Morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading in English–Arabic bilingual children

The paper reported an exploratory study that tested (a) the relationship between phonological and morphological awareness in English (L1)–Arabic (L2) bilingual children in Canada (N = 43), and (b) the relevance of these skills to word and pseudoword reading accuracy, and to complex word reading fluency. The results showed a significant correlation between phonological awareness in English and in Arabic. However, morphological awareness in the two languages was not correlated. Phonological awareness predicted reading cross-linguistically, but only Arabic morphological awareness predicted word reading in English. Moreover, while both phonological and morphological awareness in English predicted independent unique variance in English word reading, only phonological awareness in Arabic predicted Arabic word reading. Complex-word reading fluency was predicted by morphological awareness within both languages. Similarly, in both languages, phonological awareness was the single factor predicting pseudoword decoding accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences between English and Arabic in orthographic depth and in morphological structure and transparency.     

The art of teaching children the arts: music,dance and poetry with children aged 2–8 years old

In this article, the theoretical framework of developmental pedagogy is presented as a tool in studying and developing children’s knowing within the arts. The domains of art focused on are music, poetry and dance/aesthetic movement. Through empirical examples from a large‐scale research project, we illustrate the tools of developmental pedagogy and show how this perspective contributes to our understanding of children’s learning of music, dance and poetry. More specifically, we will analyse: (a) the important role of the teacher in children’s learning within the arts; (b) the importance of conversing when learning the arts; (c) what constitutes the knowledge, what we refer to as ‘learning objects’, to be appropriated within the three domains of art focused on; and (d) how to conceive of progression in children’s knowing within the arts.     

Early reading success and its relationship to reading achievement and reading volume: replication of ‘10 years later’

Cunningham and Stanovich reported a longitudinal investigation over 10 years that examined the unique influence of exposure to print in explaining individual differences on various measures of reading achievement and declarative (general) knowledge. The present study replicated their investigation with a larger number of participants and additional measures of literacy and language skills. Fifty-four 1st graders were administered reading, spelling, vocabulary, IQ, and listening comprehension measures and then followed to the end of 10th grade. At the end of 10th grade, they were administered an IQ test and measures of reading comprehension, language ability, general knowledge, and exposure to print. Results showed that 1st grade reading skills were a strong predictor of 10th grade outcomes. Second and third-grade reading skills were predictive of individual differences in print exposure even after 10th grade reading comprehension and language ability had been partialed. Individual differences in print exposure also predicted differences in the growth of reading ability, word decoding, spelling, vocabulary, and listening comprehension throughout the elementary grades. Findings confirm the powerful, long-term benefits of providing children with a fast start in reading and support the reciprocal nature of strong reading skills and engagement in reading and reading-related activities.     

Phonological awareness and reading speed deficits in reading disabled Greek‐speaking children

There is evidence that phonological awareness skills secure decoding ability and that phonological deficits underlie failure to acquire adequate word recognition. Slow word‐reading rate may be an additional defining characteristic of reading disability. The present study aimed to investigate whether: (1) reading disabled (RD) Greek‐speaking children showed reading accuracy and reading speed deficits relative to chronological age‐matched controls (CAC) and reading age‐matched controls (RAC); (2) they showed phonological deficits relative to the two control groups who do not present reading difficulties; and (3) they showed reading comprehension deficits over and above any word reading deficits.

Results suggested that the reading accuracy of the RD group was predictably weaker than that of the CAC group but equivalent to that of the RAC group. However, the reading speed of the RD group was significantly slower than the RAC group, who showed the same single word reading speed as the CAC group.

Slow and laboured decoding was found to compromise the reading comprehension of the RD group, whose listening comprehension performance was as good as the two other groups. The RD children performed poorly on phonological awareness tasks and naming speed. Naming speed was not an independent core feature of reading difficulties in the Greek language but was associated with a general phonological deficit.

It is recommended that diagnostic assessments for children with reading difficulties in Greek should include phonological awareness, single word reading and pseudoword reading tasks that measure both accuracy and speed.     

