Examining the Relations of the Home Literacy Environments of Families of Low SES with Children’s Early Literacy Skills

This study examined variability of the home literacy environment (HLE) using multiple measures among families of low SES. The relations of the measures to each other and to children’s early oral language skills and print knowledge were reported. Considerable variability of the self-reported HLE items and the Children’s Title Checklist (CTC) but low correlations were found among items. Children’s expressive language skills were predicted by the CTC. The number of storybooks in the home predicted variance within children’s receptive vocabulary. Concepts about Print (CAP) scores were predicted by the primary caregivers’ frequency of shared reading and the age when parents began reading to children. Children’s letter name scores were not associated with any of the HLE measures in this study. The research provides additional information about the HLE within the homes of low SES using multiple measures and how they relate differentially to children’s early language and literacy skills.     

Multiplicities in Motion: A Turn to Transliteracies

ABSTRACT

In an effort to draw attention to the mobile dimensions of meaning making, this article proposes a pedagogy of transliteracies, supporting educators and learners in critically reflecting on how people, media, and things are connected across space and time. Expanding on the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies vision of communicative and ideological multiplicities, we articulate the importance of moving from multi- to trans- to highlight the mobile and emergent aspects of meaning making. We work through a classroom example to consider the contours of literacies and learning practices for making meaning on the move. We argue that in a mobile and digitally networked world, a pedagogy of transliteracies draws much needed attention to people and things connecting, relating, and intersecting, and also to how these connections, relations, and intersections occur in unequal ways that support some learners and disenfranchise others.     

A decade of research with dyslexic college students: A summary of findings

The major findings of several research projects that investigated dyslexic college students are summarized in this paper. Consistent findings of these investigations led to the following conclusions. 1) Developmental dyslexia is a syndrome made up of the following four symptoms: slow rate of reading, error-prone oral reading, poor written spelling, and grammatically incorrect writing; 2) all these symptoms could be traced to a poor mastery of the grapheme-phoneme relational rules; 3) developmental dyslexia can be found in subjects who appear to have adequate oral language skills; 4) ex-dyslexics who appear to be “poor spellers but good readers” have subtle reading deficits; and 5) the 20 dyslexic subjects investigated appear to constitute a homogeneous group which raises questions regarding dyslexia subtypes.     

INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC RELATIONS: SOME REFLECTIONS ON UNIVERSITIES AS CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE WORLD COMMUNITY

The premise of this article is that international academic relations as a field of study need to be defined and given a theoretical underpinning. The authors therefore analyse various approaches to the study of international relations in general and propose ways by which the particularities of international academic relations might be linked to the larger subject. Of importance here is the development of a framework which will take into account the political‐economic role of the university both as a cultural institution and as a knowledge institution. The framework they suggest is then tested with regard to an examination of the international academic relations of the OECD countries, particularly Canada, with the universities of China.     

Gender inclusive Curricula: A focus on two responses

One of the requirements of the New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993a) is that all curricula developed in New Zealand must be gender inclusive. Developers of the recently released science curriculum, and the draft technology curriculum, have responded to this requirement in different ways. In this paper I discuss a theorisation of the term ‘gender inclusive’ within national curriculum development generally, and explore and analyse these different responses within the specific context of the science and technology curriculum developments. Particular emphasis is placed on the historical difference between science education and technology education in New Zealand schools, and on the impact theoretical discourses have on the way in which terms such as ‘gender inclusive curricula’ are conceptualised, and viewed as appropriate, or not, for specific purposes. Specializations: feminist theory, science education, technology education, technology curriculum development.     

Unique Contributions of Maternal Reading Proficiency to Predicting Children’s Preschool Receptive Vocabulary and Reading Proficiency

This study investigated whether mothers’ measured reading proficiency and their educational level predict, over and above each other, their children’s receptive vocabulary and reading proficiency when confounding factors of speaking a minority language, ethnicity, number of children in the family, and marital and employment status are controlled. The sample included 155 children (aged 3–5 years) and their mothers (aged 20–44 years) of low income and low educational background from Western Canada. Findings support the conclusion that maternal reading level predicts both their children’s receptive vocabulary and reading proficiency prior to schooling after maternal education is taken into account. The findings also show, after the effects of maternal reading ability are removed, maternal education predicts their children’s reading ability prior to school but not their receptive vocabulary proficiency. Thus, maternal reading proficiency and maternal education appear not to serve as proxies for each other, and the use of both variables should be used in studies where children’s reading and receptive vocabulary proficiency are dependent measures. Early childhood educators dedicated to the improvement of the language and literacy levels of children in their care may consider the implementation of programs that focus on improving mothers’ reading proficiency whereby their children’s levels also improve. Early childhood education is the prime time to provide a richer and more fruitful approach to reduce the persistent knowledge gap of children from low-income and low-educational background families.