Reading-Writing Connections: the Importance of Interactive Discourse

Margaret Meek (1988) has described how children borrow ideas from literature through ‘unteachable’ lessons. In this article, I examine how children's written work is enhanced through ‘teachable’ lessons, where the teacher draws attention explicitly to aspects of literary texts and where children explore and evaluate literature through group reading and discussion. The ways in which children transfer the knowledge of literary devices, gained through group discussion, to their own writing are examined. The relationship between group evaluations of texts and children's writing development is explored with reference to the work of Year 6 children. This illustrates how critical reading and group discussion can raise primary children's metalinguistic awareness and develop their understanding of the stylistic features of narrative texts.     

Disintegrate the unit!

Margaret Meek (1988) has described how children borrow ideas from literature through ‘unteachable’ lessons. In this article I explore how children's written work might be enhanced through ‘teachable’ lessons, where the teacher draws attention explicitly to aspects of literature and the literary devices used by authors, and where children explore and evaluate literature through group reading and discussion. The interrelationship between children's knowledge and understanding of literature and their writing development is examined. The way that critical reading and group discussion can develop children's metalanguage and metacognitive understanding is illustrated.     

Beginning readers' use of ‘talking books’ software can affect their reading strategies

This paper reports on a small‐scale study that considered whether a phonic‐based ‘talking book’ could outperform one‐to‐one reading tuition with an adult with respect to improving beginning readers' phonological awareness over a short period. It also examined whether the children's reading strategies were affected by their use of the software. Two groups of children, one aged five years and one aged six years, used three phonic‐based talking books over six 15‐minute sessions and were assessed on their phonological awareness and reading strategies both before and after this intervention. Their performance was compared to that of matched comparison groups who were given one‐to‐one adult tutoring with the paper versions of the same books. There were no significant differences between the two groups in their phonological awareness attainment, with both groups showing equivalent gains from pre‐ to post‐test. Use of specific features of the software was associated with gains in rhyme detection ability and with changes in the children's reading strategies.     

Flexible phonics: a complementary ‘next generation’ approach for teaching early reading

We describe the rationale for- and content of- a freely available, novel, theoretically driven and evidence-based approach to improving the teaching of word reading in reception classrooms called ‘Flexible Phonics’. Flexible Phonics (FP) adds measurable value to-, rather than wholly replacing, existing synthetic phonics programmes. The rationale underpinning the FP approach concerns the need for multi-componential, maximally efficient, and truly generative approaches to allow early independence in reading for all children that apply to all words in the opaque spelling system of English. Building from these three principles, contemporary reading theory and evidence from cognitive science, linguistics and scaled educational implementation research, FP embodies a 5-element intervention differentiated to children's current attainment levels. FP augments mandated synthetic phonics through use of quality real books allowing ‘Direct Mapping’ of taught grapheme-phoneme correspondences, targeted oral vocabulary teaching, strategy-instruction on ‘Set-for-Variability’ and targeted preventative intervention for the most at-risk readers to then access wider FP content. Implications for policy and enhanced professional practice in English schools are considered.     

Children's responses to questions about transformations and their relationship to strategies used in problem solving

This paper describes some preliminary results comparing two groups of children's performance on a set of Piagetian conservation tasks. The findings point to the need to sensitise parents and teachers to current views on appropriate learning environments for young children, in particular, the strategies that they might use to make sense of their experiences. In addition, the findings are used to support the argument that it is important to emphasise adults’ roles in giving structure and direction to children's early learning experiences. It is anticipated that if parents and some teachers understand the basis for this approach to tutoring, their support and encouragement will relieve the potentially damaging pressure to ‘ succeed at all costs ‘, a current dilemma for parents of children in Singapore. Given the emphasis on structure and attainment in the Singaporean Pre‐Schools in this paper, experiences involving aspects of problem solving are selected for investigation, given their reported relationship with school attainment. (Bruner, 1972).     

