Keys to Reading Among Middle School Children

A recent decline in reading has become a major issue, as Americans are not reading out of necessity or as a leisure activity. In addition, a connection has been found between children's leisure reading habits and their level of academic achievement, causing even more concern.     

The shifting politics of the private in education: debates and developments in researching private school outreach in India

This paper addresses the politics of researching private education with special reference to the Indian context. Due to a recent increase in privatised forms of education globally and recognition of the private sector by governments, international agencies and researchers as a policy and academic interest, this is shifting ground. The evolving nature of the politics of researching the private in the recent past is discussed with reference to research on private school outreach for out-of-school children in India. First the author critically examines the reception of this research when it was conducted in 2000–2003 in relation to the discourse and policy in Indian education at the time. The research is then revisited in the contemporary context in the light of considerable changes in Indian education policy, involving increased public–private partnership. In this new climate private school outreach is reconceptualised – previously considered an educational anomaly, it now has renewed relevance. Finally, findings from the research are drawn on to shed light on emerging concerns about the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act's (2009) requirement for private schools to reserve at least 25% of school places for economically disadvantaged children in their neighbourhoods.     

Schools as learning communities: Building capacity through network learning

This article reports on the results from a study which investigated the impact of guidance given in writing tasks on children's writing performance. Six hundred eleven year olds completed writing tasks with varying content and structural support and their writing was analysed for purpose and organisation, style, spelling, clause structure, word class, paragraphing and punctuation. The aim was to find out if support facilitated better writing and if the type of support had differing effects. The findings suggested that the support did not significantly affect performance in narrative and persuasive writing. Possible implications and initial indications from a follow-up qualitative study of children's thinking are discussed.     

Integration of Sequential Information for Shape Perception by Infants: A Developmental Study

Perception of form by spatiotemporal integration was investigated in 3 experiments. In the first, infants aged 8, 10, and 12 months were tested using a novelty-preference procedure to determine the earliest age at which recognition of rectilinear and curvilinear form occurred. Infants were shown a light-point tracing of the outline of a figure, followed by simultaneous presentation of 2 test objects, one of the same shape as the tracing and one of a different shape. The tracing was double the size of the test objects. Only infants in the oldest group responded selectively by looking longer at the object of different shape. In the second experiment with 12-month-old infants only, it was shown that recognition of rectilinear, but not curvilinear, form occurred despite a difference in the orientation and size of tracing and object. Computer-generated tracings were used in the final experiment to compare form recognition for 2D and 3D stimuli. Selective responding occurred only for the latter. These findings show that by 12 months infants perceive the correspondence between the figural properties of a tracing and its extended form, but that this perception is dependent on the provision of depth cues.     

Autonomy and children's reactions to being controlled: evidence that both compliance and defiance may be positive markers in early development

This study examined reactions of 1-year-olds and young 2-year-olds to being controlled by mothers. Mothers' supportive behavior predicted children's willing compliance. However, contrary to research with older children, defiance was also associated with variables linked to maternal competence, specifically, mothers' supportive behavior, autonomy-granting controls, and low depressive symptoms. At this age high-defiant children initiated positive interaction with mothers more than did low-defiant children. With age, children displayed more willing compliance and more active resistance (defiance, low passivity). However, developmental increases in active resistance were absent when mothers were high in depressive symptoms. Findings are consistent with the proposal that in early development active resistance to parents often reflects children's motivation to control events, not poor parenting or strained parent-child relationships.     

The effect of crank inertial load on the physiological and biomechanical responses of trained cyclists

The existing literature suggests that crank inertial load has little effect on the responses of untrained cyclists. However, it would be useful to be aware of any possible effect in the trained population, particularly considering the many laboratory-based studies that are conducted using relatively low-inertia ergometers. Ten competitive cyclists (mean VO(2max) = 62.7 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1), s = 6.1) attended the human performance laboratories at the University of Wolverhampton. Each cyclist completed two 7-min trials, at two separate inertial loads, in a counterbalanced order. The inertial loads used were 94.2 kg x m(2) (high-inertia trial) and 2.4 kg x m(2) (low-inertia trial). Several physiological and biomechanical measures were undertaken. There were no differences between inertial loads for mean peak torque, mean minimum torque, oxygen uptake, blood lactate concentration or perceived exertion. Several measures showed intra-individual variability with blood lactate concentration and mean minimum torque, demonstrating coefficients of variation > 10%. However, the results presented here are mostly consistent with previous work in suggesting that crank inertial load has little direct effect on either physiology or propulsion biomechanics during steady-state cycling, at least when cadence is controlled.