Effects of 8 Weeks with Embodied Learning on 5–6-Year-Old Danish Children’s Pre-reading Skills and Word Reading Skills: the PLAYMORE Project,DK

Educational Psychology Review - The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of embodied learning on children’s pre-reading and word reading skills. We conducted a three-armed...     

Toward a “thoughtful lightness”: Education in viral times

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life temporarily and perhaps forever. As such, how educators respond to the contemporary situation is not without consequence. Inspired by...     

Cross‐cultural Collaboration in Special Teacher Education: An arena for facilitating reflection?

The present study explored how cross‐cultural collaboration involving university lecturers from Norway (the North) and Egypt (the South), and student‐teachers from Egypt, can be an arena for facilitating student‐teachers’ reflection and for challenging student‐teachers’ preconceived beliefs and perspectives about disability and education. The findings, based on interview data, showed that an emphasis on reflection, exploration and evaluation rather than on drills and repetition was both unexpected and unfamiliar for most of the Egyptian student‐teachers. Some of the Egyptian and some of the foreign lecturers were able to encourage student‐teachers to reflect, although some of the foreign lecturers had a tendency to lecture as they had done at home. Lecturers who wanted to pursue teaching methods that enhanced reflection needed to prioritise time for this, even if the majority of the student‐teachers asked for more information, more facts and for presentations of “the right methods” for teaching learners with disabilities. As the findings in this study illustrate, the partner in the North carries a major responsibility for critically considering the request for expertise because the participants in the South may not necessarily question and challenge the authority of well‐educated professionals from the North. It may not be sufficient for lecturers and supervisors to be well‐qualified practitioners within their home culture. They should be context sensitive, have an inquiring and accepting attitude, and experience challenges, encounters and exposures in the project country over time. Competence in approaches in teacher education is also required, although this meta‐competence may not be explicitly requested by those concerned.     

Rhythm production at school entry as a predictor of poor reading and spelling at the end of first grade

Rhythm plays an organisational role in the prosody and phonology of language, and children with literacy difficulties have been found to demonstrate poor rhythmic perception. This study explored whether students’ performance on a simple rhythm task at school entry could serve as a predictor of whether they would face difficulties in word reading and spelling at the end of grade 1. The participants were 479 Norwegian 6-year-old first graders randomized as controls in the longitudinal RCT on track (n = 1171). Rhythmic timing and pre-reading skills were tested individually at school entry on a digital tablet. On the rhythm task, the students were told to tap a drum appearing on the screen to two different rhythms (2 Hz paced and 1.5 Hz paced). Children’s responses were recorded as they tapped on the screen with their index finger. Significant group differences were found in rhythm tapping ability measured at school entry, when groups were defined upon whether children went on to score above or below the 20th percentile reading and spelling thresholds in national assessment tests at the end of grade one. Inclusion of the school-entry rhythmic tapping measure into a model of classification accuracy for above or below threshold reading and spelling improved accuracy of classification by 6.2 and 9.2% respectively.