What church examination records can tell us about the inheritance of reading disability

Long before the establishment of a general school system in Sweden (1842), a vast majority of the adult population had reached some reasonable level of reading literacy. The level of reading skill among the members of a household was assessed by the parish priest at annual catechetical examinations, and the results of these examinations were recorded in church registers. Eventually (in the 18th century) a 5-point grading scale was developed. In the present investigation, these unique records were used to study the transmission of low reading marks over successive generations in 17 families. For comparison, a set of 17 family trees originating from good readers was traced. The average scores of the descendants of poor readers were significantly lower than corresponding scores for descendants of good readers. However, the transmission patterns in the family trees of poor readers did not indicate any simple genetic mechanism. In another study, two dyslexic cases living today were traced backward to ancestors born around 1750. In one of the cases, a massive familial pattern of reading disability down to the eighth generation was observed, while most ancestors of the other case had average or above average reading skill as judged by the priests. The reasons for the absence of a simple hereditary pattern were critically discussed. This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Birgitta Esberg served as research assistant.     

What Canadian youth tell us about disclosing abuse

ObjectiveTo report findings from a study of anonymous disclosures of abuse experiences among a national sample of youth in Canada who participated in violence prevention programming.MethodsA qualitative analysis was done of a purposeful sample of 1,099 evaluation forms completed following Red Cross RespectED violence prevention programming delivered between 2000 and 2003. Forms were selected based on program facilitators identifying voluntary, anonymous disclosures by youth participants of neglect and emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Additional data for this analysis includes 27 interviews and focus groups that were used to understand the context of these disclosures and to engage the help of youth and program facilitators in the interpretation of findings.ResultsWhile this study is exploratory and non-representative in its design, findings suggest high rates of hidden abuse, with less than a quarter of youth with abuse experiences reporting a disclosure. Disclosure patterns vary with boys, youth aged 14–15, victims of physical abuse, and those abused by a family member being most likely to disclose to professionals or the police. Interviews help to explain the large number of youth who express reticence to disclose to professionals. Specifically, the data show a perception among youth of negative consequences following disclosure.ConclusionsThis data raises questions regarding why youth are reluctant to report abuse to professionals, preferring to cope independently or by confiding in peers. Youth in this study report feeling anxious about disclosing to authorities, fearful of the potential loss of control over decisions which affect them.Practice implicationsFindings suggest that professionals who provide support to young people's own networks of family and friends may help to facilitate youths’ disclosures of abuse. Furthermore, prevention programming that promotes a positive attitude towards disclosure of abuse experiences and provides an anonymous forum (such as an evaluation form) in which to do so is likely to encourage more young people to disclose.     

What can ethnographic studies tell us about the consequences of literacy?

The ethnographic literature on literacy is marked by a characteristic divide between ‘ideological’ and ‘autonomous’ positions, the former being associated with the sociocultural approach adopted within the ‘New Literacy Studies’ (NLS) and the work of Brian Street, and the latter with the work of Jack Goody. The polarization between the approaches has led to certain themes associated with the work of Goody and his ‘literacy thesis’ being excluded from ethnographic writing and theory. Such themes included the attributes and consequences of literacy as a ‘technology’, and the association of literacy acquisition with social mobility and progressive forms of social change. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bangladesh and a review of the recent ethnographic literature from a range of cultural settings. It examines the case for a more inclusive and comparative approach based on the emergent ‘situated’ perspective. It suggests revisionist readings of ethnographic accounts recognizing cross‐cultural patterns of utility, and the significance of literacy for human agency, gender relations, and well‐being. Presenting an ethnographic case study of women’s literacy in N/W Bangladesh it draws out the theoretical significance of such a shift in how we research and understand the consequences of literacy acquisition. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications of such a perspective for adult literacy policy and practice.     

What can age by grade tell us about education in Australia?

The education systems in the States and Territories of Australia are analyzed using age by grade (Year) tables produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the 1 July returns from government and nongovernment schools. The demographic patterns of 8-year-olds at Year levels show that the system of promotion through school and the rates of retention in the early years differ by State and Territory. The factors producing these variations are explored. Indigenous/non-indigenous differences in school progress are uneven across States and Territories and there are small differences favoring girls. Policy implications for the findings are discussed.     

What can age by grade tell us about education in Australia?

The education systems in the States and Territories of Australia are analyzed using age by grade (Year) tables produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the 1 July returns from government and nongovernment schools. The demographic patterns of 8-year-olds at Year levels show that the system of promotion through school and the rates of retention in the early years differ by State and Territory. The factors producing these variations are explored. Indigenous/non-indigenous differences in school progress are uneven across States and Territories and there are small differences favoring girls. Policy implications for the findings are discussed.     

What can national data sets tell us about inclusion and pupil achievement?

