Revising Strategy Instruction in Inclusive Settings: Effects for English Learners and Novice Writers

Twenty‐three students with varying academic and linguistic profiles were taught a strategy for revising expository essays, using the Self‐Regulated Strategy Development model for instruction. Students learned basic revising tactics and to consider text structure as they managed decisions on how to improve their essays. Instructional effects were assessed using a multiple baseline with multiple probes in baseline design. Positive results were found for English learners, including those who were identified as having learning disabilities, or who were low‐, average‐ and high‐achieving writers; moreover, results were equally positive for students who were not English learners. After instruction and 4 weeks later, students revised more, produced more revisions that improved text, and revised longer text segments, which resulted in an improvement in overall quality.     

试论黄蓓佳儿童小说的叙事策略

黄蓓佳的儿童小说不仅赢得了儿童的喜爱,也引发了成人的阅读兴趣。她的儿童小说魅力源于其独特的叙事策略:"非聚焦型"叙事视角、逆时序的叙事时间、融价值生活于时间生活的故事模式。这些独具特色的叙事策略与她的儿童文学观念有密切关系。     

Children Use Nonverbal Cues to Make Inferences About Social Power

Four studies (N = 192) tested whether young children use nonverbal information to make inferences about differences in social power. Five‐ and six‐year‐old children were able to determine which of two adults was “in charge” in dynamic videotaped conversations (Study 1) and in static photographs (Study 4) using only nonverbal cues. Younger children (3–4 years) were not successful in Study 1 or Study 4. Removing irrelevant linguistic information from conversations did not improve the performance of 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children (Study 3), but including relevant linguistic cues did (Study 2). Thus, at least by 5 years of age, children show sensitivity to some of the same nonverbal cues adults use to determine other people's social roles.     

Development of orthographic skills in Chinese children

This study investigates possible developmental trends in children's invented spelling (or spelling errors) in Chinese elementary schools. The entire study consists of two substudies, Study A and Study B. Study A analyzes over 7000 invented spellings collected from the writing samples of 1200 children. Study B analyzes 3995 invented spellings that were collected from the spelling tests of 300 children. These invented spellings are sorted initially according to emerging patterns according to the way the invented spellings deviate from standard spellings; they are then further subsumed into three general categories according to the linguistic principles of Chinese characters - phonologically based spelling errors, graphemic spelling errors, and semantic spelling errors. Qualitative analysis of the invented spellings of these three categories indicates that children's spelling errors are not random; rather they reflect the development of children's orthographic knowledge. Regression analysis for linear trend shows that a developmental trend in the use of spelling strategies exists: at the lower elementary level, phonological strategies predominate; as grade level advances, the use of graphemic and semantic strategies increases.     

Conversations about Visual Arts: Facilitating Oral Language

Visual arts, such as drawings, are attractive to most young children. Marks left on paper by young children contain meaning. Although it is known that children’s oral language could be enhanced through communication with adults, rarely is there a series of dialogues between adults and young children about their drawings. Often heard instead are simple comments given by adults like “It is a neat picture!” “You did a great job painting!” Yet, dialogic communication between adults and young children could not only help facilitate children’s oral language, but also bring about many other merits. Regrettably, little literature addresses oral language facilitation about visual arts. This article describes the significance of facilitating children’s oral language via adults’ talking with young children about their visual arts based on Otto’s (Literacy development in early childhood: reflective teaching for birth to age eight, 3edn. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, 2008) linguistic scaffolding strategies and Halliday’s (Language in a social perspective: explorations in the functions of language. Edward Arnold Model of Language Functions, London, 1973). Implications and suggestions for future research are given at the end of this paper.     

Training Parents and Teachers in Remedial Reading Procedures for Children with Learning Difficulties

The mothers and classroom teachers of four 11‐12‐year‐old low progress readers were trained in tutoring procedures that involved delaying attention to child reading errors, providing cues to help correct errors and praising specific reading strategies and achievements. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effects of tutor training in both home and school settings. Baseline measures showed that one class teacher delayed attention to child errors and two teachers provided appropriate prompts, while the parents showed no occurrence of the tutoring behaviours. Following training, both teachers and parents applied the specific tutoring behaviours and these behaviours were shown to persist across a three to five week maintenance period during which the experimenter reduced training and feedback to tutors and at three one‐month follow‐up assessments. Pre‐tests showed the children to have reading age levels three to five years behind an expected level for their chronological age. Post‐tests showed the children to have an average gain in reading level of 28 months (range 24‐48 months).     

Strategic Keyboard Training and Spelling Improvement among Children with Learning Disabilities and Mental Retardation

The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of a strategic keyboard training program for improving the spelling performance of children with mild disabilities. The sample consisted of 36 mildly disabled students divided into two groups: 18 learning disabled students, and 18 educable mentally retarded students. The teachers used strategic procedures emphasising awareness of word structure and spelling strategies, combined with keyboard training, for a duration of three months (45‐minute sessions, twice weekly). The results demonstrated a significant decrease in spelling errors, as assessed through computer typing and handwriting. However, the comparisons between the group achievements of the learning disabled and mentally retarded children did not reveal significant differences in the development of the spelling performance. Analysis of the results, and of the four case‐studies, pin‐pointed attention onto the initial individual differences in the spelling performance, and onto the students’ individual learning style during training, emphasising the need for an individualised approach in remedial computerised spelling procedures.     

