Studies on the written characters orientation and its influence on digit reversal by children

Recent research has found that children reverse mainly the left-oriented characters when writing from memory (e.g. they write ? and ε instead of J and 3). In order to obtain an objective definition of the left-orientation of a character, the ratings of the level of left-orientation of all the asymmetrical capital letters and digits by 142 adult students was analysed in Study 1. Study 2, on 298 five–six-year-old children, examined an immediate prediction of Study 1, namely that the children reverse mainly the digits that the adult students have rated left-oriented. Other predictions, both of the posited representation of the writing during the reversal stage and the neurological process of mirror generalisation, were verified: the simplicity of the representation of the symmetrical digits 0 and 8 makes incorrect writings very rare; the mirror generalisation, which operates only in the left–right direction, makes other transformations (inversion or 180° rotation) very rare. Finally, the explanatory power of some putative individual factors of reversal (e.g. writing with the left hand) is shown to be far lower than that of the left-orientation of the characters.     

Dynamics of mirror writing compared to conventional writing in typical preliterate children

In left-to-right writing cultures, spontaneous mirror writing of letters and digits in preliterate children appears more frequently on left-than right-facing characters. A compelling theory drawn on neuropsychological evidence of mirror generalization suggests that children resort to a right-orienting/writing rule when learning to write. The aim of the present study was to conceptually replicate and specify recent findings (Fischer, 2017a) on the predominant contribution of writing directionality to mirror writing in preliterate children. A training study was designed to compare on-line production of conventional versus mirror writing of 4-to-5 year-old French children (n?=?30). Over a 4-week period, children were taught to write from memory words and digits. During a subsequent writing-from-memory task, a spatial constraint (Cornell, 1985) was imposed to elicit paired conventional and mirror writing of the words/digits. Spatial and kinematic data were recorded through the use of a digital pen. The results indicate a main contribution of writing directionality to letter and digit reversals. Furthermore, kinematic equivalence between conventional and mirror writing supports the neurological mirror generalization process in children. Overall, these results constitute a further illustration that the manifestation of mirror writing in typically developing children is culture-bound.     

do i know its wrong: children’s and adults’ use of unconventional grammar in text messaging

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., hi how is ya?!!) could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children, adolescents and young adults in their text messages was related to poorer performance on tasks of grammatical knowledge, including translating grammatically unconventional text messages into standard English. We found that variance in the production of grammatical violations in naturalistic messages was inconsistently predicted by grammatical task performance. Specifically, primary school children who made poorer grammar-based spelling choices were more likely to make more grammatical violations in their everyday messages, and university students who failed to correct more grammatical errors in a given set of messages were also more likely to make such errors in their own messages. There were no significant relationships for secondary school students. We conclude that using unconventional grammar when texting is not a consistent sign of poor grammatical abilities, although there may be links between some aspects of grammatical skill and grammatical violations in text messages.     

Effects of disfluency and test expectancy on learning with text

Do students learn better with texts that are Open image in new window (i.e., disfluent)? Previous research yielded discrepant findings concerning this question. To clarify these discrepancies, the present study aimed at identifying a boundary condition that determines when disfluent text is, and is not, beneficial to learning. This boundary condition is knowledge about whether a test will follow (high test expectancy) versus not (low test expectancy). Participants with high test expectancy may already engage in effortful processing, so that making text harder-to-read (disfluent) might not change their processing mode any further. Thus, particularly when no test is expected, disfluency is supposed to exert its beneficial effect. This assumption was tested in a 2?×?2 design (N?=?97) with text legibility (fluent vs. disfluent) and test expectancy (low vs. high) as factors, and learning outcomes (retention, transfer) and learning times as main dependent variables. Results revealed that high test expectancy led to better learning outcomes (for retention and transfer), but disfluent text did not. Unlike expected, there was no interaction between the two factors. Moreover, both high test expectancy and disfluency led to longer learning times, resulting in a lower efficiency when learning with disfluent compared to fluent text. Hence, the present results further question the stability and generalizability of a positive disfluency effect on learning, because only high test expectancy – but not disfluency - stimulated better learning through more effortful processing the way it was supposed to.     

Children's stroke sequence errors in writing Chinese characters

Each Chinese character is a two dimensional logograph and if character writing is seen as drawing a diagram, then there is no obvious correct sequence in the writing process. However, over the ages and to this day, Chinese children have been taught the proper stroke sequence for forming the characters based on some calligraphic rules when they begin to learn to write in Chinese. The rationale for the teaching of stroke sequence has traditionally been argued on the basis of facilitating better calligraphy and as a memory aid for the exact reproduction of the correct form of the character. This paper reports on a study that tries to determine how far young children can master the correct stroke sequences in writing and the common kinds of errors children made. It further explores the importance of and the possible educational implications for the teaching of stroke sequences in the teaching of handwriting based on the empirical results.     