Understanding prosody and morphology in school-age children’s reading

Reading and Writing - We examined the unique contributions of prosodic awareness and morphological awareness to school-aged children’s word reading and reading comprehension. A total of 110...     

Phonological specificity relates to phonological awareness and reading ability in English–French bilingual children

Reading and Writing - The 1-year longitudinal study presented here examined the extent to which the ability to build phonologically specific lexical entries as a result of increasing vocabulary...     

Why do boys and girls perform differently on PISA Reading in Finland? The effects of reading fluency,achievement behaviour,leisure reading and homework activity

The present study examined gender gap in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Reading and mediators of the gender gap in a Finnish sample (n = 1,309). We examined whether the gender gap in PISA Reading performance can be understood via the effects of reading fluency, achievement behaviour (mastery orientation and task‐avoidant behaviour) or the amount of time spent with leisure reading and homework. Girls outperformed boys in all measures except for achievement behaviour. The models explaining PISA Reading were not different: For boys and girls, reading fluency, mastery orientation, leisure book reading and homework explained the variance in PISA Reading scores. The gender effect on PISA Reading was, however, for the most part mediated by differences in reading fluency. These findings suggest that while mastery orientation, homework activity and leisure book reading are concurrent predictors of PISA Reading over and above reading fluency, they do not explain gender difference.     

Interactions between school systems and reading Recovery programmes – evidence from Northern Ireland

Recent work on raising attainment in education has raised theoretical issues about organizational responses to innovation and qualitative aspects of programme implementation. In particular, the ‘depth’ of an implementation (the extent to which a programme actually changes the educational interactions between pupils and their teachers) is now thought to be as important as its ‘spread’ (the number of schools in which it is replicated). Such issues, together with the existing literature on Reading Recovery implementation, suggest that it is time to review the models of implementation held within the Reading Recovery community. We used a range of methods at four levels of data collection to analyse variation in ‘depth’ of implementation in a countrywide Reading Recovery programme. From our findings we conclude that Reading Recovery has achieved resounding success as an individual programme, but that it would be still more efficient if the models of implementation were to be reviewed.     

Children’s oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3?years of reading instruction

This research investigated the link between oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Study 1 consisted of 61 children (M = 6:1 years) who had experienced 1 year of reading instruction on average. Children’s story retelling was scored for memory and narrative quality. The quality of children’s narratives correlated positively with their reading skill at this age, but narrative quality did not uniquely predict their reading skill 1 year later. Study 2 consisted of 39 children (M = 7:0 years) who had experienced 2 years of reading instruction on average. At this age, the quality of children’s narratives uniquely predicted their reading skill concurrently and 1 year later, even after controlling for their receptive vocabulary and early decoding. These findings have implications for theories of the oral language foundations of reading and for assessment in the early years of reading instruction.     

Influences of teachers’ attitudes and oral guidance on the persistence of young children aged 3–6 years old

Persistence is important in developing pre-school children’s ego control. Based on the fact that during the teaching process a teacher’s communication and actions will have a significant influence on young children, which is due to the teachers’ high degree of control over them, four experiments were designed to probe the influences of teachers’ attitudes and oral guidance on the development of persistence among infant students. The results indicate that different attitudes and oral guidance influence the development of persistence of young children differently. Translated by Wang Dongsheng from Xueqian Jiaoyu Yanjiu 学前教育研究 (Studies in Preshcool Education), 2008, 6(1): 17–20     

Prosodic and phonemic awareness in children’s reading of long and short words

Phonemic and prosodic awareness are both phonological processes that operate at different levels: the former at the level of the individual sound segment and the latter at the suprasegmental level across syllables. Both have been shown to be related to word reading in young readers. In this study we examine how these processes are differentially related to reading monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. Participants were 110 children in grades four and five who were asked to read monosyllabic and three- and four-syllable words matched for frequency. Phonemic awareness was assessed via a phoneme elision task; prosodic awareness was assessed by a task asking participants to identify the syllable bearing primary stress in a spoken word. Results showed that phonemic and prosodic awareness were independent predictors of short word reading, and both phonological factors made independent contributions to multisyllabic word reading, showing that phonemic and prosodic awareness are complementary but not redundant processes. Only prosodic awareness survived control for simple decoding ability in the reading of long words, suggesting that suprasegmental phonology gives added value to our understanding of reading multisyllabic words.     

