Training in phonological strategies improves Chinese dyslexic children’s character reading skills

This study investigated Chinese dyslexic children’s efficiency in employing phonological strategies (i.e. the use of orthography-phonology correspondence rules) in reading and the effectiveness of training phonological strategies in improving Chinese dyslexic children’s reading performance. An Experimental Group of 15 Chinese dyslexic children received a five-day intensive training in phonological strategies while a comparable Control Group did not. The results showed that Chinese dyslexic children did not use the phonological strategies as efficiently as Chinese average readers, and the training programme was effective in significantly improving the Experimental Group’s reading performance. This suggests that Chinese dyslexic children can benefit from training in phonological strategies.     

The role of letter knowledge and phonological awareness in young Braille readers

Research into sighted children’s reading shows that letter recognition skill predicts phonological awareness skill. Congenitally–blind children do not receive exposure to environmental print and do not generally learn to recognise written letters of the alphabet prior to schooling in Braille. A cross–sectional analysis revealed that blind children with no knowledge of written letters or written words showed no ability at measures of phonological awareness. Blind children with knowledge of written letters and no written words showed much increased phonological awareness scores and blind children with knowledge of written letters and written words scored higher still on phonological awareness measures. It was concluded that letter learning is a major contributor to the development of phonological awareness in blind children. It suggests key similarities in the underlying processes of reading development across two different populations using different modalities to learn to read.     

Representations of sibling relationships in young children’s literature

Children’s conceptions of what sibling relationships can be like may be influenced, in part, by the literature they read. This study examined the degree to which positive and negative dimensions of sibling relationships were portrayed in a sample of children’s books (n = 261). We also investigated how mothers and fathers were depicted when responding to sibling conflict. Results indicated that although children’s books often represent warmth and involvement between siblings, they rarely described children engaging in conflict management or relational maintenance activities. Parents were predominantly portrayed as responding to children’s conflict using controlling methods rather than techniques that might foster negotiation and problem solving. Characters who were middle children are under-represented in children’s literature. Results are discussed in terms of how educators can select, use, and adapt books in their efforts to help strengthen children’s sibling relationships.     

Gendered readings: learning from children’s reading choices

This paper presents evidence from The W H Smith Children’s Reading Choices Project research in order to examine the relationship between achievement in English and the reading habits of 10‐ to 14‐year‐old children. Following a national questionnaire survey supplemented by a semi‐structured interview for a small sample of respondents, it was found that children read more books and periodicals in 1994 than in 1971. However, boys tended to read less than girls. Periodical reading is a strong feature in the reading diet of both sexes. The paper argues for the importance of recognising and respecting the range of reading children engage in, and the popular reading cultures in which they live. It suggests that officially sanctioned school definitions of literacy disempower many young readers, and inhibit their development as readers. In particular, schools should recognise and value the type of information‐rich reading that boys undertake away from school and should provide links between it and the ‘socially orientated’ reading, preferred by girls, that makes up much of the English school curriculum. Likewise, girls should be encouraged to undertake more technical and factual reading to better prepare them for the world of work. If this advice were adopted, both sexes would benefit and boys might be less inclined to perceive themselves as poor readers.     

Parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about children’s school readiness in a high-need community

This study compared the beliefs of preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and parents in one mostly Hispanic and Black high-need urban school district to learn their views of what children should know and be able to do at kindergarten entry. Beliefs regarding the importance of 12 school readiness “resources” were assessed with the CARES survey designed for this study. Parents held remarkably similar beliefs, regardless of ethnicity or education. Parents and teachers also agreed that children must be healthy and socially competent, and be able to comply with teacher authority, although parents rated this latter resource higher. However, parents rated all classroom-related readiness resources as more important than teachers did. They believed it was necessary for a child to be able to communicate in English and to have basic knowledge and skills, which was more important than a child’s approach to learning. Preschool teachers also believed that knowledge was more important than kindergarten teachers did. Directions for further research and implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

The impact of a prejudice-prevention television program on young children’s ideas about race

Two studies investigated whether children’s television programs that were produced to decrease racial prejudice had the intended positive effect on young children. Study 1 measured 60 White 5- and 6-year-old children’s attitudes toward Asian, Black, and White stimuli prior to, and immediately following, a brief, one-time anti-prejudice television program. No significant change was observed. Study 2 assessed the attitudes of 30 White 3–6-year-old children toward Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White stimuli at the beginning and end of a 3-week intervention period. During the intervention period children watched a pro-diversity television program four times. Plot and anti-prejudice message comprehension was assessed at three time-points during the testing period. Participants improved on plot and message comprehension over time, but no change in ideas about race was evidenced (children indicated a strong pro-White bias at both pre- and post-test). Possible reasons for, and implications of, this lack of change are discussed.     

Does maternal employment influence poor children’s social development?

