Invented spelling: what is the best way to improve literacy skills in kindergarten?

Abstract

We examined the progress made by 132 six-year-old French-speaking children in their preliteracy skills during four kinds of interventions. Three of these interventions concerned invented spelling, where the children tried to spell words. In the first condition, they were encouraged to reflect on conventional spellings. In the second condition, they reflected on spellings that were slightly more complex than theirs, while in the third condition, they reflected on increasingly complex spellings that eventually led to the conventional spellings. The fourth condition (control) consisted of phonological training. We assessed the children’s phonological awareness, letter knowledge, spelling, and decoding skills, controlling for vocabulary and nonverbal cognitive ability. Posttest results indicated progress in each condition. The greatest progress was observed in the second condition for decoding, spelling, letter-name knowledge and syllable awareness, and in the control condition for phoneme awareness. Overall, results showed that all kinds of interventions led to very similar levels of progress, but that improvements were greater for interventions that focused on the children’s initial invented spellings - in other words, when they adopted a Vygotskian perspective.     

Which way next? What is the real choice for students leaving a special school?

Warnock advocated that all young people with learning difficulties should be entitled to an appropriate education beyond the compulsory age of 16. The purpose of the study was to investigate attitudes to post‐16 educational provision for students with special educational needs. What are the strengths and weaknesses of current provision and is it deemed adequate from the perspective of the student? The study reveals that despite many of Warnock's visions becoming a reality, many have not. For students with moderate learning difficulties the doors have, by and large, been opened to access mainstream further education provision at least to some extent. However, for those students with more severe difficulties, including autistic spectrum condition and profound and multiple learning difficulties, provision appears to be either inadequate or simply unavailable.     

What is the best way to achieve broader reach of improved practices in higher education?

This article examines a common problem in higher education – how to create more widespread use of improved practices, often commonly referred to as innovations. I argue that policy models of scale-up are often advocated in higher education but that they have a dubious history in community development and K-12 education and that higher education leaders should shirk policymakers’ push to use a scale-up model of change. These thoughts are conceptual and are based upon a critical review of literature in community development and K-12, but I also draw upon empirical data in reviewing examples of widespread use of innovations in higher education.     

‘The most important thing is to learn the way to learn’: evaluating the effectiveness of independent learning by perceptual changes

The mission of universities today is not only to nurture experts in various professions, but also to cultivate lifelong autonomous learners. Independent learning and pedagogies that aim to foster learner autonomy have grown in importance over the past decade. However, the extent to which independent learning is successful in fostering autonomy has not been fully addressed; nor has a robust method for evaluating independent learning been available. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an independent learning component attached to a taught course by tracking changes in learners’ perceptions. Primary data were collected from course participants’ responses to two questionnaires. In total, 221 and 157 completed questionnaires were returned at the beginning and the end of the course, respectively, among which 95 paired responses enabled comparisons that revealed a general trend. In addition, a more focused investigation was carried out with nine participants who took part in semi-structured interviews and completed independent learning logs. The study, using a short-term longitudinal approach, revealed participants’ growing understanding of independent learning and its relevance to English language enhancement, particularly for those with no prior experience of any form of independent learning.     

"Which is the way to Haidian Theater?"——section B 教学设计

(本课选自仁爱版《英语》七年级下册第6单元第3话题section B.) 一、教材分析 本话题是以问路、指路为主,贯穿交通规则、交通标志、交通设施等内容,让学生学会遵守交通规则,学会助人为乐.其教学内容是循序渐进,环环紧扣,集实用性、知识性、趣味性于一体,能使学生自觉地开口说,动笔写.     

"Which is the way to Haidian Theater?"——section B教学设计

一、教材分析本话题是以问路、指路为主,贯穿交通规则、交通标志、交通设施等内容,让学生学会遵守交通规则,学会助     

Which students benefit most from a flipped classroom approach to language learning?

Research has shown that the potential benefits of a flipped classroom could be diminished by the way students perceive and prepare information prior to class. This study aims to explore individual characteristics, such as learner motivation, self‐efficacy and epistemology beliefs, that might have an impact on learning outcomes in a flipped classroom. Data were collected using four instruments during a 7‐week flipped classroom conducted from mid‐September 2014 to mid‐November 2014 with a total enrolment of 85 students (10 females and 75 males) in the required course, Applied English for Vocational Education. After controlling for pre‐test and other covariates (eg, gender, grade and experience), an analysis based on structural equation modeling showed a positive and significant (β = 0.12, p < 0.05) indirect effect of instrumentality (promotion) on the change in test scores through averaged quiz scores. Beliefs had a significant positive effect on change in scores between pre‐ and post‐tests (β = 0.20, p < 0.05). Findings revealed that language learners with a high level of motivation in instrumentality (promotion) followed quiz mechanisms closely and thus benefited most from the flipped classroom. Learners with high beliefs exhibited improvement in the post‐tests without doing well in quizzes. The implications for a flipped language learning classroom are discussed, including multiple strategies for regulating learners of different personal traits to preview the online course content before class.     

Educational research: Which way now?