Identification of children at risk of dyslexia: the validity of teacher judgements using ‘Phonic Phases’

We report an investigation of the validity of teachers' ratings of children's progress in ‘phonics’ as a screener for dyslexia. Seventy‐three 6‐year‐olds from a whole school population were identified as ‘at risk’ of dyslexia according to teacher judgements of slow progression through phonic phases. Six months later, children's attainments in literacy and phonological skills were compared with those of their typically developing peers matched on age and gender. Teacher assessments of risk were related to individual differences in performance on a standardised test of reading ability. Teacher assessments overestimated ‘risk of dyslexia’, defined as below‐average reading performance. However, teacher judgements, supplemented by tests of phoneme awareness and rapid naming, allowed a sensitive and specific identification of children who subsequently experienced reading difficulties. These findings show teachers can identify risk of dyslexia; the accuracy of this process can be improved by administering two tests of phonological skills.     

A longitudinal study of children's early literacy experiences at home and later literacy development at home and school

Studies of literacy attainment in the early years of school have identified various measures at school entry which predict later attainment. The study reported has sought not only to replicate earlier findings but to investigate significant home factors from a younger age. Literacy experiences of 42 children at ages 3, 5 and 7 were investigated, and the relationship of home factors to literacy development explored. Findings are reported concerning two outcome measures at age 7: children's reading level, as determined by the difficulty level of their school reading book, and whether or not children at age 7 were judged to have literacy difficulties. Significant factors included having favourite books at age 3; letter knowledge and parents reading to children at school entry; and at age 7, access to home computers, and parents’ knowledge of literacy teaching in school. Children with literacy difficulties owned fewer books, were less likely to read to themselves or their parents, and generally had less support for literacy at home. Implications for teachers, highlighting the relevance of home literacy, are discussed. The findings underline the importance of home factors for children's literacy development.     

The Home Literacy Environment and Preschool Children's Reading Skills and Interest

Research Findings: This study explored the association between the home literacy environment (HLE), conceptualized as comprising parents’ reading beliefs and home literacy practices, and preschoolers’ reading skills and reading interest. It also identified factors in the HLE that predict emerging reading competence and motivation to read. A total of 193 children age 6 years from 14 preschools across Singapore and their parents participated in the study. The parents completed a reading belief inventory, a family literacy activity inventory, and a demographic questionnaire that surveyed the child's reading interest. The children were administered a battery of standardized literacy tests. The study found a moderate relationship between the HLE and children's reading competencies and a strong relationship between the HLE and children's reading interest. When parents’ education level and children's age were controlled, hierarchical multiple regression analyses found that family literacy activities contributed more unique variance to children's reading outcomes and reading interest than did parents’ reading beliefs. Active parental involvement was the strongest component of the HLE, with parent–child engagement in reading and writing emerging as the best predictor of both the child's emerging reading skills and reading interest. With respect to reading beliefs, parents’ efficacy in supporting literacy development before their child attended school positively predicted reading competence, as did parents’ affect and verbal participation in fostering reading interest. However, verbal participation negatively predicted Singapore children's reading competence. Practice or Policy: The implications of the results were discussed.     

The role of archbishop Walsh in the resolution of the Irish University question

Abstract

This paper traces the evolution of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in Ireland over the course of the last century. Changing conceptualisations of the nature of childhood provide the context for understanding historical and contemporary approaches to ECCE. Historically, young children's care and education were treated as separate entities, with ‘care’ provided within the home and ‘education’ outside the home. However, the contemporary perspective recognises that young children's learning occurs on a continuum from birth, with care and education being interdependent. Although a distinct ECCE sector is beginning to emerge, prompted by developments at policy, practice and research level, there is considerable scope for further progress. Given ‘where we have come from’ and ‘where we are currently at’, future directions and recommendations for ECCE are elucidated.     

Reading: A Pastime of the Past?

