Promoting teachers’ awareness about mathematics,its teaching and learning

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education -     

Synergetic effects of phonological awareness,vocabulary, and word reading on bilingual children’s reading comprehension: A three-year study

Using comparable measures of first language (L1) Chinese and second language (L2) English, this three-year longitudinal study examined the synergetic effects of phonological awareness, vocabulary, and word reading on reading comprehension development among 227 Hong Kong Chinese-English bilinguals from Grades 2-4. Structural equation growth modeling revealed that all three factors were significantly linked to one another and to initial reading comprehension for each language. Across languages, L1 Chinese vocabulary was directly linked to initial L2 English reading comprehension, while L1 Chinese phonological awareness was indirectly linked to initial L2 English reading comprehension via L2 English vocabulary and word reading. These findings underscore the synergetic effects of early phonological and lexical skills in determining early reading comprehension ability in both L1 and L2.     

Traumatic and stressful events in early childhood: can treatment help those at highest risk?

Objective

This study involves a reanalysis of data from a randomized controlled trial to examine whether child-parent psychotherapy (CPP), an empirically based treatment focusing on the parent-child relationship as the vehicle for child improvement, is efficacious for children who experienced multiple traumatic and stressful life events (TSEs).

Methods

Participants comprised 75 preschool-aged children and their mothers referred to treatment following the child's exposure to domestic violence. Dyads were randomly assigned to CPP or to a comparison group that received monthly case management plus referrals to community services and were assessed at intake, posttest, and 6-month follow-up. Treatment effectiveness was examined by level of child TSE risk exposure (<4 risks versus 4+ TSEs).

Results

For children in the 4+ risk group, those who received CPP showed significantly greater improvements in PTSD and depression symptoms, PTSD diagnosis, number of co-occurring diagnoses, and behavior problems compared to those in the comparison group. CPP children with <4 risks showed greater improvements in symptoms of PTSD than those in the comparison group. Mothers of children with 4+ TSEs in the CPP group showed greater reductions in symptoms of PTSD and depression than those randomized to the comparison condition. Analyses of 6-month follow-up data suggest improvements were maintained for the high risk group.

Conclusions

The data provide evidence that CPP is effective in improving outcomes for children who experienced four or more TSEs and had positive effects for their mothers as well.

Practice implications

Numerous studies show that exposure to childhood trauma and adversity has negative consequences for later physical and mental health, but few interventions have been specifically evaluated to determine their effectiveness for children who experienced multiple TSEs. The findings suggest that including the parent as an integral participant in the child's treatment may be particularly effective in the treatment of young children exposed to multiple risks.     

Popular culture and moral panics about ‘children at risk’: revisiting the sexualisation-of-young-girls debate

In an attempt to resist moral panics over children's media consumption, and especially girls' consumption of hyper-sexualised popular media, this paper aims to offer a more positive account of popular culture and young children's, especially girls', engagement with it. By adopting a historical approach to modern childhood and the moral panics associated with it, I argue that the consumption of entertainment media and popular culture is a leisure activity which, rather than facilitating or reinforcing female subordination and youth vulnerability, can be seen as a possible source of knowledge about sexuality, about the self and the social world. I draw on findings from qualitative research conducted in Athens with young schoolgirls aged 10–12 years about their favourite popular icons in order to examine the variety of their engagements with, readings and practices of popular culture. Their discursive accounts reveal the intricate ways in which pre-teenage girls make sense of fandom and stardom, discuss taste, fashion and body aesthetics, and construct notions of attractiveness and ethical selfhood.     

Valued and performed or not? Teachers’ ratings of transition activities for young children with learning disability

Stakeholder collaboration has been identified as a facilitator for positive transition outcomes for all children, and especially for children in need of special support. However, the type and extent of stakeholder collaboration have shown to be related to teachers’ view of their transition practises. Thus, this study set out to examine the transition activities reported by 253 teachers in Compulsory School for Students with Learning Disabilities in Sweden. The purpose was to study the type of transition activities performed and how important teachers regarded these activities to be. The results show that overall teachers are engaged in transition activities that can be described as mainly traditional, as they do not differ from transition activities carried out in other educational settings. The results also show that untraditional transition activities, such as home visits and joint parent meetings with preschools, are viewed as important, but rarely executed. The results are discussed from an ecological systems perspective, emphasising the interconnectedness of individuals and their environment. Focus is given to individualised transition processes and developmentally appropriate transition activities for young children with learning disability.     

