Celebrating young Indigenous Australian children's speech and language competence

World-wide it is important to recognize Indigenous children's speech and language competence and their language learning environments. Indigenous Australian children participated in the child cohort of Footprints in Time: Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, a national study supported by Indigenous Australians and the Australian Government collected annually (in waves). There were 692 3–5-year-old children in wave 1, and two years later, 570 5–7-year-old children were in wave 3 (77.0% of children in wave 1 were also in wave 3). Data were obtained via parent interviews and direct assessment. The children spoke between one and eight languages including: English (wave 1: 91.2%, wave 3: 99.6%), Indigenous languages (wave 1: 24.4%, wave 3: 26.8%), creoles (wave 1: 11.5%, wave 3: 13.7%), foreign languages (non-Indigenous languages other than English) (wave 1: 2.0%, wave 3: 5.1%), and sign languages (wave 1: 0.6%, wave 3: 0.4%). Children who spoke an Indigenous language were more likely to live in moderate to extreme isolation than their English-speaking counterparts. Parental concern about speech and language skills was similar to data for non-Indigenous children with approximately one quarter of parents expressing concern (wave 1: yes = 13.9%, a little = 10.4%). Children's language environments were rich, with many family members and friends telling oral stories, reading books, and listening to the children read. Almost a third of families wanted to pass on their cultural language, and many indicated that they would like their child to learn an Indigenous language at school. Overall, Indigenous Australian children have rich cultural and linguistic traditions and their speech and language competence is promoted through family, community, and educational experiences.     

Effects of play interventions on young children's reading of environmental print

This study examined effects of exposure to print and interaction with a more knowledgeable other on 56 kindergarten children's environmental print knowledge. Three classes were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: exposure to print during play in print-enriched settings, exposure to print and functional experiences with a more knowledgeable other (an adult) during play in print-enriched settings, and play in nonenriched settings. Prior to and following three weeks of play in each of five settings (15 week intervention period), each child's ability to read the environmental print appropriate to each setting was assessed in two ways: in-context with the words embedded in their supporting context and out-of-context with the words written on a list. The results indicated that while exposure to print significantly influenced the children's ability to read environmental print when the print was embedded in its supporting context, exposure to the print and functional experiences with a more knowledgeable other around this print significantly influenced the children's ability to read environmental print on both reading tasks. These findings suggest that exposure and functional experiences with adults in print-enriched play settings may offer an important opportunity for young children to associate meaning with print.     

The effects of verbal scaffolding instruction on young children's private speech and problem-solving capabilities

This investigation examined the efficacy of a verbal scaffolding instructional program designed to teach young children how to use private speech while working on school tasks and problems. Two different contexts for solving problems were used; common school tasks and analogical reasoning problems. Thirty-four 5-year olds who attended public school kindergartens were assigned to either the comparison group or the treatment group. Comparison group subjects were presented with a series of 8 lessons which focused on a cognitive strategy to be used in the solutions of geometric analogy problems. Treatment group subjects were presented with a series of 8 lessons which employed cognitive self-instruction in a verbal scaffolding format. After initial instruction using self-verbalizations, treatment group subjects were shown how to apply the cognitive self-instruction to routine school tasks and geometric analogy problems. The data analysis revealed that there was an effect on the treatment group's use of 3 of the 4 levels of private speech. When the two groups were compared, the treatment group used significantly less task irrelevant private speech and significantly more task relevant private speech. There were no significant differences between the two groups on the post-assessment of geometric analogy reasoning. Additionally, when the two groups were compared there were positive effects of the instructional program on the treatment group's classroom behavior (near transfer) and locus of control scores (far transfer). The results of this study provide support for the use of cognitive self-instruction to improve young children's problem-solving private speech in the context of a public school classroom.Portions of this paper were presented at the 2nd Annual European Congress of Psychology, Budapest Hungary, July 1991 by the first author.This paper was presented at the 1993 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA.     

The relationship between children's reading motivation and reading competence

It has been found that motivation is very important to children’s reading competence.This paper intended to study intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and find their relationship with children’s reading competence.In order to do so,previous investigations about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were critically reviewed,and their results were discussed in this paper.     

Increasing young children's contact with print during shared reading: longitudinal effects on literacy achievement

Longitudinal results for a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) assessing the impact of increasing preschoolers' attention to print during reading are reported. Four-year-old children (N = 550) in 85 classrooms experienced a 30-week shared reading program implemented by their teachers. Children in experimental classrooms experienced shared-book readings 2 or 4 times per week during which their teachers verbally and nonverbally referenced print. Children in comparison classrooms experienced their teachers' typical book reading style. Longitudinal results (n = 356, 366) showed that use of print references had significant impacts on children's early literacy skills (reading, spelling, comprehension) for 2 years following the RCT's conclusion. Results indicate a causal relation between early print knowledge and later literacy skills and have important implications concerning the primary prevention of reading difficulties.     

“花样式”阅读促进幼儿早期阅读的发展

以游戏活动激发幼儿主动说的愿望,通过"花样式"阅读促进幼儿早期阅读的发展,帮助幼儿在人生的最初阶段学会阅读的方法、养成阅读的习惯。     

Synthetic speech and computer aided reading for reading disabled children

A simple way to partially compensate for word decoding problems is to let disabled readers have a micro-computer pronounce the words they are unable to read. Using a program developed for the IBM-PC/AT and a Scandinavian multilingual text-to-speech unit, children can read a textfile (of any size) on the monitor and use a mouse to request the immediate pronunciation of a word. In study 1, Grade-2 children did not perform better on a reading comprehension test when using computer-aided reading, but they rated their understanding significantly higher than when using a text. In study 2, the effect of computer-aided reading in special education settings was studied. Results indicated that older children, from grade 4 and up, benefited more from the computer aided reading than did younger ones. However, both experimental and control groups showed gains in several aspects of reading. Some children did not seem to have metacognitive skills enough to benefit from the computer-aided system. These children may initially need more extensive training in how to use the system and how to monitor their own reading. Reasons for letting the computer deliver the decoding aid as morphological segments are discussed.     

Working memory resources and children's reading comprehension

Reading and Writing - Working memory capacity is described as a pool of limited resources that carry out processing and storage functions. Its role has been emphasised in adults' reading...