Developing and Applying Level Descriptors

Abstract

This paper is a summary of work undertaken with Year 2 children, over a period of six weeks in a Kent County Infant School. The study focuses on the notion of spiritual development in young children and gives consideration to how science may assist the teacher in enhancing this area of a child's development. Some attention is given to Government documentation related to these areas. Young children's explanations of their world are a mixture of religion, God/gods, science, fantasy and magic. We suggest that science allows, in both a physical and spiritual sense, all of these areas to be explored. We have identified this as the ‘WOW’ factor ('Wonder Of the World') through which children may develop conceptual skills that will not only enhance their learning, but also their awareness of self, relationship with others, and their place in the world.     

The role of culture in program improvement

In this article, we draw on work in three Head Start programs over three years to consider how “culture” plays a role in program improvement. Through close attention to discourse we attempt to show how culture takes shape through dynamic interactions in particular contexts, constituting identities, structuring social relations, and privileging particular forms of knowledge. We argue for the importance of illuminating the forces that shape our lives and bringing our own ideologies to conscious awareness, in order to become actors in our social milieus. Articulation between general mandates and local needs and goals would then entail ongoing dialogue in a “culturally situated model of school/program effectiveness” (Fuller & Clarke, 1994, p. 121).     

Web of Dreams

Answering the question “How much theory does it take to read this month's bestseller?” Jackie Cook here demonstrates that a book like Web of Dreams by Virginia Andrews - one of secondary school students' favourite authors, according to a recently published APU survey¹— defies most teacherly prejudices about “formula” writing.     

Civic Science for Public Use: Mind in the Making and Vroom

Mind in the Making and Vroom are partner initiatives that exemplify a unique “civic science” approach to “bringing developmental science into the world.” Mind in the Making offers families and professionals working with children 0–8 access to developmental research, by engaging them in an active process of professional development and community outreach. Vroom is an outreach and communication initiative that brings “brain building basics” to communities, inviting parents to participate in the science of early learning through partnerships with trusted entities. These initiatives use collaborative, iterative processes in disseminating findings and implications of child development research. Preliminary evidence shows early promise of these initiatives to help promote engaged learning and life skills based on executive function in adults and children.     

The parental bonding experiences of sex offenders: a comparison between child molesters and rapists

OBJECTIVE: It has often been hypothesized that because of a lack of early satisfactory attachments, sex offenders grow up unable to form relationships with adults, which makes them susceptible to pursue intimacy in maladaptive ways. This research aims to empirically examine the parental bonding patterns for a group of sex offenders, comparing child molesters and rapists. METHOD: Seventy-six men convicted of a sexual offense (57 child molesters and 19 rapists) completed the parental bonding instrument (PBI), and were assessed by means of a semi-structured clinical interview. RESULTS: Affectionless control style of parental bonding was highly prevalent amongst the sex offenders. There was some suggestion that low parental care was associated with childhood abuse and disturbances, particularly for child molesters. High overprotection in mothers was linked with parental separation and sex play with male peers in childhood. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to replicate the study with non-sexual offenders as a comparison group, and to establish whether the PBI provides a useful adjunct to studies of adult romantic attachment in sex offenders.     

Improving Elementary Grade Students’ Science and Social Studies Vocabulary Knowledge Depth,Reading Comprehension,and Argumentative Writing: a Conceptual Replication

Educational Psychology Review - This experimental study aimed to replicate and extend a previous efficacy study of an elementary grade content literacy intervention that demonstrated positive...     

Increasing physical literacy in youth: A two-week Sport for Development program for children aged 6-10

PROSPECTS - Regular physical activity significantly improves health outcomes, yet rates of childhood physical activity remain alarmingly low. Physical literacy has been identified as the...     

Contemporary Models of Communicative Practice: Shaky Foundations in the Foundation Stage?

This article outlines a four‐year‐old child's multi‐modal encounters with texts and analyses one of those encounters in the light of a framework for the analysis of such events. It is argued that this analysis leads to the conclusion that the experiences with texts that permeate young children's lives are complex in nature and that this complexity is not sufficiently addressed in relevant curriculum frameworks. Further, it is suggested that young children's encounters with televisual texts need to be identified as emergent techno‐literacy practices which should be supported and extended in ways which correlate to the strategies used with regard to print‐based texts.     

Purposes for literacy in children's use of the online virtual world Club Penguin

This paper reports on a study of the purposes for literacy discernible in young children's use of the virtual world, Club Penguin. Twenty‐six children aged between 5 and 11 took part in semi‐structured interviews in which their use of virtual worlds was explored. Further, three 11‐year‐old children were filmed using Club Penguin four times each over the period of 1 month in their own homes and they and their parents took part in interviews regarding their use of this virtual world. Findings indicate that the purposes for literacy in virtual worlds such as these are varied and have much in common with purposes for literacy in the off ine world. The virtual world Club Penguin provided a motivating and enjoyable context for reading and writing and enabled the construction and maintenance of online social networks. The implications for research, policy and practice are discussed.