Do vocabulary,syntactic awareness,and reading comprehension in second language facilitate the development of each other in young children?

This study explored whether children's second language (L2) vocabulary, syntactic awareness, and reading comprehension contributed to the growth of each other. A total of 184 Chinese primary school children (91 girls) aged 8–10 years old in Hong Kong participated in the pre-test of this study. Among them, 88 were in Grade 3 and 96 were in Grade 4. One year later, 178 of these children also participated in the post-test. These children learned English as an L2 at school. They completed a series of English language tasks. The results from a cross-lagged panel model show that vocabulary predicted the growth of syntactic awareness and reading comprehension. Syntactic awareness predicted the growth of vocabulary and reading comprehension. Reading comprehension facilitated the growth of vocabulary, and it also predicted the growth of syntactic awareness in Grade 4 students but not in Grade 3 students. Implications for teaching children an L2 are discussed.     

Education for sale: at what cost? Lifelong learning and the marketplace

This paper examines the influence of the marketplace on discourses in lifelong learning and raises questions about the future direction of these discussions, drawing upon critical and feminist analyses. A brief overview of how the notion of lifelong learning has shifted from an emphasis on cooperation and shared development to a discourse of competition and individualism is given. Drawing upon the works of various educators, an overview is given of some of the ways in which the marketplace has influenced lifelong learning discourses and has become a pervasive presence in academia. Both critical and feminist analyses are used to examine how justice, equity issues, and critical thinking are suppressed when the marketplace becomes a predominant influence in education. An assessment of questions raised by educators working to challenge this marketplace orientation in lifelong learning and suggestions for further areas of research conclude the paper.     

Phonological awareness, vocabulary, and word reading in children who use cochlear implants: does age of implantation explain individual variability in performance outcomes and growth?

The phonological awareness (PA), vocabulary, and word reading abilities of 19 children with cochlear implants (CI) were assessed. Nine children had an implant early (between 2 and 3.6 years) and 10 had an implant later (between 5 and 7 years). Participants were tested twice over a 12-month period on syllable, rhyme, and phoneme awareness (see James et al., 2005). Performance of CI users was compared against younger hearing children matched for reading level. Two standardized assessments of vocabulary and single word reading were administered. As a group, the children fitted early had better performance outcomes on PA, vocabulary, and reading compared to hearing benchmark groups. The early group had significant growth on rhyme awareness, whereas the late group showed no significant gains in PA over time. There was wide individual variation in performance and growth in the CI users. Two participants with the best overall development were both fitted with an implant late in childhood.     

Do children who acquire word reading without explicit phonics employ compensatory learning? Issues of phonological recoding, lexical orthography, and fluency

Two studies were conducted across three countries to examine samples of beginning readers without systematic explicit phonics who had reached the same level of word reading accuracy as comparison samples with high and moderate explicit phonics. Had they employed any compensatory learning to reach that level? Four hypotheses of compensatory learning or performance were tested on the samples, all of which represented the lower half of the normative distribution of word reading accuracy. The two samples without explicit phonics received teaching that centered on story text reading and some receptive phonics that arose from this text reading. They did not compensate by relatively greater use of a larger psycholinguistic grain size in the form of rime units. Nor did they compensate by trading off comprehension for text word reading accuracy. In a microtraining study, they showed no compensation in proficiency of initial learning of lexical orthographic representations. For all samples, this initial learning was less effective with spelling than reading training trials. In reading text, the samples without explicit phonics did not compensate by trading off speed for accuracy, or comprehension. On the contrary, they read text faster than the explicit phonics samples. The extra classroom instruction time available to them for text reading, with the consequential extra exposure and practice of word reading, would explain this result.     

Academic self‐concept,reading attitudes and approaches to learning of children with dyslexia: do they differ from their peers?

