Knowledge foundations for teaching reading and spelling

Changes in education policy, the accumulation of research evidence that skilled instruction prevents and ameliorates reading failure, accountability requirements, and a new emphasis on multi-tiered interventions in schools are all causing a growing interest in improving teacher knowledge and skill in reading instruction. Consensus frameworks that explain reading development and individual differences provide an outline for what teachers need to know. The details of that content, however, including the English phonological system, the organization of English orthography, and the language structures that are processed during reading and writing, are challenging for teachers to learn. Recent studies are reviewed that investigate the relationship between teacher knowledge, practice, and student outcomes. The paper argues that teachers must have considerable knowledge of language structure, reading development, and pedagogy to differentiate instruction for diverse learners. Policy mandates for improvement of reading achievement should provide for more effective teacher education, as the knowledge base is not learned casually or easily. Research on how teachers best develop expertise should inform our licensing and professional development programs.     

任务型教学法在初中英语阅读教学中的应用

初中英语阅读是初中英语教学的重要部分,提高学生的阅读水平是阅读教学的主要任务。本文以Nunan的任务型教学特征和Willis的任务型教学过程作为理论基础,重点研究任务型教学法在初中英语阅读教学中的应用。研究发现,任务型教学可以提升初中学生学习英语的主动性与积极性,是一种提高学生阅读技能的有效方法。     

Teaching reading in an inner city school through a multisensory teaching approach

The purpose of the present study was to examine the efficacy of the multisensory teaching approach to improve reading skills at the first-grade level. The control group was taught by the Houghton-Mifflin Basal Reading Program while the treatment group was taught by the Language Basics: Elementary, which incorporates the Orton-Gillingham-based Alphabetic Phonics Method. The results showed that the treatment group made statistically significant gains in phonological awareness, decoding, and reading comprehension while the control group made gains only on reading comprehension.     

浅谈新课程标准下高中英语阅读教学策略

新课程改革强调课程应从学生的实际出发,提倡合作式学习,培养学生的综合语言运用能力。本文以高中英语阅读教学中存在的问题为切入点,初步探讨了高中英语阅读教学的策略问题,旨在更好地提高阅读教学质量。     

A time-out procedure in a public school setting

This study uses time-out as the primary therapeutic intervention with a 13-year-old highly aggressive male in a public school setting. Specific behaviors were listed prior to beginning TO and were explained to the child and teachers. TO was used over a 10-week period with extinction of the specified behaviors occurring after the seventh week. During an 8-week follow-up only three instances of the aggressive behaviors were observed. During the third and fourth weeks of TO the child began to show spontaneous interest in school work. Statistical analysis by an interrupted time-series program revealed a t (102) = - 8.290 (p <.0005) for change in level between baseline observations with intervention and follow-up data. It is concluded that TO is a sufficiently intense aversive event of itself to alter some types of deviant behavior without direct application of positive reinforcers. It is most propitiously used when alternative response modes are made available for the child.     

新课程标准下高中英语阅读课教学模式的探索

随着教学改革的推进,我国英语教学也迈出了一大步。但目前在新课程背景下高中英语阅读教学的现状却不容乐观。因此,教师必须在分析教材文本的基础上,结合教学实例探索新课程标准下高中英语阅读课更有效更实用的教学模式。     

Development of decoding,reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling during the elementary school years

The goal of this study was (1) to investigate the development of decoding(efficiency), reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling during theelementary school years and (2) to determine the differences between poor,average and good performers with regard to the development of theseskills. Twice each year two standardized tests for each skill wereadministered. For two successive periods, one of the tests for each skill wasthe same. To describe the development in terms of a latent variable evolvingacross grades, the structured-means version of the structural equationmodel was used. The growth was expressed in terms of effect size. Withrespect to the first question, clear seasonal effects were found for readingcomprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect fordecoding efficiency was restricted to the early grades. Progress tended tobe greater from fall to spring than from spring to fall. For decodingefficiency, and to a lesser degree for vocabulary and spelling, growthshowed a declining trend across grades. For reading comprehension, theprogress in grade 2 was lower than the progress in grade 3, but progresswas declining across higher grades. With respect to the second question,it appeared that initially low performers on reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling tended to show a greater progress, especially inperiods where the largest amount of instruction was given. Although it wasfound that the low, medium and high ability groups remain in the sameorder, as far as their means are concerned, these findings do not confirmthe existence of a Matthew effect for reading comprehension, vocabularyand spelling. For decoding efficiency no clear differential effect could befound: the gap between the poor and good performers did not widen overtime for this skill.     

Investigating the effects of a game-based approach in teaching word recognition and spelling to students with reading disabilities and attention deficits

The purpose of this small-scale exploratory study was to examine the effects of using a game-based instructional approach to teach word recognition and spelling to Grade 6 students with reading disabilities (RD) and attention deficit disorders. Treatment and comparison groups were formed. The students were placed in either a traditional spelling group or an alternate game group. Different measures of phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid naming as well as the word recognition and spelling subtests were administered to six students with RD and attention deficits. The study results indicate that students in the game-based approach outperformed students in the traditional, text-based spelling programs. In addition, the remediation of specific deficit subskills was possible through a game-based approach. Rapid naming, word recognition and spelling subtest results all improved through this method, with rapid naming improving the most. The study provides evidence for marked improvement in engaging behavior as well as literacy skills through alternate instructional methodologies.     