Maternal literate mediation of writing and Korean children’s reading and writing across 1 year

The present study examined the relations of maternal literate support instructions during parent–child joint writing to children’s word reading and writing across 1 year among 95 4- and 5-year-old children from Korea. The whole episode of mothers individually teaching their children how to write words was videotaped, and a Korean scale of mothers’ literate mediation of their children’s writing was developed based on six cognitive strategies focusing on whole Gulja (Korean written syllable), visual strokes, letter, Gulja structure, and CV (consonant + vowel) and coda (final consonant of a syllable) subsyllabic units. Maternal literate support explained a significant amount of variance in children’s word reading and writing concurrently and longitudinally across 1 year after controlling for children’s age, nonverbal IQ, phonological and morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming and mother’s education. In addition, children’s coda phoneme awareness explained unique variance in word reading and writing concurrently and longitudinally. Results underscore the unique characteristics of Korean and the importance of Korean maternal literate support as a major factor in early literacy development.     

A comparison of three read-aloud methods with children’s picture books in the Turkish language context: Just reading,performance based reading,and interactional reading

This study compared the effects of three different read-aloud methods on text reading fluency and reading comprehension. The sample included a total of 152 first-grade and third-grade students. The data were collected by evaluating students' text reading fluency and reading comprehension levels. The analyses showed that while the first graders’ text reading fluency scores did not vary by the read-aloud methods, the first graders’ reading comprehension varied by the read-aloud methods in favor of the group practicing just reading. This result would be important for first-grade students’ teachers. However, the findings from the third graders indicated that neither their text reading fluency nor their reading comprehension levels varied by the read-aloud method. The results of this study provide evidence on the effectiveness of three different read-aloud methods on reading fluency and reading comprehension in the Turkish language context, which is more orthographically transparent than the English language.     

The incremental variance of morphological knowledge to reading comprehension in grades 3–10 beyond prior reading comprehension,spelling, and text reading efficiency

We know that knowledge of word structure—morphology—relates to reading, but there is limited research on its unique contribution to reading comprehension, especially with students in middle and high schools and with the nesting of students within classrooms taken into account. In this study with 4780 students in grades 3 to 10, we examined how students' winter scores in morphological knowledge, spelling, text reading efficiency, and reading comprehension predicted spring scores in reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was measured by a computeradaptive, interim reading assessment. Bivariate relations were examined and a strong relation between morphological knowledge and reading comprehension was observed in all grades except grade 10. Multilevel analyses showed that morphological knowledge added 2%–9% unique variance beyond the autoregressor in predicting spring reading comprehension at the student level and that over 90% of the large variability between classrooms was explained by performance on these component skills. Educational implications were discussed.     

Parents’ son preference,childhood adverse experience and mental health in old age: Evidence from China

BackgroundSon preference is an enduring phenomenon in China and may often be related to childhood adverse experiences. According to a life-course perspective, adverse experiences during a childhood period may have a long-term effect on mental health in later age. However, little is known about this relationship between parents’ son preference, childhood adverse experiences and adulthood mental health in China.ObjectiveThe study aims to evaluate the association of parents’ son preference and individual mental health in old age in China. The mediating role of childhood adverse experiences was also estimated.Participants and settingThe China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015 combined with CHARLS life history survey was analyzed (N = 11,666).MethodsMental health was measured by a shortened modification of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale including seven items, and higher scores indicated worse mental health status. A four-step mediating model was applied.ResultsRespondents growing in families with son preference had on average 0.75 (P < 0.001) points higher on the mental health scale than their counterparts, and the effects were consistent for both males and females. Childhood adverse experiences measured by physical maltreatment, emotional adverse experiences and witnesses of inter-parent violence mediated the relationship between parents’ son preference and individual adulthood mental health by 47.87%. For females, physical maltreatment and emotional adverse experiences explained the most parts of health effects of parents’ son preference, whereas witnesses of inter-parent violence was the most influential mediator for males.ConclusionParents’ son preference led to adverse childhood experiences, which influenced mental health in adulthood.     

