The relationship between rapid naming and word spelling in English

A study of the concurrent relationships between naming speed, phonological awareness and spelling ability in 146 children in Years 3 and 4 of state‐funded schools in South‐East England (equivalent to US Grades 2 and 3) is reported. Seventy‐two children identified as having normal phonological awareness but reduced rapid automatised naming (RAN) performance (1 standard deviation below the mean) participated in the study. A group of 74 children was further identified. These children were matched on phonological awareness, verbal and nonverbal IQ and visual acuity, but all members of this group showed normal RAN performance. RAN made a significant unique contribution to spelling performance. Further analyses showed that participants with low naming performance were significantly poorer spellers overall and had a specific difficulty in spelling irregular words. The findings support the view that RAN may be indexing processes that are implicated in the establishment of fully specified orthographic representations.     

Aligning corporate and financial plans in teaching intensive universities

With recent changes in how UK higher education is funded, universities are operating in a context in which finances are uncertain. It is more important than ever that university leaders are able to manage the finances of their organisations in ways which both provide long-term security and allow for investment in strategically important initiatives. Teaching intensive universities must be able to generate income and oversee the allocation of resources in such a way that responds to student pressure to provide high-quality education and improve services. This article explores the benefits, disadvantages and challenges of aligning corporate and financial strategies in order to support delivery of their strategic aims and operational targets. Recommendations are made for well-managed, well-researched risk taking and developing autonomy within academic and professional services units, such that local resource allocation decisions are also in line with the organisation's strategic aims.     

Spelling errors and phonemic segmentation ability: the nature of the relationship

Poor spellers/readers and younger normal children of similar spelling and reading ability carried out phonemic segmentation and spelling tasks. The poor spellers were impaired relative to controls in their ability to detect the odd word out where the middle or final phoneme of the word differed from that of the other items in the list. For example, in the series ‘dot',‘cot',‘pot', 'bat', the word ‘bat’ differs from the other items in terms of its middle vowel. Spelling errors were classified as being ‘pre-phonetic',‘phonetic', or ‘transitional’ in character, according to Morris and Perney's (1984) developmental scheme.‘Transitional’ errors indicate a knowledge of English orthography, and are relatively easy for the reader to decode phonetically, for example, green ?>‘grene', whereas ‘phonetic’ errors indicate a level of phonetic awareness which is not matched by an ability to represent the word according to the conventions of English spelling, for example green ?>‘gren'. Poor spellers were found to make significantly fewer ‘transitional’ errors than controls, there being a non-significant tendency for them to make more ‘pre-phonetic’ and ‘phonetic’ errors. It was found that performance on the odd word out task correlated significantly with the occurrence of ‘transitional’ errors, there being no such relationship with ‘phonetic’ errors.     

Hard-pressed to achieve the EFA goals by 2015 in the Philippines

The Philippines has experienced a setback in its progress towards EFA 2015 Goals. In particular, a decline in primary and secondary education performance indicators and a widening gap between boys’ and girls’ performance were noted. While the present policy environment in the country has been conducive to education reforms, a lack of political will, discontinuity in education leadership and an inability to capitalize on proven educational innovations and major programmes/projects are likely to further undermine EFA progress. The country must immediately introduce efficient and effective measures to arrest this trend. The government must also return to social marketing among all stakeholders, emphasizing the long-term benefits of basic education.

How psychology helps us to understand word reading

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an overview of evidence from psychological research, which enables us to understand the processes involved in word reading, how children develop word reading skills and how to teach them to read words successfully. Psychological models of reading in alphabetic orthographies propose two routes to word reading: an indirect route requiring mapping of letters and sounds using phonological processes and a direct route, mapping visual identities of words onto meaning using visual processes and memory. The dual route paves the way to an understanding of what children need to achieve to be able to read words. Evidence about how people read words successfully has led to the development of effective teaching programmes and of tests to identify deficits when word reading does not develop optimally.     

Family literacy activities in the homes of successful young readers

This paper presents an account of the literacy activities engaged in by the parents of 29 children around the time that the children were about to start school at Key Stage 1. Fifteen of the children were reading fluently before they began school and the remaining fourteen were matched for age, sex, receptive vocabulary scores, pre‐school group attended and socio‐economic family status, but not reading fluently. In order to ascertain that the fluent readers were not simply coming from homes where literacy activities were more in evidence, parents were asked to report on their own literacy activities. The data obtained indicated that there were no systematic differences in the activities of the two sets of parents. They also showed that there was a considerable amount of literacy activity evident in the homes. It is argued that, whilst the home environment is highly instrumental in nurturing literacy development, it is not enough to account for precocious reading ability.     

A Children’s Author Recognition Test: A Useful Tool in Reading Research

The relationship between exposure to print and reading ability is beginning to be well documented through the work of Stanovich and his colleagues (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1990; Stanovich and Cunningham, 1992; Cipielewski and Stanovich, 1992). In order to investigate exposure to print they have developed a number of measures which are reliable and effective including Author Recognition Tests. This paper discusses the development of a UK version of a Children’s Author Recognition Test and argues the need for developing culturally specific equivalents. A further study shows that a Children’s Author Recognition Test can be used as a tool for double checking self-reports by parents of the amount of reading they do with their children.     

Reviewing affective,behavioural and cognitive learning gains in higher education

The notion of learning gains has increasingly become apparent within the higher education literature and is gaining traction in government policies in the US and UK, reflecting a desire to “quantify” the impact of university study and teaching excellence in particular. Given the increased policy focus on learning gains, it is essential that researchers and policy makers are informed about common used approaches to measure learning gains, and their expected range and magnitude. Therefore, a systematic literature search was undertaken. 52 studies (n?=?41,009) were coded into affective, behavioural and/or cognitive learning gains. The review found a rich but diverse variety of adopted methodologies and approaches to “measure” affective, behavioural and cognitive (ABC) learning gains. Nonetheless, there is a lack of consistency in the ways in which learning gains are currently measured and reported. These inconsistencies and limitations hamper effective comparisons of learning gains and teaching excellence. We recommend a greater emphasis on longitudinal measurement of learning gains using validated approaches.     

The National Literacy Strategy and individual differences

This is a discussion paper reflecting on the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) after one year of operation. It is argued that, despite claims that it has already had an effect on KS2 SAT (Standardised Assessment Test) performance, it is too soon to make such a judgement. Questions are raised about whether it is wise to use a non‐professional group of assistants to provide the Additional Literacy Support for at risk children in Key Stage 2 or the Key Stage 1 Intervention Programme. It is argued that those children who show atypical development need the most qualified and highly skilled teachers. Finally, it is argued that once the NLS becomes established it will be necessary for all teachers to engage with the research literature so that they teach from a position of professional understanding of the processes involved in reading and writing development.