Not just ‘sunny days’: Aboriginal students connect out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices

In this paper, I report on a school‐university collaborative research project that investigated which practices and knowledges of Canadian Aboriginal students not acknowledged in school may provide these students with access to school literacy practices. The study, which took place in a small city in Western Canada, examined ways to merge the out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices for minority language learners who struggle with academic literacies. Drawing on the third space theory, in conjunction with the concept of “funds of knowledge,” I explain how students' linguistic and cultural resources from home and community networks were utilised to reshape school literacy practices through their involvement in the Heritage Fair programme. I analyse a representative case study of Darius, a 10‐year‐old boy who explored his familial hunting practices for his Heritage Fair project. This illustrative exemplar, “Not just sunny days,” highlights the ways in which children's out‐of‐school lives can be used as a scaffold for literacy learning. In conclusion, I discuss implications for educators and researchers working to improve literacy learning for minority students by connecting school learning to children's out‐of‐school learning.     

Delivering school‐based mental health services by school psychologists: Education,training, and ethical issues

Consistent with the priority goals of the 2002 Future of School Psychology Conference, the National Association of School Psychologists' Blueprint for Training and Practice III advocates for school psychologists becoming “leading mental health experts in schools.” In this regard, the present article reviews the prevalence and incidence of children's mental health problems in the schools, followed by a historical overview of the nature of school‐based mental health services. We discuss education and training issues and related ethical and professional practice issues that focus on the ethics codes of the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Psychological Association that are associated with the delivery of mental health services by school psychologists. Recommendations are offered for graduate‐level coursework and field experiences in the delivery of school‐based mental health services, as well as future directions for research in this area. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Differential recognition of children's cultural practices in middle primary literacy classrooms

This paper argues that teachers' recognition of children's cultural practices is an important positive step in helping socio‐economically disadvantaged children engage with school literacies. Based on 21 longitudinal case studies of children's literacy development over a 3‐year period, the authors demonstrate that when children's knowledges and practices assembled in home and community spheres are treated as valuable material for school learning, children are more likely to invest in the work of acquiring school literacies. However, they also show that while some children benefit greatly from being allowed to draw on their knowledge of popular culture, sports and the outdoors, other children's interests may be ignored or excluded. Some differences in teachers' valuing of home and community cultures appeared to relate to gender dimensions.     

Low‐Income Ethnically Diverse Children's Engagement as a Predictor of School Readiness Above Preschool Classroom Quality

This study examined whether children's observed individual engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks related to their school readiness after controlling for observed preschool classroom quality and children's baseline skills. The sample included 211 predominately low‐income, racially/ethnically diverse 4‐year‐old children in 49 preschool classrooms in one medium‐sized U.S. city. Results indicated that children's positive engagement with (a) teachers related to improved literacy skills; (b) peers related to improved language and self‐regulatory skills; and (c) tasks related to closer relationships with teachers. Children's negative engagement was associated with lower language, literacy, and self‐regulatory skills, and more conflict and closeness with teachers. Effect sizes were small to medium in magnitude, and some expected relations between positive engagement and school readiness were not found.     

Focus in creative learning: drawing on art for language development

This article asks what happens to the learning of young children when they work regularly with a professional visual artist in their school. Through Creative Partnerships, a national programme initiated in 2002 to bring creative professionals into schools across England, some school children have had the opportunity for sustained project work with artists. Examined here is the context in which children (ages 4, 5, 6 and 7) worked one day a week during the academic year of 2003–2004 with Roy Smith, resident artist in Hythe Community School. Key to the children's drawing, painting and talking was close focused attention on details of three‐dimensional objects, portraits, still‐life works and their own creations. Smith's conversations with the children routinely included three and four‐syllable technical terms, biographical details of artists' lives and comparative critiques. Within several months, the art of the children reflected understanding of concepts such as foregrounding, and they showed confidence in working with problems Smith set up for them (“What do you think would happen if …?”). Particularly important here is the combination of manual and linguistic work that demands attention to detail, receptive understanding of complex terms and processes, and familiarity with the analytical and sequential thinking needed to identify and solve problems.     

Early Nonparental Care and Social Behavior in Elementary School: Support for a Social Group Adaptation Hypothesis

This study examined the contribution of nonparental child‐care services received during the preschool years to the development of social behavior between kindergarten and the end of elementary school with a birth cohort from Québec, Canada (N = 1,544). Mothers reported on the use of child‐care services, while elementary school teachers rated children's shyness, social withdrawal, prosociality, opposition, and aggression. Children who received nonparental child‐care services were less shy, less socially withdrawn, more oppositional, and more aggressive at school entry (age 6 years). However, these differences disappeared during elementary school as children who received exclusive parental care caught up with those who received nonparental care services. This “catch‐up” effect from the perspective of children's adaptation to the social group is discussed.     