Recent developments in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have produced a national pupil database (NPD) that contains information about the attainments of individual pupils. Every child in the country has been allocated a unique pupil number (UPN), which means that the academic progress of individuals can be tracked over time. It is possible to combine data on attainment with the demographic information which is obtained from the pupil level annual schools census (PLASC). These innovations make it possible to combine 'value added' information about pupil progress from one key stage of education to the next with data from the PLASC, which contains pupil background information, to produce a single matched data set. Thus the NPD and the PLASC are able to provide much of the necessary information to explore issues of individual pupil performance over their school careers. Notably, more specific information about the academic achievement of pupils who are described as having 'special educational needs' is now available. Lani Florian, lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Martyn Rouse, senior lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Kristine Black-Hawkins, senior research associate, and Stephen Jull, research associate, are all based at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. In this article, drawing on their work in the 'Inclusion and Achievement Project', they explore the problems and possibilities for researching issues of pupil achievement and inclusion through the use of these new national data sets.     

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

What student teaching evaluation instruments tell us about emphases in teacher education programs

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. April, 1995     

Syllable frequency in lexical decision and naming of English words

The importance of phonological syllables in recognition and pronunciation of visual words has been demonstrated in languages with a high degree of spelling-sound correspondence. In Spanish, multisyllabic words with frequent first syllables are named more quickly than those with less frequent first syllables, but receive slower lexical decisions. The latter effect is attributed to lexical competition from other words beginning with the same syllable. We examined syllable frequency effects on naming and lexical decision for 3029 visually presented words in English, a language with a high degree of irregularity in spelling/sound relationships, and in which phonological syllables are less clearly marked in printed words. The results showed facilitative effects of syllable frequency in both tasks, and these were stronger when syllables were defined orthographically than phonologically. The results suggest that activation of lexical candidates based on a syllabic code does not occur rapidly enough to interfere with lexical decision in English.     

What the teaching perspectives of cooperating teachers tell us about their advisory practices

This study drew upon the recently developed Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) to compare and contrast the teaching perspectives of cooperating teachers against a range of demographic data specific to cooperating teachers. The outcomes indicate, among other things, that a high percentage of cooperating teachers base their pedagogical relationship with learners upon a Nurturing perspective, that a Social Reform perspective among cooperating teachers is almost non-existent, and that a Transmission perspective is more prominent at the secondary school level than at other school levels. Collectively, the insights from this study provide one of the most comprehensive surveys of a single cohort of cooperating teachers reported in the literature.     

Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive experiences tell us about the learning process?

This paper aims at highlighting the importance for learning of one of the facets of metacognition, namely metacognitive experiences (ME) that comprise feelings, judgments or estimates, and online task-specific knowledge. The emphasis is on the affective character of ME, which has received little attention in the past. Unlike online task-specific knowledge, which is conscious and analytic, the other ME are products of nonconscious, nonanalytic inferential processes. Because of their nature, ME can trigger either rapid, nonconscious control decisions or conscious analytic ones. However, ME can make use of both the affective and the cognitive regulatory loops, and this has a series of implications for learning. Evidence is presented regarding the relations of ME with affect and cognition, and the implications of the lack of accuracy of ME for the self-regulation of learning. Particular emphasis is given on judgment of learning, feeling of difficulty, and feeling of confidence. The challenges for future research on metacognition are underscored.     

From the playful to the profound: What metaphors tell us about gifted children

Although some metaphors have lost their novelty through overuse, the unexpected quality of other metaphors appeal to creatively gifted children given their proctivity for language and imagination. The unexpected connections that comprise metaphor manifest the creative process and can give rise to innovative expressions and concepts. Creatively gifted children have an extraordinary facility with metaphor, using these expressions in ways that reveal advanced metalinguistic ability. In addition, the metaphors they create reflect a wealth of ability from profound emotional and spiritual dimensions to playful and humorous insights into the human condition.

A range of metaphors composed by children are presented and discussed in terms of what they indicate about the personal worlds, special talents, and emotional insights that are often typical of the gifted. Moreover, some of these metaphors appear to play a cathartic role for their authors whereas others seem to provide an engaging vehicle for creatively gifted children's delight in the world of language and ideas. The approach to creative writing described in this article also has the potential to assist with the identification of those with linguistic talent.     

Rapid serial naming and reading ability: the role of lexical access

Rapid serial naming tasks are frequently used to explain variance in reading skill. However, the construct being measured by rapid naming is yet undetermined. The Phonological Processing theory suggests that rapid naming relates to reading because of similar demands of access to long-term stored phonological representations of visual stimuli. Some researchers have argued that isolated or discrete-trial naming is a more precise measure of lexical access than serial naming, thus it is likely that any shared variance between these two formats can be attributed to similar lexical access demands. The present study examined whether there remained any variance in reading ability that could be uniquely explained by the rapid naming task while controlling for isolated naming. Structural equation modeling was used to examine these relations within the context of the phonological processing model. Results indicated that serial naming uniquely predicted reading, and the relation was stronger with isolated naming controlled for, suggesting that isolated naming functioned as a suppressor variable in the relation of serial naming with reading.