The influence of diglossia in Arabic on narrative ability: evidence from analysis of the linguistic and narrative structure of discourse among pre-school children

The aim of the present study is to examine the influence of diglossia on linguistic and narrative structures in Arab kindergarten children by testing performance in production and comprehension. The 30 children who participated in our study were asked to retell one narrative text that was read aloud to them in Literary Arabic and another narrative text that was retold to them in Spoken Arabic. Then they were given a comprehension test that included questions pertaining to each of the two stories. In addition, two questionnaires were filled in by their parents, for collecting personal data and evaluating the level of the children’s exposure to Literary Arabic at home. The findings show a significant advantage in the retold spoken text over the retold literary text and in understanding the narrative-discourse. In addition, the findings show that the linguistic gap between Literary and Spoken Arabic seems to impact the level of mastery over linguistic structures in both forms of Arabic. Both of these findings indicate that, despite the fact that the exposure to Literary Arabic at a young age is informal and indirect, pre-school children are able to use linguistic structures from the literary language and to comprehend narrative texts. These results, with a particular emphasis on spoken and literary linguistic knowledge in pre-school children, are discussed herein in light of previous behavioral findings and models of development of narrative abilities in the Arabic language.     

The experience of story reading: deaf children and hearing mothers' interactions at story time

THE STUDY EXAMINED scaffolding interactions between deaf children and hearing mothers in which story reading was used as a tool to aid in the development of narrative comprehension and linguistic reasoning. The dyadic interactions were examined from the perspective of the theoretical works of Vygotsky (1934/1962, 1978, 1929/1981, 1960/1981). The sample group consisted of 7 dyads of hearing mothers and their deaf children ages 4.2 to 9.5 years. The mothers signed a story to their children. The dyadic interactions reflected the different levels of scaffolding and functioning within the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1934/1962, 1978). The researchers found that story reading provides an excellent framework for both cognitive and emotional growth within the parent/child dyad. Mothers who engaged their children in mutual dialogue also used elaboration. This was reflected in their children's linguistic reasoning.     

论铁凝小说中的儿童视角

儿童视角是近年来运用非常广泛的一种叙述角度,铁凝在自己的作品中便成功地运用了这一叙事。通过对儿童视角的准确把握,铁凝在其小说中构建了两个既对立又互补的文学世界:儿童世界和成人世界。并对其作了逼真展示和深刻剖析。     

论铁凝小说中的儿童视角

儿童视角是近年来运用非常广泛的一种叙述角度,铁凝在自己的作品中便成功地运用了这一叙事。通过对儿童视角的准确把握,铁凝在其小说中构建了两个既对立又互补的文学世界：儿童世界和成人世界。并对其作了逼真展示和深刻剖析。     

指瑕：提高学生作文水平的重要途径

提高学生作文能力既要从正面给予示范，借鉴成功的经验，也需要从作文的病例中吸取教训，获得有益的启示，二者不可偏废。准确地辨析和找出文章中问题是作文的一种能力，对于修改完善文章具有重要的作用，无疑也是提高写作水平的重要途径。     

Cognitive Prerequisites for Generative Learning: Why Some Learning Strategies Are More Effective Than Others

This study examined age-related differences in the effectiveness of two generative learning strategies (GLSs). Twenty-five children aged 9–11 and 25 university students aged 17–29 performed a facts learning task in which they had to generate either a prediction or an example before seeing the correct result. We found a significant Age × Learning Strategy interaction, with children remembering more facts after generating predictions rather than examples, whereas both strategies were similarly effective in adults. Pupillary data indicated that predictions stimulated surprise, whereas the effectiveness of example-based learning correlated with children’s analogical reasoning abilities. These findings suggest that there are different cognitive prerequisites for different GLSs, which results in varying degrees of strategy effectiveness by age.     

是大象,还是甲虫?——评《檀香刑》

《檀香刑》存在着不伦不类的文白夹杂、反语法与非逻辑化表达、拙劣的比喻、冗词赘句太多、油滑等语言病象;它缺乏分寸感和真实性,在对暴力和施虐行为的叙述上,则表现出病态的鉴赏态度;从叙述方式、视点转换、人物对话等方面看,它不是向“民间”和“民族”的“撤退”和回归,而是对西方小说的拙劣摹仿。     

A structural equation model of the writing process in typically-developing sixth grade children

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how sixth grade children planned, translated, and revised written narrative stories using a task reflecting current instructional and assessment practices. A modified version of the Hayes and Flower (1980) writing process model was used as the theoretical framework for the study. Two hundred one sixth-grade students participated in a three-day writing task. On the first day they generated ideas for their story, on the second day they produced a first draft, and on the third day they revised their draft to produce a final copy. Scores from each day’s writing were used as measured variables representing the latent variables of planning, translating, and revising. Confirmatory structural equation modeling results suggested that the latent variable of planning had a moderate relationship to translating and that translating had a stronger than expected relationship with revising. Significant paths between measured and latent variables demonstrated the relative contribution of skills towards the writing process. The approach used in this study highlighted the linear manner in which intermediate grade children write. Findings suggest that planning had a direct effect on translating, but no direct effect on revising. There was a strong relationship between translating and revising, suggesting few differences between students’ first and final drafts.     

德尔菲法下幼儿发展性评价指标的修订与实践

对照新课程改革下幼儿发展评价的实践诉求,需要构建科学合理的区域性幼儿发展性评价指标。为使评价指标具有较高的信度和效度,采用德尔菲法操作路径,开展相关问卷设计、专家甄选、以及三轮问卷下的研制→完善→补充循环模式进行评价指标修订。从而研制出比较完善的区域性幼儿发展性评价指标体系,提高了我区教师评价能力,也为促进幼儿全面发展提供评价支持。