Speaking to read: The effects of speech recognition technology on the reading and spelling performance of children with learning disabilities

In recent literature on persons with learning disabilities (LD), speech recognition has been discussed primarily as an assistive technology to help compensate for writing difficulties. However, prior research by the authors has suggested that in addition to helping persons to compensate for poor writing skills, speech recognition also may enhance reading and spelling; that is, what was designed as assistive technology appears to serve remedial functions as well. The present study was conducted to determine whether elementary and secondary students with LD who used the technology to write self-selected compositions and class assignments would demonstrate improvements in reading and spelling. Thirty-nine students with LD (ages 9 to 18) participated. Nineteen participants used speech recognition 50 minutes a week for sixteen weeks, and twenty students in a control group received general computer instruction. Results indicated that the speech recognition group showed significantly more improvement than the control group in word recognition (p<.0001), spelling (p<.002) and reading comprehension (p<.01). Pre- and posttests on five reading-related cognitive processing measures (phonological, orthographic, semantic processing, metacognitive reading strategies, and working memory) indicated that for the experimental group, only phonological processing improved significantly over the treatment period when compared to controls (p<.04). Further ANCOVA suggested that growth in phonological processing was associated with significant differences among conditions for all three academic measures: word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension. Address correspondence to 971 N. Altadena Drive, Pasadena, CA 91107. E-mail center@frostig.org.     

‘Trying to decide … what sort of teacher I wanted to be’: mentoring as a dialogic practice

Mentoring of pre-service teachers in school contexts is acknowledged as an important part of initial teacher education. However, finding sufficient school-based professional experience placements for pre-service teachers, ensuring the quality of the learning experiences provided by such placements, and gaining a clear understanding of what teachers actually learn during placements continue to be of concern to all involved in this component of teacher education. In this paper, three interconnected perspectives are provided as a university-based teacher educator, a school-based teacher educator and a pre-service teacher learn together in a dialogic mentoring relationship. The work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Voloshinov is employed to theorise the nature of dialogic relationships and how such relationships differ from ‘having a conversation’.     

Caste and UK education: a historical overview

ABSTRACT

Caste, and awareness of it, have been a persistent, though changing, feature of South Asian communities’ experience in the UK. In twenty-first century Britain the issue of caste has come to the fore and has been hotly contested, in relation to equality legislation. In this wider context, the present article maps some of caste’s historical intersections with education in the UK. The focus is, variously, on: caste as it has intersected with post-18 education; caste as a factor in families’ attitudes to education; school children’s awareness of caste as an aspect of their own identity and as a way of differentiating their peers; the incidence of caste-based bullying in schools; and the inclusion of caste as a topic in religious education and a matter for ongoing consideration by religious educationists.     

School experiences of Children in Need: Learning and support

Children in Need (CIN) have received little attention in education circles. These are children who are usually living at home but where there are concerns over their health or development due to abuse or neglect, or they are disabled. Like Children in Care (CIC, who mostly live away), educational attainments for CIN are lower than for the general pupil population, with higher levels of special educational needs. This article draws on additional analysis from a recently completed, mixed methods study into this educational attainment gap for CIN and CIC. The overall research involved quantitative analysis from official statistics of a whole-birth cohort of children (n = 471,688) born in 2000/2001 and tracked through to their General Certificate of Secondary Education exams in 2017. This was complemented by semi-structured interviews with 18 CIN and 23 CIC, parents and associated professionals. This article focuses on interviews with CIN, their parents and professionals. Two main themes emerged from this further analysis of the qualitative data. One concerned children’s problems with learning. Children said that they often struggled with their schoolwork and received insufficient classroom support to help. The second theme was that pupils and parents reported more positive experiences of learning and support in Pupil Referral Units compared with secondary schools. The overall conclusion is that attention should rightly address the social, emotional and mental health difficulties of CIN, but this should be coupled with adequate support for classroom learning.