Do teachers’ perceptions of children’s math and reading related ability and effort predict children’s self-concept of ability in math and reading?

This study investigated to what extent primary school teachers’ perceptions of their students’ ability and effort predict developmental changes in children’s self-concepts of ability in math and reading after controlling for students’ academic performance and general intelligence. Three cohorts (N?=?849) of elementary school children and their teachers were followed for four years. Children’s self-concepts and performance ability in math and reading were measured annually during Waves 2–4. Teachers rated the children’s ability and effort at each of the four waves. Domain-specific differences and developmental changes could be identified in the associations between teachers’ perceptions and children’s ability self-concepts. Teachers’ ability perceptions predicted children’s concurrent and subsequent ability self-concepts in math and reading, whereas teachers’ effort perceptions predicted children’s math ability self-concept only at Wave 4. Analyses with multi-sample procedure showed that these models were similar for boys and girls and for children in different cohort groups.     

The associations among preschool children’s growth in early reading,executive function,and invented spelling skills

The purpose of the present study was to examine associations among children’s emergent literacy (early reading), language, executive function (EF), and invented spelling skills across prekindergarten. Participants included 123, primarily African American, 4-year-old children enrolled in a variety of prekindergarten settings. In addition to describing the concurrent and longitudinal relations between children’s emergent literacy, EF, and invented spelling skills, this study investigated associations among children’s growth in these targeted skills and explored potential indirect effects from children’s EF to invented writing skill. Multiple regression analyses suggested that although early reading skills were significantly and concurrently associated with invented spelling skills, children’s phonological awareness was the only early reading skill predictive of later invented spelling skills. Children’s EF was not concurrently or longitudinally associated with invented spelling after controlling for early reading skills. However, regression analyses of children’s residual scores suggested that children’s EF skill at the beginning of the semester was predictive of their later invented spelling skills through children’s letter-sound knowledge.     

The relationship of value orientations,self-control,frequency of school–leisure conflicts,and life-balance in adolescence

The aim of this self-report study is to analyze proposed interrelations between value orientations, self-control, frequency of school–leisure conflicts, and life-balance in adolescence. Life-balance is defined as satisfying time investment in different life areas. The tested model posits that self-control is negatively related to conflict frequency and that the latter is negatively related to life-balance. Achievement and well-being value orientations, in turn, should be connected to the degree of self-control and the frequency of goal conflicts. In the study, 817 German 8th-graders with a mean age of 13.4 years participated. Results from structural equation modeling supported the proposed model. The results suggest that fostering self-control can be a promising approach to decrease the frequency of goal conflicts, and thus increase students' experience of life-balance.     

The role of vocabulary depth in predicting reading comprehension among English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual children in elementary school

The present study investigated the role of vocabulary depth in reading comprehension among a diverse sample of monolingual and bilingual children in grades 2?C4. Vocabulary depth was defined as including morphological awareness, awareness of semantic relations, and syntactic awareness. Two hundred ninety-four children from 3 schools in a Mid-Atlantic district and 3 schools in a Northeastern school district participated in the study and were assessed at the beginning and end of one school year on a wide variety of language and literacy measures. Bilingual children were assessed in English and Spanish. A latent difference score model that assessed change in a latent indicator of English reading comprehension from Time 1 (Fall) to Time 2 (Spring) was tested with results showing that vocabulary depth measures made significant contributions to initial status, but not change, in reading comprehension over and above between-subjects factors (grade, ethnicity, language status) and baseline control within-subject factors (word identification and vocabulary breadth). There was no added contribution of Spanish language measures to English reading comprehension among the bilingual students.