Spelling development in Arabic as a foreign language among native Hebrew speaking pupils

It has been suggested that linguistic proximity affects the ease of acquisition between typologically similar languages, due to the fact that the languages have shared phonological and orthographic properties (Koda, 2008). Thus, a native Hebrew speaker learning Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) would be expected to easily develop linguistic proficiency. This study examined the developmental trajectory for spelling in AFL among native Hebrew speaking adolescents, with specific attention to the development of accurate representations for four novel phonemes and their graphic symbols ( ). The sample included eighth (N = 119), ninth (N = 125), and tenth graders (N = 91). We were further interested in examining the contribution of orthographic as opposed to phonological knowledge to spelling in AFL. Five experimental tasks were created for the study: real word recognition, orthographic sensitivity, auditory discrimination, and dictation of real and pseudowords. Findings for the eighth grade replicated earlier findings for real word spelling (Fragman & Russak, 2010) showing 20 % accuracy scores. While spelling accuracy improved by tenth grade, scores remained extremely low (25 %). Lexical representations for the four novel phonemes tested were also generally low, with different levels of accuracy for each phoneme. It is possible that the difficulties were the result of interference from shared linguistic elements. Finally, it was found that both orthographic as well as phonological knowledge contribute to real and pseudoword spelling. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to language teaching policy and pedagogy.     

Charter Schools: Implications for Teachers and Administrators

Young adolescents’ low scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) force the question of whether these students will be ready for college in four years. Our efforts to build a college-going culture emphasize strengthening students’ writing skills by using preservice teachers to lead writing marathons for at-risk middle school students on university visits. Structured interviews, surveys, and written reflections reveal that what students write about changes with age, their motivation to write varies, and their college aspirations and perceptions become more positive after completing several annual writing marathons on a college campus. The writing marathon structure makes the college visit truly meaningful to students, and it provides a compelling incentive to write by supporting characteristics of middle school students, as defined by the National Middle School Association (National Middle School Association [NMSA] 2003 National Middle School Association (NMSA). 2003. This we believe. Successful schools for young adolescents, Westerville, OH: National Middle School Association.  [Google Scholar]). The marathon model focuses on four key elements: setting, timing, small groups, and writers’ level of commitment.     

Simians in the Shape School: A comparative study of executive attention

Executive functions (EF) have been studied extensively in children and adults. However, EF tasks for young children can be difficult to administer and interpret. Espy (1997, Developmental Neuropsychology, 13, 495–499) designed the Shape School task to measure inhibition and switching in preschool-aged children. Shape School presents cartoon-like characters that children must flexibly name by their color, their shape, or both, depending on cues that indicate the appropriate rule. Shape School has been found to be age sensitive as well as predictive of performance on other EF tasks. We presented a computerized analogue of Shape School to seven rhesus macaques. Monkeys were trained to categorize characters by color or shape, or to inhibit this response, depending on whether the characters had eyes open, eyes closed, or wore hats. Monkeys performed above chance on the inhibition and switching components of the task. Long runs of a single classification rule and long runs of noninhibition trials had no significant impact on performance when the rule changed or inhibition was required. This nonverbal adaptation of Shape School can measure EF in nonhuman animals and could be used in conjunction with other EF tasks to provide a clearer picture of both human and nonhuman executive functions.     

Immediate and delayed effects of invented writing intervention in preschool

This study examined the effects of a 10 week invented writing program with five-year-old preschoolers (mean age 5.7 years) on their immediate post intervention literacy skills and also the facilitative effects of the intervention on the subsequent learning to read during the first 6 months of schooling. The study included 105 children (54 girls) from 12 preschools in Norway. The preschools were randomly assigned to the experimental group with the invented writing program, or the control group with the ordinary program offered to preschoolers. The classroom-based programs (40 sessions) were conducted by the children’s regular teachers. The children’s emergent literacy skills were evaluated using a pre-test, a post-test and a follow-up test 6 months later, and the data were analyzed using latent autoregressive models. The results showed that the invented writing group performed significantly better than the control group on the post-test for the measures of phoneme awareness (d = .54), spelling (d = .65) and word reading (d = .36). Additionally, indirect effects were observed on the delayed follow-up tests on phoneme awareness (d = .45), spelling (d = .48) and word reading (d = .26). In conclusion, we argue that invented writing appeared to smooth the progress of emergent literacy skills in preschool, including the subsequent reading development in school. Contextualized in a semi-consistent orthography and a preschool tradition that does not encourage the learning of written language skills, the findings add to our knowledge of how children learn to write and read.     