新课标下的高中信息技术教学

本文从新课程标准出发,通过对信息技术新课程标准的认识和理解,在新课程标准的教育教学理念下将高中信息技术教学创造性地运用于实践,改进教学方法,更新教学观念;改进学生的学习方式;优化重组教材,创造性地使用教材;提高教学效果,提升学生的信息素养,全面推动高中信息技术新课程改革的顺利实施。     

交际教学法在高中英语阅读教学中的应用

在高中英语传统教学中,大部分是老师在讲台上授课,以在黑板上做板书为主,学生只是被动的记笔记。如何把交际教学法与传统授课在阅读教学结合起来至关重要,不仅仅提高学生的语法知识,对学生的交际能力及语言表达能力也是一种很大的提高。     

面向人力资源服务业的专业教学体系的构建

通过对人力资源服务业的业态类型解读,结合当前的有利形势,以广东省外语艺术职业学院人力资源管理专业为例,探索专业教学体系的构建,为高职人力资源管理人才的培养模式开拓新的思路。     

Cognitive preconditions of early reading and spelling: a latent-variable approach with longitudinal data

The aim of the present study was to empirically disentangle the interdependencies of the impact of nonverbal intelligence, working memory capacities, and phonological processing skills on early reading decoding and spelling within a latent variable approach. In a sample of 127 children, these cognitive preconditions were assessed before the onset of formal education, whereas reading as well as spelling achievement was measured at the end of grade 1. The findings indicate that working memory does contribute to the prediction of early reading and spelling, and that this contribution outperforms that of general intelligence and phonological recoding from long-term memory during the early steps of reading and spelling acquisition. Moreover, the results show that phonological awareness mediates the effects of working memory capacities on early literacy outcomes. The role of working memory and phonological awareness as key cognitive preconditions of early reading and spelling are discussed.     

Invented spelling activities in small groups and early spelling and reading

Our aim was to assess the impact of an invented spelling programme conducted in small groups on children’s written language acquisition in Portuguese. We expected the experimental group to have better post-test results than the control group in spelling and reading. Participants were 160 preschool-age children who were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. Their age, cognitive ability, knowledge of letters and phonological abilities were controlled. Children’s spelling and reading were evaluated in a pre- and a post-test. In-between, experimental group participated in an invented spelling programme in small groups and the control group in story readings. The experimental group showed better results in spelling and reading in the post-test than the control one. Different dynamics occurred in the small groups which had different impacts on children’s acquisitions. These results provide empirical support for the proposal that invented spelling should be incorporated into early literacy instruction.     

Concurrent correlates and predictors of reading and spelling achievement in deaf and hearing school children

Seven- and eight-year-old deaf children and hearing children of equivalent reading age were presented with a number of tasks designed to assess reading, spelling, productive vocabulary, speechreading, phonological awareness, short-term memory, and nonverbal intelligence. The two groups were compared for similarities and differences in the levels of performance and in the predictors of literacy. Multiple regressions showed that both productive vocabulary and speechreading were significant predictors of reading for the deaf children after hearing loss and nonverbal intelligence had been accounted for. However, spelling ability was not associated with any of the other measures apart from reading. For hearing children, age was the main determinant of reading and spelling ability (due to selection criterion). Possible explanations for the role of speechreading and productive vocabulary in deaf children's reading and the differences between the correlates of literacy for deaf and hearing children are discussed.     

Reciprocal teaching of reading comprehension in a New Zealand high school

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of a trial implementation of reciprocal teaching procedures by high school teachers to address reading comprehension deficits in a group of their students. Forty-six students with the lowest scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension in seven eighth-grade classes participated in the study. Following 3 hours of instruction in reciprocal teaching procedures, four classroom teachers and two support teachers ran eight reciprocal teaching groups. Four of these groups, 20 students in all, were exposed to between 12 and 16 reciprocal teaching sessions, while 15 students in the other four groups received between six and eight sessions. The remaining 11 students served as a no-treatment comparison group. Pre- and posttest scores on the standardized test served as the dependent measure. Significant gains were observed with students in the extended program, with no significant differences observed between the short program and comparison groups. Follow-up assessments of extended program students between 3 and 7 months later showed a maintenance of comprehension gains. Implications for high schools are discussed in terms of the absence of student progress with insufficient spaced practice in metacognitive skill training and strategic resourcing for remedial comprehension instruction.     

基于课标的马来西亚国小华小汉语教学对比研究

马来西亚的汉语教学具有悠久的历史,也存在一些问题。本文通过对马来西亚国小华小学的课程标准进行对比分析,提出一些相关建议,希望能够促进汉语在马来西亚的传播和发展。     

浅谈任务型教学法在中学英语阅读教学中的应用

阅读作为中学生学习英语的一项主要任务,在英语教学的听、说、读、写四项技能中地位显著。本文在分析目前中学英语阅读教学的不足的基础上,结合实际教学经验,介绍了任务型教学法在中学英语阅读教学中的实际应用。     

Ocular dominance,reading and spelling: a reassessment of a measure associated with specific reading difficulties

The association of reading disability with perceptuomotor problems has had a chequered history. This study examines the relationship between a new test of ocular dominance and reading and spelling ability in a group of 323 schoolchildren. Similar rates for unfixed ocular dominance were found for poor readers as in comparable studies. The rates of unstable ocular dominance did not differ between those with reading and spelling difficulties and controls. These findings in a ‘blind’ study question the role of this test of eye dominance as a diagnosis of ‘dyslexia’.