Various initiatives over the past 40 years have aimed to strengthen children’s early learning and social development. One policy theory—manifest in recent welfare reforms—postulates that requiring single mothers to work more outside the home will advance children’s well-being. We first examine whether young children’s social development is related to maternal employment among 405 women who entered welfare-to-work programs in 1998. For girls, age 24–42 months, we found that their mother’s recent employment duration was significantly associated with a lower incidence of aggressive behavior and inattentiveness, measured by two scales from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL 2/3). Yet these relationships with employment were weaker than more robust associations observed for proximal child-rearing practices, including the frequency of reading with the child, enforcing a regular bedtime, the propensity to spank the child, as well as levels of maternal depression. We then assess whether broader measures of the mother’s economic security help to predict these proximal determinants of development. We observed that food security and indicators of job quality consistently predicted the proximal factors. Structural equation models (SEM) provided additional evidence that these broader indicators of economic security, but not recent employment per se, operated through parenting practices and maternal depression to influence girls’ and boys’ social development. These results are consistent with recent findings from random-assignment experiments, showing that employment gains rarely affect child outcomes unless mothers’ income and broader economic security also improve.     

The significance of setting in award-winning children’s books from selected English-speaking regions

The setting of children’s books has probably been given less prominence than their plots or characters, yet, as Rosie Webb Joel shows in this thought-provoking essay, setting can be crucial in influencing children’s responses and understanding of what they read.     

Screen design for children’s reading: some key issues

This paper draws attention to design issues that are likely to affect the way that children interact with screen‐based information texts. It is based on the findings of the Interactive Multimedia in Primary Schools (IMPS) project funded by the British Library, carried out at The University of Reading. The paper summarises the design‐related aspects of the project, highlighting those issues that relate to access, navigation and typography. It draws together observations from teachers and children based on tape‐recorded interviews and video recordings, and research from the fields of human computer interaction, information design and education.     

What the children’s literature of war is telling the children

This article discusses several issues arising from some wide reading of children’s literature of war and peace as part of a Comenius (EU) collaboration with partners in Belgium and Portugal. The focus here is on the content of the books rather than ways of telling. The issues raised concern national identities, gaps in the collective texts which perhaps reflect national identities, the emphasis on the home front rather than battles, the usefulness of children in wartime compared to most modern child readers, the ethical issues common to the literature in all three countries, the allegorical war literature available for young children, and, increasingly, the more realistic literature for the same group including stories of the holocaust.     

Bilingualism and learning: The effect of language pair on phonological awareness abilities

Children first exposed to English as a second language when they start school are at risk for poor academic outcome. They perform less well than their monolingual peers, matched for socio-economic background, at the end of primary school on measures of language and literacy, despite immersion in English at school. Previous research suggests, however, that some bilingual children do better on phonological awareness (PA) tasks than monolinguals in preschool. Two experiments investigated the effect of language pair on PA by comparing monolingual and bilingual children's syllable, onset rime, phoneme and tone awareness using detection, deletion and segmentation tasks. Experiment 1 compared bilingual Putonghua-Cantonese children with two matched monolingual control groups. The bilingual group had enhanced phonological awareness. However, the monolingual Putonghua speakers performed better on the phoneme detection task. Experiment 2 compared Cantonese-English bilingual children and controls monolingual in Cantonese. While there was no overall group difference in PA, the bilingual children had better tone awareness. The profile of findings is considered for possible explanations of later literacy difficulties.     

An investigation of hierarchical relationships in children’s literacy attainments at baseline

This paper describes one element of the research basis for the Baseline Assessment Scales now published for optional use in baseline schemes nationally (SCAA, 1997a). The aim in developing these scales was to provide a range of criteria that would allow almost all children to show some attainment, whilst also acknowledging the attainments of the most able. For this purpose, four-point scales were required. The first point would be attainable by over 80 per cent of children in their first term of school, and the fourth by only 20 per cent or fewer, with two intermediate points. Four such scales were trialled for reading, and one for writing. As part of the trial analysis, an investigation was undertaken into the hierarchies amongst the items on each scale – that is, to what extent was it possible for a child to attain a more difficult item, whilst failing an easier item on the same scale? A ‘coefficient of dependency’ was calculated for each pair of items on each scale. The percentages of children achieving each item are reported, and the strength of the hierarchies amongst them. This provides some evidence as to the interrelationships between children’s literacy attainments at the start of school.     