The ABC’s of Chinese: maternal mediation of Pinyin for Chinese children’s early literacy skills

In the present study, maternal Pinyin mediation and its relations with young Chinese children??s word reading and word writing development were explored. At time 1, 43 Mainland Chinese children and their mothers were videotaped on a task in which children were asked to write 12 words in Pinyin (a phonological coding system used in Mainland China as an aid to reading Chinese characters) with help from their mothers. The videotapes were later coded on a scale (adapted from Aram & Levin, 2001) of mothers?? writing facilitation techniques. Scores on this scale of maternal mediation of Pinyin uniquely explained children??s reading of Chinese words, but not writing of Chinese words, after statistically controlling for maternal education and age, and children??s non-verbal IQ, age, and phonological awareness. At time 2, 22 of the children from time 1 were further tested on Chinese word reading and word reading task 1?year later. After controlling for children??s age and non-verbal IQ, maternal Pinyin mediation uniquely explained 6% of the variance in children??s word writing and 7% of the variance in children??s word reading performance at time 2. Results underscore the potential importance of the maternal scaffolding role for reading acquisition both theoretically and practically in a domain not previously explored (i.e., use of a common coding system (Pinyin) for learning to read, rather than word reading itself).     

Empowering communities of research and practice by conducting research for change and including participant voice in reflection on research

In this paper, in response to Ajay Sharma’s paper titled “Portrait of a science teacher as a bricoleur: A case study from India” and associated reviews, I address the value of bridging two narrative styles for describing teacher development, discuss questions of over-essentializing an Indian school context, propose that teacher and student participants should be included in this type of writing series, and identify institutional barriers to researchers acting as agents-of-change.

Science, religion, and the quest for knowledge and truth: an Islamic perspective

This article consists of two parts. The first one is to a large extent a commentary on John R. Staver’s “Skepticism, truth as coherence, and constructivist epistemology: grounds for resolving the discord between science and religion?” The second part is a related overview of Islam’s philosophy of knowledge and, to a certain degree, science. In responding to Staver’s thesis, I rely strongly on my scientific education and habit of mind; I also partly found my views on my Islamic background, though I enlarge my scope to consider western philosophical perspectives as well. I differ with Staver in his definition of the nature, scope, and goals of religion (concisely, “explaining the world and how it works”), and I think this is the crux of the matter in attempting to resolve the perceived “discord” between science and religion. The heart of the problem is in the definition of the domains of action of science and religion, and I address this issue at some length, both generically and using Islamic principles, which are found to be very widely applicable. The concept of “reality,” so important to Staver’s thesis, is also critically reviewed. The philosophy of knowledge (and of science) in Islam is briefly reviewed in the aim of showing the great potential for harmony between the two “institutions” (religion and science), on the basis of the following philosophy: science describes nature, whereas religion gives us not only a philosophy of existence but also an interpretative cloak for the discoveries of science and for the meaning of the cosmos and nature. I conclude by insisting that though science and religion can be considered as two worldviews that propose to describe “reality” and to explain our existence and that of the world; they may come to compete for humans’ minds and appear to enter into a conflicting position, but only if and when we confuse their domains and modes of action.      

Becoming literate in Chinese: a comparison of native‐speaking and non‐native‐speaking children

How do native Chinese‐speaking (CS) and non‐Chinese‐speaking (NCS) children learn to read and write in Chinese? In the present study, 29 CS and 34 NCS second and third graders aged 76 to 122 months (M = 93.65) participated in an experiment where they were taught 16 new Chinese characters in one of four conditions – copy, radical, phonological and look–say. Results showed that the copying condition best facilitated writing of Chinese characters for both groups, whereas radical knowledge facilitated only CS children's writing. NCS children benefited more from the phonological condition than from the look–say condition in learning to read Chinese. These results highlight the effectiveness of copying practice for all children learning to write Chinese. However, approaches to reading and writing Chinese may differ somewhat depending on the Chinese background knowledge of the children as well. Teaching children Chinese should be geared towards the strengths of different groups for learning.     

Acquisition and use of shortcut strategies by traditionally schooled children

This study aimed at analysing traditionally taught children’s acquisition and use of shortcut strategies in the number domain 20–100. One-hundred-ninety-five second, third, and fourth graders of different mathematical achievement levels participated in the study. They were administered two tasks, both consisting of a series of two-digit additions and subtractions that maximally elicit the use of the compensation and indirect addition strategy (, so the answer is 2 + 1 or 3). In the first task, children were instructed to solve all items as accurately and as fast as possible with their preferred strategy. The second task was to generate at least two different strategies for each item. Results demonstrated that children of all grades and all achievement levels hardly applied the compensation and indirect addition strategy in the first task. Children’s strategy reports in the second task revealed that younger and lower achieving children did not apply these strategies because they did not (yet) discover these strategies. By contrast, older and higher achieving children appeared to have acquired these strategies by themselves. Results are interpreted in relation to cognitive psychological and socio-cultural perspectives on children’s mathematics learning.