The effect of a strategy training on reading comprehension in fourth-grade students

Previous studies have shown that instruction of reading strategies is an effective method for enhancing reading comprehension. However, many of the interventions in these studies focused on small groups of (poor) comprehenders and were provided by research assistants, making it time-consuming and relatively expensive. The authors implemented a strategy intervention to intact classrooms, consisting of reciprocal teaching and delivered by teachers. Participants were 510 typically developing fourth-grade students. A clustered randomized controlled trial was conducted with pretest, posttest, and follow-up measures to assess knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension. The results revealed that the intervention had an effect on knowledge of reading strategies at posttest and follow-up. However, the intervention did not affect reading comprehension performance. Together with the results of earlier studies, the present study raises the question whether strategy interventions are the most efficient to improve fourth-grade students' reading comprehension.     

The social position and development of pupils with SEN in mainstream Dutch primary schools

Since August 2003, pupils with auditory, communicative, motor, mental or multiple disabilities, as well as severe behavioural/emotional problems, in The Netherlands have been entitled to receive a pupil‐bound budget when attending a mainstream school. The first experiences with this budget in regular Dutch primary schools are described in this paper. The focus is on the social position and development of 20 special educational needs (SEN) pupils who were placed in mainstream primary schools. The class teacher, parent(s) and peripatetic teacher of each of the pupils were interviewed; interviews focused on the cognitive, social and social‐emotional development of the SEN pupils. In addition, the class teacher, parent(s), peripatetic teacher and classmates assessed the social position of the SEN pupil via interviews and a sociometric questionnaire. The results showed that teachers and parents and, to a lesser extent, peripatetic teachers, had a more positive view of the social position of the SEN pupils than did classmates. The results of the sociometric questionnaire indicated that the social position of the SEN pupils and that of their non‐SEN classmates did not differ significantly, however. In addition, a panel of five independent assessors assessed the cognitive, social and social‐emotional development of the 20 SEN pupils by examining anonymous pupil dossiers, which comprised information derived from interviews with class teachers, parents and peripatetic teachers, together with results of the sociometric questionnaire and a copy of the individual education programme (IEP) of the SEN pupils. The assessments showed that the panel had concerns about the development of 35% of these pupils; it was (very) positive about a further 35% of the SEN pupils. An expected relation between the social position of the SEN pupils and satisfaction of the panel concerning the development of the SEN pupils, however, was not found.     

Developmental Relations Between Reading Comprehension and Reading Strategies

We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural equation model was constructed to estimate the unique relations between reading strategies and reading comprehension, while controlling for reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory. The results showed that there was a unique effect of reading strategies on reading comprehension, and also of reading comprehension on reading strategies.     

Assessing social participation of pupils with special needs in inclusive education: the construction of a teacher questionnaire

This study addresses the development of a teacher questionnaire to assess the social participation of pupils with special needs in regular primary schools and is divided into 2 parts. In the 1st part, the construction of the questionnaire is described. The questionnaire consists of 30 statements related to 4 key themes of social participation: “friendships/relationships”, “contacts/interactions”, “perception of the pupil”, and “acceptance by classmates”, yielding 4 subscales.

The 2nd part of the study addresses an empirical study in which the questionnaire's quality was examined. The outcomes of a confirmatory factor analysis largely supported the division of social participation into 4 key themes. The analysis revealed that 22 out of 30 statements correlated strongest with the subscale they were assigned to. The questionnaire as a whole turned out to be reliable, whereas the reliability of the subscales varied. The construct validity was found to be mainly acceptable.     

Metacognitive awareness as measured by second-order judgements among university and secondary school students

Metacognition and Learning - When compared to high performers, low performers generally have more difficulty to accurately estimate their own performance. This has been explained by low performers...     

Differences in the Nonverbal Requests of Great Apes and Human Infants

This study investigated how great apes and human infants use imperative pointing to request objects. In a series of three experiments (infants, N = 44; apes, N = 12), subjects were given the opportunity to either point to a desired object from a distance or else to approach closer and request it proximally. The apes always approached close to the object, signaling their request through instrumental actions. In contrast, the infants quite often stayed at a distance, directing the experimenters' attention to the desired object through index‐finger pointing, even when the object was in the open and they could obtain it by themselves. Findings distinguish 12‐month‐olds' imperative pointing from ontogenetic and phylogenetic earlier forms of ritualized reaching.     

Workplace Learning in Dual Higher Professional Education

Workplace learning is considered an effective strategy for the development of vocation, career and professional identity. Dual training programs, in which learning at a vocational school and learning at work in a company are combined, are seen as strong carriers for skill formation processes. In this study we explore workplace learning in dual training programs in Dutch higher professional education. To gain an understanding of these learning environments and processes, a qualitative multiple case study was conducted in seven sectors. The findings show substantial differences in learning environments between and within sectors. However, cooperation between school and practice is minimal in all of the cases. Although students develop personal and job-related competencies that are useful for daily work routines, they acquire hardly any profound theoretical knowledge at the workplace. School fails to direct workplace learning. Given the considerable share of workplace learning in dual training programs, and the demands to higher professional education graduates in terms of being able to solve complex problems and develop new knowledge during their career as reflective practitioners, it is important that these shortcomings are resolved. More promising alternatives for workplace learning environments and questions for further research to improve workplace learning in higher professional education are discussed.     

Differential lexical predictors of reading comprehension in fourth graders

The mental lexicon plays a central role in reading comprehension (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). It encompasses the number of lexical entries in spoken and written language (vocabulary breadth), the semantic quality of these entries (vocabulary depth), and the connection strength between lexical representations (semantic relatedness); as such, it serves as an output for the decoding process and as an input for comprehension processes. Although different aspects of the lexicon can be distinguished, research on the role of the mental lexicon in reading comprehension often does not take these individual aspects of the lexicon into account. The current study used a multicomponent approach to examine whether measures of spoken and written vocabulary breadth, vocabulary depth, and semantic relatedness were differentially predictive of individual differences in reading comprehension skills in fourth-grade students. The results indicated that, in addition to nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, and word decoding, the four measures of lexical quality substantially added (30 %) to the proportion of explained variance of reading comprehension (adding up to a total proportion of 65 %). Moreover, each individual measure of lexical quality added significantly to the prediction of reading comprehension after all other measures were taken into account, with written lexical breadth and lexical depth showing the greatest increase in explained variance. It can thus be concluded that multiple components of lexical quality play a role in children’s reading comprehension.     

The Dimensionality of Inference Making: Are Local and Global Inferences Distinguishable?

We investigated the dimensionality of inference making in samples of 4- to 9-year-olds (Ns = 416–783) to determine if local and global coherence inferences could be distinguished. In addition, we examined the validity of our experimenter-developed inference measure by comparing with three additional measures of listening comprehension. Multitrait, multimethod modeling determined that the best fitting model included both text and inference factors, but the factor loadings of these final models showed that local and global inference factors could not be measured reliably. The Inference Task as a whole was reliable and showed good validity at all grade levels.