It is somewhat of a truism to say that reading is not what it used to be. ‘Texts’for reading now include many other media than simply print on pages and this fact has occasioned some concern among those who fear that reading television or computer-based texts may reduce or impoverish children's overall reading experience. Chris Robertson and her students have been investigating these issues through interviews with children and have found that reading and technology are not actually in conflict but can be mutually supportive. This article suggests that teachers need to think more creatively about how to use alternative texts in developing children's reading.     

The impact of pre‐school on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to reception

This article explores the impact of pre‐school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre‐school sample with those of an additional ‘home’ sample (children who had not attended pre‐school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre‐reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre‐school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio‐economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre‐school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school.     

Txt msg n school literacy: does texting and knowledge of text abbreviations adversely affect children's literacy attainment?

This paper reports on two studies which investigated the relationship between children's texting behaviour, their knowledge of text abbreviations and their school attainment in written language skills. In Study One, 11–12‐year‐old children provided information on their texting behaviour. They were also asked to translate a standard English sentence into a text message and vice versa. The children's standardised verbal and non‐verbal reasoning scores were also obtained. Children who used their mobiles to send three or more text messages a day had significantly lower scores than children who sent none. However, the children who, when asked to write a text message, showed greater use of text abbreviations (‘textisms’) tended to have better performance on a measure of verbal reasoning ability, which is highly associated with Key Stage 2 (KS2) and 3 English scores. In Study Two, children's performance on writing measures was examined more specifically. Ten to eleven‐year‐old children were asked to complete another English to text message translation exercise. Spelling proficiency was also assessed, and KS2 Writing scores were obtained. Positive correlations between spelling ability and performance on the translation exercise were found, and group‐based comparisons based on the children's writing scores also showed that good writing attainment was associated with greater use of textisms, although the direction of this association is nor clear. Overall, these findings suggest that children's knowledge of textisms is not associated with poor written language outcomes for children in this age range.     

Mothers' Early Mind-Mindedness Predicts Educational Attainment in Socially and Economically Disadvantaged British Children

Relations between mothers' mind-mindedness (appropriate and nonattuned mind-related comments) at 8 months (N = 206), and children's educational attainment at ages 7 (n = 158) and 11 (n = 156) were investigated in a British sample. Appropriate mind-related comments were positively correlated with reading and mathematics performance at both ages but only in the low-socioeconomic status (SES) group. Path analyses showed that in the low-SES group, appropriate mind-related comments directly predicted age-11 reading performance, with age-4 verbal ability mediating the relation between appropriate mind-related comments and age-7 reading. In contrast, maternal sensitivity and infant–mother attachment security did not predict children's educational attainment. These findings are discussed in terms of genetic and environmental contributions to reading and mathematics performance.     

Comparing children's and student teachers’ ideas about science concepts

Children and teachers may not think in the same way about particular science concepts. Such parallel lines of thought can compound children's confusion and misunderstanding as they learn science at primary school. The situation could be more acute when student teachers are teaching science, because of their limited experience of considering children's ideas. This paper investigates children's and student teachers’ ideas about certain science concepts: ‘animal’, ‘flower’, ‘living’, ‘force’ and ‘energy’. The ideas and understandings of 96 children and 168 student teachers were explored. Results showed that the student teachers and children had similar ideas about ‘flower’ and ‘animal’, whereas they evidenced very different responses to ‘living’, ‘energy’ and ‘force’. Implications for classroom practice are considered.     

Changes in letter sound knowledge are associated with development of phonological awareness in pre‐school children

Letter sound knowledge, which, together with phonological awareness, is highly predictive of pre‐school children's reading acquisition, derives from children's knowledge of their associated letter names and the phonological patterns of those names. In this study of 66 monolingual pre‐school children we examined whether phonological patterns between letter names and their associated sounds might be differentially associated with aspects of phonological awareness. Results suggest that rudimentary levels of phonological awareness may facilitate the learning of letter sound associations. However, more explicit phonological awareness appears to be linked bi‐directionally with letter sound knowledge with diverse name‐sound associations, with letter sound associations that do not follow regular patterns (e.g. ‘juh’ for ‘j’ and ‘huh’ for ‘h’) most closely associated with performance in more complex phoneme awareness tasks.     