Components of phonological awareness

The factorial structure underlying different types of tasks within the domain of phonological awareness was examined in two studies. Large sample sizes allowed for sensitive differentiation of constructs. In the first study, 128 preschool children without any experience of formal reading instruction were tested with a battery of tasks intended to tap various aspects of phonological awareness: rhyme recognition, syllable counting, initial-phoneme matching, initial-phoneme deletion, phoneme blending, and phoneme counting. Three basic components were extracted in a principal component analysis: a phoneme factor, a syllable factor and a rhyme factor. Cross-tabulations indicated considerable dissociation between performance on phoneme, syllable, and rhyme tasks. The structural relationships were replicated on a much larger sample (n=1509) in the second study. Subjects in this study were one year older and were attending grade 1 thus providing an opportunity to test their reading achievement. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the phonemic factor was by far the most potent predictor. However, the rhyming factor made an independent (although small) contribution to explaining the reading variance. Among the phonemic tasks, phoneme identification proved to be the most powerful predictor.     

“Beyond the frame”: exploring children’s literacy practices

The aim of this small–scale research project was to examine the literacy events children choose to engage in outside school. Two groups of Primary School children were involved in investigating the use of literacy in their lives, using disposable cameras to record literacy events and texts. The photographs and the discussion stimulated by them provided evidence that these children used literacy in richly diverse ways for purposes which they saw as meaningful. Although limited in size and scope, the study showed that uses of literacy presented by these children reflected community literacy practices (as identified by Barton & Hamilton, 1998). However, it was also clear that the children acted with considerable autonomy, motivation and creativity in making their use of literacy meaningful to them. This paper provides a report on the project and discusses the implications of these findings for the teaching of literacy in school.     

Seeing with the camera: analysing children’s photographs of literacy in the home

This article examines the issues raised by photographs children took of reading in the home as part of a funded research project exploring the gendering of reading in the 7–9 age group. The main focus is on the dilemmas the images pose for analysis, and what the images, considered in themselves, can be taken as evidence for. This discussion is linked to current concerns about the nature of the support that homes could and should offer to the process of learning to read.     

Parents’ self‐efficacy beliefs,parents’ gender,children’s reader self‐perceptions,reading achievement and gender

This study investigated the relationships among parents’ self‐efficacy beliefs, parents’ gender, children’s reader self‐perceptions, reading achievement and gender. This study consisted of 66 students, aged eight and nine, and 92 parents involved in a family literacy project for approximately one year. The study was conducted in a rural area of Eastern Canada. There were three instruments used in this study: a Questionnaire for Parents, a Reader Self‐Perception Scale (RSPS) (Henk & Melnick, 1995), and a standardised reading test (Test of Early Reading Ability‐2 – TERA‐2) (Reid, Hresko & Hammill, 1989). The Pearson‐Product‐Moment method and t‐tests were used to determine relationships in the data and to identify significant differences in scores on the instruments. Significant positive and negative relationships were found between mothers’ and fathers’ self‐efficacy beliefs and children’s reader self‐perceptions. Children’s self‐perceptions as readers significantly related to their reading achievement. Mothers had stronger beliefs than did fathers in their ability to help improve boys’ reading achievement. Significant differences favouring females were found in children’s reader self‐perceptions and their reading achievement. The findings of this study provide a basis for understanding factors related to young children’s reading achievement.     

Visual and phonological determinants of misreadings in a transparent orthography

Growth of word reading skills was examined in first and second year Italian school children by analysis of the pattern of reading errors. The study was designed to investigate the role of visual vs phonological similarities as causes of misreadings in a transparent orthography. The selection of reading material was tailored to permit a meaningful cross-language comparison with pre-existing findings on English-speaking children. The results showed that, in Italian as in English, spatially-related errors (such as confusingb andd) constituted a minor proportion of the total errors. Errors on vowel and consonant letters that are not spatially confusable accounted for the greater proportion of the total. Moreover, the co-occurrence of spatial and phonological confusability resulted in appreciably more errors than when either occurred without the other. Vowel position in the syllable had no systematic effect on errors. In beginning readers of Italian, consonant errors outnumbered vowel errors by a wide margin; the reverse pattern was found in previous studies on English-speaking children at the same level of schooling. It is proposed that differences between Italian and English in the phonological structure of the lexicon and in the consistency of grapheme-phoneme correspondences account in large part for the differences in quantity and distribution of the errors.     

Predicting children’s academic achievement from early assessment scores: a validity generalization study

Although there have been numerous studies investigating the predictive validity of early assessment, observed predictive validity coefficients across studies are not stable. A validity generalization study was conducted in order to answer the question of whether the relationship between early assessment of children and later achievement is generalizable or situation-specific. This study examined 716 predictive correlation coefficients from 44 studies using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The findings of this study revealed that predictive validity of early assessment is not generalizable. Additional analyses indicated that predictive validity differ across assessments as a function of test type, specific construct being assessed, length of prediction, and administration procedures. The most impressive finding in this study was the variability of effect sizes across different test administration types. In particular, tests that were scored through ratings were found to be most effective. These findings suggest that instead of addressing a broad predictive validity between a test and a criterion measure, it is necessary to understand early assessment procedures as a whole system by including considerations of various variables related to testing conditions.