African American Children's Affective Attributions and Consequences Regarding Sociomoral Events

Research Findings: This study examined 56 young (prekindergarten through 2nd grade) urban-dwelling African American children's understanding of the affective attributions and consequences of 3 types of sociomoral rule systems: prosocial, active, and inhibitive morality. It also tested the relationship of affective attributions and consequences to children's behavior. As expected, children's affective responses differed by sociomoral rule system and character role type, supporting the notion of a “happy victimizer” and a subtle attributional shift. Children provided affective attributions that attempted to resolve the dilemmas presented in the different sociomoral vignettes regardless of the affect associated with the vignette. The relationship of children's affective attributions and consequences to their behavior in school was partially supported. Children's affective attributions were significantly associated with their prosocial behavior. However, contrary to predictions, no other significant associations emerged between children's affective attributions and negative behavior or between children's affective consequences and behavior. Practice or Policy: Those working with young African American children should consider the reasoning behind children's emotional and behavioral reactions and not just focus on the correct or appropriate response to understand and promote children's positive development. There are implications for supporting African American children's competence development at school through a behavior promotion approach.     

How African American Parents Understand Their and Teachers' Roles in Children's Schooling and What this Means for Preparing Preservice Teachers

Preservice teachers are socialized by their own raced, classed, and gendered experiences to expect “caring parents” to behave and contribute in certain ways to their children's schooling. Preservice teachers who come from widely divergent backgrounds from the communities in which they serve can sometimes be skeptical of parents who are not involved in children's schooling in ways that are familiar from their own upbringing. Moreover, much of the existing scholarship on parent involvement and the transition to school takes a top-down approach that discounts the important knowledge parents bring to the table. This is a study of African American parents of young children who were preparing to transition to kindergarten or first grade that proposes an alternate conversation about what we can learn from parents when we examine their ways of framing and enacting “involvement” in their children's school lives. African American parents and caregivers (N?=?25) participated in qualitative interviews. Thematic analyses of the interviews revealed that participants constructed preparation for the transition to school broadly, as preparation for the “real world.” I will discuss the implications of the study for teaching, teacher education, and future research, so that preservice teachers and teacher educators can begin to build a greater imagination for parent involvement.     

A Dynamic Approach to Giftedness: theory and practice

The aims of this research were to investigate the possibilities of developing the cognitive and creative abilities of recognised gifted children, and also of raising the development of “ordinary” children up to a level of giftedness. This experimental work, based on Vygot‐sky's Dynamic Theory of Giftedness, involved special procedures and an experimental curriculum designed to overcome children's psychological barriers to learning. Five school classes were involved: three experimental classes, two of these gifted and one of average‐ability children. Two further control classes were taught by conventional methods. Comparative assessments were made for 6 years between all the children, regarding cognitive development, creativity and social giftedness, revealing considerable undeveloped potential of “ordinary” children. Major factor influencing IQ changes included the differences in psychological mechanisms to overcome barriers to learning. Due to the experimental psychological curriculum, not only did all the children's cognitive abilities increase, but also their creativity. Hence, these new diagnostic and developmental procedures were found to be effective, demonstrating the high practical value of the Dynamic Theory of Giftedness.     

A study of the effectiveness of the primary education improvement program (science) in selected schools of Northern Nigeria

The Primary Education Improvement Program (Science) developed in Nigeria from 1970–1980 adopted a “process approach” to the teaching of science for children in Classes One and Two of primary school. In that insufficient formative data were available a study was organized to evaluate the attainment of the program's major objectives in terms of the children's ability to practice process skills. The study also attempted to measure children's interest, active participation and understanding of the lessons, as well as the availability of materials and ease of preparing and teaching the lessons for the teachers. Data were collected by means of teacher opinionnaires and a children's test to measure the attainment of process skills. The teachers who completed the opinionnaires rated the program as successful in terms of all the measured criteria. Children in the experimental and control groups were tested and their performances were compared. The results indicated that there were some significant differences in total test scores in favor of the experimental group after one year of primary school but none after two years. The program, though highly rated by teachers, did not produce the intended changes in children's behavior.     

Family Science Talk in Museums: Predicting Children's Engagement From Variations in Talk and Activity

Children's developing reasoning skills are better understood within the context of their social and cultural lives. As part of a research–museum partnership, this article reports a study exploring science‐relevant conversations of 82 families, with children between 3 and 11 years, while visiting a children's museum exhibit about mammoth bones, and in a focused one‐on‐one exploration of a “mystery object.” Parents' use of a variety of types of science talk predicted children's conceptual engagement in the exhibit, but interestingly, different types of parent talk predicted children's engagement depending on the order of the two activities. The findings illustrate the importance of studying children's thinking in real‐world contexts and inform creation of effective real‐world science experiences for children and families.     

Family Socialisation and Children's School Outcomes: an investigation of a parenting model

The study investigated relationships between the dimensions of a parenting model and children's school outcomes. Also, a bioecological model was examined which proposes that proximal parenting processes have the general effect of mediating relationships between distal social contexts and children's outcomes, while advantageous individual characteristics enhance associations between proximal family processes and children's characteristics. Data were collected from 900 (460 boys, 440 girls) 11 year‐old Australian children and their parents. The findings suggest that: (a) a parenting model defined by parents’ aspirations, parenting practices, and parenting style has modest to moderate concurrent validity in relation to children's academic achievement and school attitudes, (b) the proximal processes of the parenting model mediate substantially the relationships between family social status and children's academic achievement but not the associations between intellectual ability and outcomes; and (c) there are sex‐group differences in the nature of the relationships between the dimensions of the parenting model and children's school outcomes.     

