system are most often mute. The linguistic concept of the plural was therefore chosen not simply to observe the appearance of plural grammatical markers in productions, but also in order to stimulate apprentice writers to give so-called ‘metagraphical explanations’ in other words, they were asked to explain verbally their own written productions. We observed the written productions and the metagraphical explanations of the participants irrespective of whether these were standard or non-standard written productions. The results show that the verbal explanations, rather than being related to the grammatical case of plural, for the participants frequently refer to their concrete knowledge of number. The fact that these slow learners possess general cognitive abilities which are substantially more developed than their linguistic abilities suggests that the processes used to acquire the linguistic notion of plural in French are based on structures established by analogy, taking their roots in a cognitive notion of number which seems common to all apprentice writers.     

Children's cognitive effort and fluency in writing: Effects of genre and of handwriting automatisation

This study investigated the cognitive effort of 5th and 9th graders while writing a text. We manipulated genre (narrative text vs. argumentative text) and tested how level of handwriting automatisation contributes to cognitive effort and fluency in writing. The participants were 23 students from Grade 5 and 21 from Grade 9, who wrote two texts differing in genre while performing a secondary reaction time task. The results showed that cognitive effort interacted with genre. Cognitive effort decreased between Grades 5 and 9 only for writing argumentative text. Handwriting did not contribute to fluency in writing, but contributed to cognitive effort only in 5th-graders' writing of narrative text. The findings are discussed in light of the factors contributing to cognitive effort and fluency in writing.