Reading to Children and Listening to Children Read: Mother–Child Interactions as a Function of Principal Reader

Research Findings: Although storybook reading has received considerable research attention, listening to children read has been the source of much less inquiry. In this study, 40 mother–child dyads were videotaped during adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading. Relations between book-related themes (e.g., types of talk), maternal evaluative feedback (e.g., praise, criticism), maternal miscue feedback (e.g., graphophonemic clues, terminal feedback), and child engagement (e.g., laughter, questions) were analyzed. The results suggest that the development of literacy appreciation and literacy skill can occur during the same storybook-reading session. Specifically, when mothers read to their children, communication about the illustrations was associated with increased child engagement, yet a positive correlation was also observed between text-related productions and child engagement. When children read to their mothers, text-related productions were featured more prominently. After children made reading errors (miscues), graphophonemic and terminal feedback were the 2 most frequent responses by mothers. In addition, graphophonemic cues were positively associated with child engagement. Practice or Policy: In sum, the results demonstrate that adult-to-child and child-to-adult reading serve the goals of both literacy acquisition training and literacy appreciation; furthermore, orienting children toward the text during either session did not hamper child engagement.     

Teachers conceptualizing childhood: conversations around fictional childhood texts

This article offers a unique perspective on teacher thinking by connecting the study of early childhood teachers’ beliefs with the field of childhood studies, and with film and literature studies. The purpose of the research is to examine (a) how films can be used to evoke responses in teachers about their implicit beliefs in childhood and (b) the processes through which the teachers generate conceptualizations of childhood. Focus group discussions following viewings of short film clips were conducted with five experienced teachers. Thematic analysis suggests that the selection of film narratives influences the patterns of beliefs expressed by the teachers. Conversation analysis reveals that the teachers tended to use both their own memories of childhood and their identification with children to cross boundary spaces in time (past, present, and future), and between adulthood and childhood. The teachers tended to shape their beliefs in dichotomous renderings as oppositions to others, but also to display a playful willingness to surrender themselves to interior spaces of boundary crossings, and to share and dialog their discoveries with others. In terms of implications of the study for teacher education, the use of books and films seemed to provide teachers with tools to discuss and situate their understandings of childhood in ways that involved processes of memory, identification, lived experience, and teacher practice.     

Meeting in the Middle: The Role of Mutual Biracial Friends in Cross-Race Friendships

Social network analysis was used to examine the role of having a mutual biracial friend on cross-race friendship nominations among monoracial sixth-grade students (M_age = 10.56 years) in two racially diverse middle schools (n = 385; n = 351). Monoracial youth were most likely to choose same-race peers as friends but more likely to choose biracial than different-race peers as friends, suggesting that racial homophily may operate in an incremental way to influence friendships. Monoracial different-race youth were also more likely to be friends if they had a mutual biracial friend. The findings shed light on the unique role that biracial youth play in diverse friendship networks. Implications for including biracial youth in studies of cross-race friendship are discussed.     

Creating a flexible fund structure to meet the needs and goals of the library and its users

This paper describes the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries' new and innovative approach to monograph collection development using a re-engineered internal funding structure and a process that reflects the needs and goals of the library and its users. The paper discusses the goals of the new fund structure, the experience of implementing it, and the results after one year in use.     

Reviews

Moyle, Donald (compiler) (1979) Teaching Reading. Peddie, W. S. & White, G. R. (1978). Testing in Practice–a guide to the preparation and marking of tests, formal examinations and informal assessments. Drummond, Don and Wignell, Edna (Editors), 1979. Reading: A Source Book. Roswell, Florence G. and Chall Jeanne S., (1979). Roswell Chall Diagnostic Reading Test of Word Analysis Skills.     

Counterpoint to Online Teaching with a Focus on Management

Teaching in an online environment is not without its barriers. Time for course preparation, a need to engage students, and the need for near-constant accessibility make teaching online more difficult than might be the case in a face-to-face environment. However, changes in society, the need for students to interweave scholarship with their lives, work, and families, and continuing competition among higher education institutions are some reasons to do so. This article presents the reasons I believe it is important to teach online and offers a few suggestions for course development as a counterpoint to Dr. Holley's (2017 Holley, R. P. (2017). Thoughts on online teaching with a focus on management. Journal of Library Administration, 57(3), 367–374. doi:10.1080/01930826.2017.1288966[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) column on teaching management.     

“Inhabitants of the Earth”: Reasoning About Folkbiological Concepts in Wichi Children and Adults

Across the world, people form folkbiological categories to capture their commonsense organization of the natural world. Structured in accordance with universal principles, folkbiological categories are also shaped by experience. Here we provide new evidence from the Wichi—an understudied indigenous community who live in the Chaco rainforest and speak their heritage language. A total of 44 Wichi (6- to 8-year-olds, 9- to 12-year-olds, adults) participated in an induction task designed to identify how broadly they attribute an invisible biological property (e.g., an internal organ) from 1 individual (either a human, nonhuman animal, or plant) to other humans, nonhuman animals, plants, natural kinds, and artifacts. Research Findings: These results (a) clarify the content of the Wichi’s categories and the words they use to describe them, (b) showcase the power of covert (unnamed) categories, and (c) fortify the view that human-centered reasoning is not a universal starting point for reasoning about nature. Practice or Policy: Implications of these findings for early science education are discussed. In particular, we discuss (a) how the Wichi’s construal of the natural world may be best integrated when they reach the (Western science–inspired) classroom and (b) how the current results bear on central issues in early science education more broadly.