Literature,listening, and young children

“What is that sound?”, “What did the kangaroo say?”, and “What might you hear during a walk?” provide evidence that educators of young children realize that listening represents a necessary ingredient in successful school experiences. Children listen for many hours of the school day, but listening has been a neglected area of instruction. The traditional low priority of listening instruction may have been based upon the myth that children naturally learn to listen or on the misconception that listening skills cannot be taught. Using literature to teach listening can improve learners' listening abilities, provided early childhood educators use developmentally appropriate children's literature.     

Teachers as readers: building communities of readers

Given the narrow scope of primary teachers' knowledge and use of children's literature identified in Phase I of Teachers as Readers (2006–2007), the core goal of the Phase II project was to improve teachers' knowledge and experience of such literature in order to help them increase children's motivation and enthusiasm for reading, especially those less successful in literacy. The year‐long Phase II project, Teachers as Readers: Building Communities of Readers, which was undertaken in five Local Authorities (LAs) in England, also sought to build new relationships with parents and families and to explore the concept of a “Reading Teacher (RT): a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches” (Commeyras and colleagues). The research design was multilayered; involving data collection at individual, school and LA levels, and using a range of quantitative and qualitative data research methods and tools. This paper provides an overview of the Phase II research. It suggests that teachers need support if they are to develop children's reading for pleasure, and enhance their involvement as socially engaged and self‐motivated readers.     

Minimal Groups Increase Young Children's Motivation and Learning on Group‐Relevant Tasks

Three experiments (N = 130) used a minimal group manipulation to show that just perceived membership in a social group boosts young children's motivation for and learning from group‐relevant tasks. In Experiment 1, 4‐year‐old children assigned to a minimal “puzzles group” persisted longer on a challenging puzzle than children identified as the “puzzles child” or children in a control condition. Experiment 2 showed that this boost in motivation occurred only when the group was associated with the task. In Experiment 3, children assigned to a minimal group associated with word learning learned more words than children assigned an analogous individual identity. The studies demonstrate that fostering shared motivations may be a powerful means by which to shape young children's academic outcomes.     

Once Upon a Time: Parent–Child Dialogue and Storybook Reading in the Electronic Era

Early experiences with books predict later reading success, and an interactive shared reading style called “dialogic reading” is especially beneficial to emergent literacy. Electronic console (EC) books, CD‐rom books, and e‐book apps are designed to teach preschoolers preliteracy skills, but research has yet to systematically explore the impact of these types of books on established predictors of positive literacy outcomes. This research fills that gap with two studies investigating dialogic language and children's story comprehension in a total of 165 parent–child dyads reading battery‐operated, touch‐sensitive children's electronic console books or traditional books. Results revealed that parent–child dialogic reading and children's story comprehension were both negatively affected by the presence of electronic features. Ways in which e‐books may be altered to better serve as educational tools in this new era are discussed.     

Impacts of a Prekindergarten Program on Children's Mathematics,Language, Literacy,Executive Function,and Emotional Skills

Publicly funded prekindergarten programs have achieved small‐to‐large impacts on children's cognitive outcomes. The current study examined the impact of a prekindergarten program that implemented a coaching system and consistent literacy, language, and mathematics curricula on these and other nontargeted, essential components of school readiness, such as executive functioning. Participants included 2,018 four and five‐year‐old children. Findings indicated that the program had moderate‐to‐large impacts on children's language, literacy, numeracy and mathematics skills, and small impacts on children's executive functioning and a measure of emotion recognition. Some impacts were considerably larger for some subgroups. For urban public school districts, results inform important programmatic decisions. For policy makers, results confirm that prekindergarten programs can improve educationally vital outcomes for children in meaningful, important ways.     

The concept of educación: Latino family values and American schooling

Do traditional, agrarian values put minority culture children at a disadvantage in North American schools? The available results are mixed. In this chapter we attempt to “unpack” some of the effects of traditional Latino family values on their children's early school adaptation and achievement. Our research suggests that agrarian-origin values, which differ from academic-occupational orientation of school personnel, do not necessarily work to the disadvantage of students. On the contrary, under certain conditions, these values may be complementary to those of the school and in fact serve to support educational adaptation and achievement. A key to our findings and analyses is the concept of educación beliefs among the parents in our sample. Not all strongly endorsed cultural beliefs are instantiated in ways that impact children's experiences and development. Some cultural beliefs lead to instantiation into everyday routines of families, while others seem to be readily available, expressed, and endorsed but not reliably acted on (D'Andrade & Strauss, 1992). Those beliefs that are instantiated into the daily routine are more likely to produce detectable effects on children's development, a conclusion supported by cross cultural evidence (Weisner, 1984).