This research aimed at exploring the motivation for reading of pupils with dyslexia, and to investigate whether they differ from their peers. A total of 32 pupils formed the LD group (22 boys and 10 girls, 5th‐ and 6th‐graders) who were diagnosed with dyslexia. A comparison group was formed of pupils who attended the same classes (N = 210), and these were divided into two groups (average/low performance, N = 115; high performance, N = 95), according to teachers’ ratings of pupils’ performance on reading. Self‐report measures were used to assess perceptions of academic ability, reading attitudes and approaches to learning. The results revealed that dyslexic pupils displayed lower academic self‐concept than the low/average and high performance groups on all domains, except Practical ability. Moreover, dyslexic pupils perceived reading less as a function of personal development, both enjoyment and utilitarian, as compared to their peers. Finally, the dyslexic group adopted the surface approach to learning, indicating an external motive, similarly to the average/low group, and adopted the deep approach to learning less as compared to their high achieving peers. The implications of these findings are discussed at pupil, teacher and classroom level.     

What (more) can,and should,assessment do for learning? Observations from ‘successful learning context’ in Singapore

Singapore has earned accolades as one of the leading education systems in the world, based on its record in international assessments, including TIMMS and PISA. This has contributed to the entrenchment of ‘assessment’ becoming an institutional authority of standards, teaching (performativity) and classroom learning. It is against, and amidst such contexts, that this article traces how the notion and discourse of formative assessment and Assessment for Learning (AfL) are widely introduced and used formally across all Singaporean schools, particularly after a recent introduction of new ‘Holistic and Balanced Assessment’ policies. We argue that the very institutional authority of successful high-stake examination results, which served as critical standards of performativity of teaching and learning in the classroom, is being challenged. The changing assessment context of Singaporean schools, therefore serves as an interesting case study site for studying how formative assessment and AfL can be adapted and understood when ‘learning’ is already seen to be successful.     

English language learning and education policy in Chile: can English really open doors for all?

To date, knowledge of English in Latin America has reflected existing political and economic power structures. It has remained the preserve of the elite with access to private schooling, and as such it demarcates and divides social groups by reinforcing an unequal distribution of wealth, resources, and knowledge. However, the number of people learning English as a foreign language is growing across the region. This article analyses the “English Opens Doors Programme” in Chile, which aims to improve national economic competitiveness and promote equitable access to English language learning in all publicly funded schools. The article examines this initiative within the context of Chilean education policy since 1990, thereby acknowledging the influence of different stakeholders in this process, and the tensions between education for economic growth and education for social justice in a highly segmented and marketised system.     

Agency in the darkness: ‘fear of the unknown’, learning disability and teacher education for inclusion

This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the ‘fear of the unknown’ often cited as an explanation for resistance to inclusive education. Using ‘severe and profound learning disability’ as the paradigm case, we situate the phobia surrounding this label in its social and historical context. Our hypothesis is that resistance to inclusion for this group is not rational but amounts to a thought disorder in a psychiatric sense. Using qualitative case studies of pre-service teachers on practicum and headteachers engaged in decisions about admissions, we demonstrate the workings and impact of inclusion phobia. We illustrate its trajectory from a general social dysfunction, to the systems that channel it to the individuals caught up in it. Our aim is to expose inclusion phobia so that, teacher educators, teachers and pre-service teachers might, in knowing it, find new ways to remedy it. In doing so, long standing resistance to inclusive education is made more tractable. We conclude with our own proposals for an anti-phobic curriculum for teacher education.     

Increased risk for mental illness,injuries, and violence in children born to mothers with intellectual disability: A register study in Sweden during 1999–2012

Several studies have demonstrated that mothers with intellectual disability (ID) have a higher prevalence of mental health illness, lower socio-economic status, and a higher risk of alcohol and drug use compared to mothers without ID. The children of mothers with ID are over-represented in child protection and legal proceedings but are generally a less studied group than the mothers. The aim of this study was to investigate if children born to mothers with ID had an increased risk of being diagnosed with mental illness, injuries, and violence compared with children of mothers without ID. The study comprised a population-based cohort of children born in Sweden between 1999 and 2005. Data were collected from the Medical Birth Register and linked with two other national registers; ICD-10 codes were used for medical diagnoses, including ID. The children were followed from birth to seven years of age. In total, 478,577 children were included, of whom 2749 were born to mothers with ID. Children of mothers with ID were at a greater risk of having mental health problems (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.02; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.74–2.35) and ID (OR = 4.14; CI = 2.95–5.82) in early childhood. They had an increased risk for injuries due to falls (OR = 1.15; Cl 1.04–1.27). The largest risk related to trauma was violence and child abuse (OR = 3.11; CI = 1.89–5.12). In conclusion, children of mothers with ID had an increased risk for injuries, violence, and child abuse. We therefore suggest that parents with ID should receive evidence based support so that their children receive the best care and protection.     

