Caring for our infants: parents’ antenatal childcare intentions and nine-month reality

Infants are increasingly cared for by adults other than their parents. Here we describe non-parental infant care within a diverse cohort; and investigate the relationship between parents’ antenatal intentions and actual infant care. 6822 New Zealand women were recruited during pregnancy and asked about their intentions for childcare. Non-parental care was assessed when infants were nine months old: 1717 (25%) of the 6853 cohort children were receiving more than 8 h per week of regular non-parental care. In comparison with infants of European mothers, infants of Asian or Pacific mothers were more likely to be cared for by extended family; and infants of Māori mothers were more likely to receive centre-based care. Infants from families with lower household incomes, living in more deprived areas were more likely to be cared for by family. When their infants were nine months old, mothers from low- to medium-income households were less likely to be using the type of non-parental care they had intended antenatally, and the same was true when their children were aged 2 years.     

Links between early oral narrative and decoding skills and later reading in a New Zealand sample*

Abstract

We examined earlier oral narrative and decoding and later reading in two samples spanning the first four years of reading instruction. The Year 1 sample (n = 44) was initially assessed after one year of instruction (M = 6; 1 years) and followed through their third year (M = 8; 1 years); the Year 2 sample (n = 34) assessed after two years of instruction (M = 7; 0 years) and followed to their fourth year (M = 9; 0 years). Oral narrative and decoding were assessed initially, oral reading, retell, and maze fluency, plus reading age, obtained at outcome. For the Year 2 sample, oral narrative and decoding contributed to oral reading and comprehension two years later. For the Year 1 sample, decoding contributed to most reading outcomes, with narrative quality uniquely predicting Year 3 retell fluency. Post-hoc exploratory analyses suggest story memory indirectly contributed to Year 3 reading via Year 2 retell.     

Motion Pictures and Photograph

Reese V. Jenkins' Images & Enterprise: Technology and the American Photographic Industry, 1839 to 1925 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975—$20.00)

R. C. Smith's Antique Cameras (North Pomfret, Vt.: David & Charles, 1976—$12.95)

Gerald Mast's A Short History Movies (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1976—$7.50, paper)

Lix-Anne Bawden's The Oxford Companion to Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976—$24.95)

John Brosnan's Marie Manic: The Story of Special Effects in the Cinema (New York: New American Library Plume Books, 1976—$3.95, paper)

Ronald Gottesman and Harry Geduld (eds.) The Girl in the Hairi Paw:King Kong as Mtyh, Magic, and Monster (New York: Avon Books, 1976—$5.95)

Guy Phelps' Film Censorship (London: Victor Gollancz, 1975—about $10.00)

James Robert Parish, et al. Film Directors Guide: Western Europe (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1976—$11.00)

James Robert Parish and Don E. Stanke's The Swashbucklers (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1976—$19.95)

Andrew Sarris' The John Ford Movie Mystery (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976—$8.95)

Laurence Goldstein and Jay Kaufman's Into Film (New York: Dutton, 1976—$19.95/12.95)

Daniel Arijon's Grammar of the Film Language (New York: Hastings House, 1976—$27.50)     

Mexican parents’ and teachers’ literacy perspectives and practices: construction of cultural capital

This article examines the relationships among the literacy practices engaged in by first-grade children and parents at home and the ways in which these practices are communicated, shaped, and fostered by teachers and administrators in two different sociocultural environments in urban Mexico. The differences observed between the home literacy experiences of children in a working-class and a middle-class community included transgenerational communication of assumptions regarding literacy and schooling, as well as attitudes associated with the parents’ own school experiences. Class-based expectations on the part of teachers not only shaped interactions with parents, but were also reflected in the way the national curriculum was delivered, with a greater emphasis on rote skills and traditional reading instruction in the working-class community. The authors argue that the school plays a role in the co-production of cultural capital in the home through its shaping of some of the literacy practices that children and families undertake.     

A Good Story: Children With Imaginary Companions Create Richer Narratives

In line with theories that children's pretend play reflects and extends their narrative skills, children with imaginary companions were predicted to have better narrative skills than children without imaginary companions. Forty-eight 5½-year-old children and their mothers participated in interviews about children's imaginary companions. Children also completed language and narrative assessments. Twenty-three of the children (48%) were deemed to have engaged in imaginary companion play. Children with and without imaginary companions were similar in their vocabulary skills, but children with imaginary companions told richer narratives about a storybook and a personal experience compared to children without imaginary companions. This finding supports theories of a connection between pretend play and storytelling by the end of early childhood.     

A comparison of special education teacher and psychologist scoring of the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test

Ten learning disabilities resource room teachers were provided with inservice training in the administration of the Bender visual Motor Gestalt Test (BVMGT) and the Koppitz (1964) scoring system. Following this training the teachers administered the BVMGT to students in grades 1–6 and scored each protocol using the Koppitz scoring system. Two certified school psychologists then independently scored a random selection of teacher-administered and scored BVMGT protocols. Results of these ratings were used to analyze the interrater consistencies for the groups of raters. The reported correlations between teachers and school psychologists compared favorably to correlations between school psychologists as well as to interrater reliabilities reported in the literature. The results of this investigation indicate that the Koppitz scoring system may be reliably used by special education teachers who are provided appropriate inservice training.     

The Role of Executive Functions in Reading Comprehension

Our goal in this paper is to understand the extent to which, and under what conditions, executive functions (EFs) play a role in reading comprehension processes. We begin with a brief review of core components of EF (inhibition, shifting, and updating) and reading comprehension. We then discuss the status of EFs in process models of reading comprehension. Next, we review and synthesize empirical evidence in the extant literature for the involvement of core components of EF in reading comprehension processes under different reading conditions and across different populations. In conclusion, we propose that EFs may help explain complex interactions between the reader, the text, and the discourse situation, and call for both existing and future models of reading comprehension to include EFs as explicit components.