Writing fluency and quality in kindergarten and first grade: the role of attention,reading, transcription,and oral language

In the present study, we examined the influence of kindergarten component skills on writing outcomes, both concurrently and longitudinally to first grade. Using data from 265 students, we investigated a model of writing development including attention regulation along with students’ reading, spelling, handwriting fluency, and oral language component skills. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that a model including attention was better fitting than a model with only language and literacy factors. Attention, a higher-order literacy factor related to reading and spelling proficiency, and automaticity in letter-writing were uniquely and positively related to compositional fluency in kindergarten. Attention and higher-order literacy factor were predictive of both composition quality and fluency in first grade, while oral language showed unique relations with first grade writing quality. Implications for writing development and instruction are discussed.     

‘Approaching the sacred’: directionality in the relation between curriculum and knowledge structure

Increasing pressure on all levels of educational provision, whether academic or overtly vocational, to be to ‘relevant’ and ‘useful’ prompts consideration of the relation between curriculum and pedagogy in terms of the internal structure of knowledge forms. Following Durkheim’s distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ orders of meaning and drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, this paper questions pedagogic presuppositions that directionality from sensory experience to abstraction posits the everyday life of the student as the foundation for the acquisition of complex, systematic knowledge. Two empirical examples are discussed: one focuses on the internal structure of craft knowledge, while the other focuses on the internal structure of mathematics as school subject. They converge in the finding that transmission of knowledge structure, whether in material or symbolic form, requires the transformation of empirical objects into theoretical objects before a connecting point can be found between the world of everyday experience and specialised knowledge forms. This is what constitutes a ‘relevant’ curriculum.     

Not Just "Ghosts in the Nursery":1 Contemporaneous Intergenerational Relationships and Parenting in Young African-American Families

The association of the mother-grandmother relationship with parenting of preschoolers was examined in a sample of 96 African-American multigenerational families. Mother-grandmother and parent-child interactions were assessed at home with videotaped problem-solving tasks. The Scale of Intergenerational Relationship Quality (SIRQ), a global observational coding system, was developed to assess the quality of the mother-grandmother relationship via observational ratings of mothers' and grandmothers' discussion of conflict. It yielded 4 factors: Emotional Closeness (connectedness), Positive Affect (upbeat tone), Grandmother Directness (demandingness and clarity), and Individuation (balance of autonomy and mutuality). Regression analyses controlling for socioeco-nomic background variables showed that SIRQ factors, particularly Individuation, were consistently related to mothers' parenting. Relationship effects varied when interacted with age and coresidence. The importance of a multigenerational, contextual perspective for research and intervention with young African-American mothers is discussed.     

Educational drama in the teaching of education for sustainability

In this paper, I describe part of my research project that examines the use of Educational Drama in Education for Sustainability in the upper stages of the primary school (10‐ and 11‐year‐olds). Central to the research is a small‐scale qualitative research study. Here, I describe the educational focus of the study and outline the methodology. Central to the study was a series of drama lessons (taught by me) based on environmental themes. The lessons link with some of the key aims in Education for Sustainability—to help young people to develop awareness, knowledge and concepts, to encourage positive attitudes and personal lifestyle decisions and to help them to acquire action skills in and for the environment. The locus is within the Scottish education system. A number of key data were generated during the teaching and evaluation of the lessons. These take the form of field notes, children's evaluations of their work and learning, observation schedules, taped interviews with participants and observers and videotapes of the lessons. The analysis of the data is ongoing, but already there is substantial evidence to suggest that the drama was instrumental in helping the children to achieve the learning outcomes set for the lessons. Some of that evidence is presented here. I suggest that the active, participative learning central to drama is particularly useful for allowing children to develop skills in communication, collaboration and expressing ideas and opinions. Also, the immersion in the imagined context and narrative, integral to the ‘stories’ in the drama, allows the children to feel sympathy for and empathy with people who are affected by environmental issues and problems. In giving the children a context for research and in helping them to plan solutions and to suggest alternatives, the drama allows the participants opportunities to rehearse active citizenship and facilitates learning in Education for Sustainability.     

The joint influence of mother and father parenting on child cognitive outcomes at age 5

Few studies of parenting have considered the possibility that the association between one parent's supportive parenting and a child's early cognition is moderated by the other parent's supportiveness. We test this proposition using a low-income sample of coresident couples. In addition, we cross-classify parents within couples according to their parenting behaviors to test for homogamy. Mothers and fathers were videotaped during separate free-play dyadic interactions with their 2-year-old child, and each parent's behavior was coded according to six scales. K-means cluster analysis was used to describe each parent's pattern of parenting behaviors. Parents were then cross-classified within couples by pattern. There was mixed evidence of homogamous parenting styles within couples. After parents were consolidated into four primary pairings, children in each of these pairings were compared on age 5 math and language scores. Children with two supportive parents scored highest, while those with two unsupportive parents scored lowest. Among children with one supportive parent, the sex of that parent was inconsequential. There were no significant interactions between maternal and paternal supportiveness on either math or language. Thus, it appears that in this low-income sample the combined effects of maternal and paternal supportiveness are additive.