Mothers’ negative emotional expression and preschoolers’ negative emotional regulation strategies in Beijing,China: The moderating effect of maternal educational attainment

The relationship between mothers’ negative emotional expression and preschoolers’ negative emotional regulation has been a topic of debate. Studies have confirmed the unique effect of maternal education on children's emotional regulation. Further understanding of the role of maternal educational attainment in the relationship between mothers’ emotional expression and children’s emotional regulation strategies will help us better explain the possible reasons for the differences in children's emotional regulation abilities. In this study, 503 Chinese mother-child dyads were recruited. The Chinese version of the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire (SEFQ) was used to measure the mothers’ negative emotional expression, and the Emotional Regulatory Strategy Questionnaire (ERQ) was used to measure the children’s negative emotional regulation strategies. The results indicated that mothers’ negative emotional expression was positively related to children’s negative emotional regulation strategies. Moreover, maternal educational attainment moderated this relationship. The findings of the current study demonstrate the importance of mothers’ educational background, providing an important supplement to and extension of previous research on family emotions.     

Wilderness Schooling: A controlled trial of the impact of an outdoor education programme on attainment outcomes in primary school pupils

Gaps in education attainment between high and low achieving children in the primary school years are frequently evidenced in educational reports. Linked to social disadvantage, these gaps have detrimental long‐term effects on learning. There is a need to close the gap in attainment by addressing barriers to learning and offering alternative contexts for education. There is increasing evidence for beneficial impacts of education delivered outdoors, yet most programmes are un‐structured, and evidence is anecdotal and lacks experimental rigour. In addition, there is a wealth of social‐emotional outcomes reported yet little in the way of educational attainment outcomes. The current study explores the educational impact of a structured curriculum‐based outdoor learning programme for primary school children: ‘Wilderness Schooling’. A matched‐groups design: Wilderness Schooling (n=223) and conventional schooling (n=217), was used to compare attainment data in English reading, English writing and maths, collected at three time‐points: Pre‐ (T1) and post‐intervention (T2) and at a 6‐week follow up (T3). Data show that children in the Wilderness Schooling group significantly improved their attainment in all three subjects compared to controls. Trajectories of impact indicated attainment continued to increase from baseline in the following weeks after the intervention concluded. These results allow the case to be made for the core curriculum to be conducted outdoors to improve children's learning. However, it is important to consider that there are likely to be various components of the intervention that could form a theory of change essential to reported outcomes.     

Primary children's management of themselves and others in collaborative group work: ‘Sometimes it takes patience …’

We focus on children's approaches to managing group work in classrooms where collaborative learning principles are explicit. Small groups of 8–10 year olds worked on collaborative science activities using an interactive whiteboard. Insubsequent interviews, they spoke of learning to ‘be patient’ and ‘wait’, for multiple social and technical reasons. Conclusions are drawn about how children's dialogue during and after lessons constitutes and develops their collective capacities to deal with frustrations and problems arising for themselves and others. Attention to children's thinking and language about managing group work should promote their future success in collaborative learning.     

Middle School Children's Responses to Enid Blyton in ‘The Bradford Book Flood Experiment’

During‘The Bradford Book Flood Experiment’(1976–80), a longitudinal record was kept of the reading of one year-group of children in each of four middle schools in predominantly working-class areas. The children's choices of, and responses to, books were recorded on reading record forms, questionnaires which were completed by the children each time they read a book. Subsequently, it was possible to isolate responses to books written by Enid Blyton and compare responses to these books with responses to all the other authors together (i.e., to an‘average’other author). The chi-square test of significance was applied throughout. It was found that children responded more favourably to Enid Blyton in response to every question, the differences being statistically significant in every instance. Children's reasons for choice of books by Enid Blyton are quoted and categorized. An attempt is made to analyse the reasons for Enid Blyton's popularity.