Can instructional and emotional support in the first-grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure?

This study examined ways in which children's risk of school failure may be moderated by support from teachers. Participants were 910 children in a national prospective study. Children were identified as at risk at ages 5-6 years on the basis of demographic characteristics and the display of multiple functional (behavioral, attention, academic, social) problems reported by their kindergarten teachers. By the end of first grade, at-risk students placed in first-grade classrooms offering strong instructional and emotional support had achievement scores and student-teacher relationships commensurate with their low-risk peers; at-risk students placed in less supportive classrooms had lower achievement and more conflict with teachers. These findings have implications for understanding the role that classroom experience may play in pathways to positive adaptation.     

Education for children with severe and profound general learning disabilities in Ireland: factors influencing teachers’ decisions about teaching these pupils

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived high turnover of teachers working with pupils with severe and profound general learning disabilities in Ireland. Questionnaires and interviews were used to explore the situations in which teachers worked and their reasons for leaving or staying in teaching this group of pupils. The study found that while teachers were positive about working with this group, their working conditions and the level of support that they received were crucial factors in determining whether they remained in post. These factors and the implications for practice are discussed.     

Improving school attendance: can participation in outdoor learning influence attendance for young people with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties?

The link between good attendance in school and academic performance has been acknowledged for some time now. However, improving school attendance for young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) or pupils at risk of exclusion can be a challenging task for educational leaders. This paper begins with a discussion of earlier studies on outdoor learning and school attendance. It adds to the discourse by presenting findings from a one-year outdoor learning programme situated within an English special school for young people with SEBD. The research reported here is part of a larger study that used an action research design. The paper concludes that although improvements in attendance can be achieved, the factors affecting attendance are complex and that improvements may be restricted to programmes that utilise an outdoor learning approach rather than being achievable across the whole school curriculum.     

International perspectives on student awareness,experiences and perceptions of research: implications for academic developers in implementing research‐based teaching and learning

This paper explores the implications of the effective integration of research, teaching and learning for academic development through the lens of an international multi‐institutional comparison of student perceptions of research and its impact on their learning environment. The study, with a sample of over 500 final‐year undergraduate students across three institutions in the UK and Canada, represents a spectrum of research and teaching intensive universities and is one of the largest exploring undergraduate student perceptions of research in the linking teaching and research literature. The results indicate a complex relationship between student perceptions and experiences of research and the type of institution, as well as the individual, institutional and national context. They also inform the discussion of particular issues that academic developers face and the strategies they use to improve the integration of research and teaching to benefit the undergraduate learning experience in their institution.

Cet article explore les implications, pour le développement pédagogique, de l’intégration effective de la recherche, de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage à l’aide de la lentille d’une comparaison internationale multi institutionnelle des perceptions étudiantes à l’égard de la recherche et de leur impact sur l’environnement d’apprentissage. L’étude, reposant sur un échantillon de plus de 500 étudiants en dernière année de 1^er cycle, provenant de trois institutions au Royaume‐Uni et au Canada, représente un spectre d’universités centrées sur l’enseignement ou sur la recherche. L’étude constitue une des recherches les plus importantes au sujet des perceptions étudiantes à l’égard de la recherche dans la littérature portant sur le lien entre l’enseignement et la recherche. Les résultats indiquent une relation complexe entre les perceptions et les expériences des étudiants, et le type d’institution, de même qu’avec les contextes individuel, institutionnel et national. Les résultats contribuent aussi à la discussion de questions particulières auxquelles les conseillers pédagogiques font face ainsi que les stratégies que ceux‐ci utilisent en vue d’améliorer l’intégration de la recherche et de l’enseignement de façon à en faire bénéficier l’expérience d’apprentissage au 1^er cycle au sein de leur institution.