“We were slow; it was challenging” and “It was hard not to make knots”: Crocheting as a Literacy Event in a Second Grade Classroom Community

This paper describes a “crazy about crocheting class” and shows how crocheting became a literacy event that promoted student empowerment and classroom community while engaging second grade students in authentic literacy practices. We document how crocheting evolved from a classroom management activity that also encouraged fine motor skills to a stimulus that drove individual and shared reading and writing. We show how this teacher planned instruction by building on student interest and enthusiasm and how these students experienced literacy as an every day social practice.     

Interventions for reading difficulties: a comparison of response to intervention by ELL and EFL struggling readers

This article explores whether struggling readers from different primary language backgrounds differ in response to phonologically based remediation. Following random assignment to one of three reading interventions or to a special education reading control program, reading and reading-related outcomes of 166 struggling readers were assessed before, during, and following 105 intervention hours. Struggling readers met criteria for reading disability, were below average in oral language and verbal skills, and varied in English as a first language (EFL) versus English-language learner (ELL) status. The research-based interventions proved superior to the special education control on both reading outcomes and rate of growth. No differences were revealed for children of EFL or ELL status in intervention outcomes or growth during intervention. Oral language abilities at entry were highly predictive of final outcomes and of reading growth during intervention, with greater language impairment being associated with greater growth.     

Lifelong learning and the reform of the teaching practicum in Australia

This paper reports the findings of a project—‘Lifelong learning and teacher education’—undertaken by the Centre for Lifelong Learning, Australian Catholic University, under the auspices of the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training. The study was designed to investigate the operationalization of lifelong learning in Australian teacher education. The study revealed that there is a range of existing, innovative practices regarding partnerships between schools and higher and further education that are in keeping with emerging ideas about lifelong learning. Moreover, some of these take the form of collaborative action research projects focused on improving the learning occurring in the partnership schools. This paper describes some current approaches in Australia to collaborative action research by teacher educators' and their partnership schools and shows how they contribute to lifelong learning. The approaches are then analyzed to suggest ways of advancing lifelong learning within Australian Education Faculties thus helping to make lifelong learning more of a reality for all.     

UK data from 197 undergraduates for the Nelson Denny Reading Test

The Nelson Denny Reading Test (Brown, Fishco & Hanna, 1993) provides measures of comprehension, reading rate and vocabulary. It is widely used in research studies with high school and undergraduate students and for assessment purposes in the USA. No widely used test of this kind exists for adults in the UK. The present paper reports data from 197 undergraduates from the University of Essex on the Nelson Denny test. Analyses were carried out of the data in terms of degree type and year of study. The scores obtained with the present sample were higher than those reported in the manual of the Nelson Denny test for a subset of the standardisation sample. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed. Overall, the results suggest that the Nelson Denny test is suitable for use with UK undergraduate students.     

An experimental comparison of urban children with suburban children on eight tasks of basic skills

About 1500 children from an inner city school district and a suburban school district were asked to perform eight tasks of basic skills. There were differences in the performances of the children. The differences depended upon the socio-economic background of the children. On many of the skills, third grade urban children were similar to first grade suburban children. It is for this reason that the inner city children in this study were considered disadvantaged and a program of skill development has begun. Inner city children must have experiences that will help them acquire the skills that suburban children have acquired before entering school.