The British Educational Research Association (BERA) was established 44 years ago, in 1974, at the height of the postwar expansion of education, and at the onset of a long period of controversy and reform of education that has continued ever since. The presidential address for 2017 looks back to reflect on the birth and early years of BERA, on its founding principles and the circumstances in which it grew. It does so to identify the ideals that motivated and helped to shape the nascent organisation, and to ask how relevant and useful these are at a very different time, charting our future in the twenty‐first century. More broadly, this address moves beyond an institutional history and a history of ideas, to contribute to a social history of educational research based on a wide range of documentary and archival evidence. In considering our past, we must attempt to resist an uncritical and functional approach in favour of a critical and reflective outlook that is alert to unresolved issues and problems, no less than it is to success and progress in our collective endeavours. This is necessary partly in order to reconstruct our historical experience in a robust manner, but also to address our present situation in an effective way. In 1977, the historian Brian Simon framed his presidential address to BERA around the key question ‘Educational research: which way?’ Forty years on, we can appraise how BERA has approached this question, and also ask at the same time: which way now?     

Are Australian fans of anime and manga motivated to learn Japanese language?

Recent research into Japanese as a foreign language education has strongly emphasized the link between Japanese popular culture and learning Japanese. However, these studies have only targeted Japanese language learners in formal education contexts and have largely ignored those who are not studying Japanese or studying Japanese informally. This present study claims that it is premature to link the two in this way. Using the notions of public pedagogy, the continuum of informal–formal learning, and out-of-school curriculum as our theoretical underpinnings, we examine how a cohort of fans deals with learning Japanese and about Japan in relation to their consumption of Japanese manga and anime. The results of an online survey of 451 Australia based manga and anime fans reveal that their interest in and motivation to consume these media may not necessarily lead them to enter into formal Japanese language education.     

Research League Table: is there a better way?

The results of the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise were presented in several places, notably in The Higher, in the form of a league table. The article discusses how this table was compiled and points to a number of fundamental problems in the way in which the data were handled. It goes on to discuss some more general issues in the calculation of league tables and shows the extreme sensitivity of the RAE data to certain arbitrary assumptions that have to be made. It concludes by urging caution on any who may be tempted to draw conclusions from such tables as well as on those who might compile such tables in the future.     

“What is the best way to be a social justice advocate?”: Communication strategies for effective social justice advocacy

Conflict can shut down communication, the key to social justice advocacy. Robert Nash shares his insights on how some communication styles can help manage conflict and sustain open conversation with students about contentious issues.     

孙俪 The best is yet to come

记得当年看《幸福像花儿一样》,孙俪的名字一直被长辈们念在嘴边,可见她的影响力早已跨越年龄。有段时间,各地的频道同时在播她的好几部剧,让人感叹孙俪,真的红了。采访时,她发了新唱片,正在赶拍 MV,她比印象中的要娇小,小小的脸,小小的骨架,语气却像男生般爽朗。如今,工作顺意,爱情如意,很多人认为,孙俪的黄金时期已经到来,她却说,最好的尚未来临     

Searching the Web to learn about a controversial topic: are students epistemically active?

Students are making an increased use of the Web as a source for solving information problems for academic assignments. To extend current research about search behavior during navigation on the Web, this study examined whether students are able to spontaneously reflect, from an epistemic perspective, on the information accessed, and whether their epistemic metacognition is related to individual characteristics, such as prior knowledge of the topic and the need for cognition. In addition, we investigated whether Internet-based learning is influenced by the activation of spontaneous epistemic metacognition in the search context. Forty-six psychology and engineering university students were asked to research information about a controversial subject in order to write an essay. They were also asked to think aloud during their research. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. As revealed by their spontaneous reflections, all participants were epistemically active, although to different extents and levels. As expected, there was evidence that students activated beliefs about the four epistemic dimensions identified in the literature, especially about the credibility of an electronic source and the criteria for justification of knowledge. Prior knowledge was not related to activation of epistemic beliefs in the search context, while the need for cognition significantly associated with aspects of source and its content evaluation. Two patterns of epistemic metacognition were identified and they significantly influenced Internet-based learning. Students who spontaneously generated more sophisticated reflections about the sources as well as the information provided, outperformed students who were active only at the first epistemic level. Educational implications are drawn.     

Back to the future: do lessons from Finland point the way to a return to model schools for Northern Ireland?

The paper examines the school-based element of initial teacher education (ITE) and the ways in which it contributes to the professional learning of student teachers in Finland (University of Helsinki) and Northern Ireland (University of Ulster). In particular it seeks to assess the potential of Training Schools for Northern Ireland. Universities in Finland that provide teacher education have at least one designated training school in which all student teachers have the opportunity to undertake a practicum. The Finnish model was selected for comparison because of the country’s consistently excellent results in the OECD’s Programmes for International Student Assessment which is undoubtedly due, in part, to the quality of the teachers. Teaching/training schools have featured prominently in recent reviews of teacher education in England and Scotland and, while not specifically mentioned in the Northern Ireland (NI) review document, the overall concept could enrich the school-based element of ITE in NI, using existing collaborative networks of schools.     

Disagreement over the best way to use the word ‘validity’ and options for reaching consensus

The ability to convey shared meaning with minimal ambiguity is highly desirable for technical terms within disciplines and professions. Unfortunately, there is no widespread professional consensus over the meaning of the word ‘validity’ as it pertains to educational and psychological testing. After illustrating the nature and extent of disagreement, we consider three options for reaching consensus: to eliminate its ambiguity by agreeing a precise technical definition; to embrace its ambiguity by agreeing a catchall lay usage; and to retire ‘validity’ from the testing lexicon.