Reading and young gifted children

The authors analyze issues such as appropriate programming, identification, and instructional approaches for teaching reading to young gifted children.     

Intelligent Design in the Public School Science Classroom

The ongoing battle to insert intelligent causes into the science classrooms has been met with political approval and scientific rejection. Administrators in the United States need to be aware of the law related to creationism and intelligent design in order to lead in local curricular battles. Although unlikely to appease the ID proponents, there is a purpose for ID in the classroom. ID can be used to illustrate the foundational epistemological structure of science, which requires natural explanations and empirical data as opposed to revelation, tradition, and authority.     

Fundamental movement skill proficiency amongst adolescent youth

Background: Literature suggests that physical education programmes ought to provide intense instruction towards basic movement skills needed to enjoy a variety of physical activities. Fundamental movement skills (FMS) are basic observable patterns of behaviour present from childhood to adulthood (e.g. run, skip and kick). Recent evidence indicates that children have the developmental potential to master most FMS by 6 years of age during physical education, physical activity (PA) and sport.

Purpose: With a noticeable absence in the literature relating to adolescent movement patterns, the present study assessed the performance of 9 FMS during physical education class amongst 12- to 13-year olds. The study further assessed the range of FMS at the behavioural component level with a view to identifying weaknesses within performance across individual skills.

Participants and setting: Baseline data were collected in 2010 as part of a larger longitudinal study evaluating the effectiveness of a prescribed adolescent physical education intervention. Participants included all (N?=?242) first-year post-primary youth in a specific geographical area of Ireland.

Data collection: The following 9 FMS were assessed during an 80-minute physical education lesson time period using a reliable instrument protocol; run, skip, horizontal jump, vertical jump, kick, catch, overhand throw, strike and stationary dribble. Each of the nine FMS was assessed in conjunction with the behavioural components from three established instruments, namely the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD), TGMD-2 and the Victorian Fundamental Motor Skills manual. To ensure participant consistency, no feedback from any of the trained field staff was given during skill performance.

Data analysis: Prior to data analysis, the trained field staff were required to reach a minimum of 95% inter-observer agreement for all nine skills on a pre-coded data set to ensure that all testers were competent. The FMS data set was analysed using SPSS version 17.0 for Windows using appropriate statistical analysis.

Findings: Overall, 11% was scored as either mastery or near mastery for all nine FMS. There was a significant difference in the overall mean composite FMS score (object control and locomotor) between genders, with adolescent males scoring higher (p?=?.015). There were marked differences in the number of participants who failed to obtain mastery level across the range of the nine FMS (e.g. vertical jump 87% and run 13%) and their associated behavioural components.

Conclusions: It is alarming that adolescents aged between 12 and 13 years entering their first year of post-primary physical education do not display proficiency across nine basic movement patterns. This finding indicates that adolescents may have a difficult time in making the successful transition towards more advanced skills within the sport-specific stage. Implications from this study potentially indicate that targeting the weakest skill components during physical education and outside of school hours may prove a valuable strategy in increasing the current FMS levels and the subsequent PA levels amongst adolescent youth.     

Habitus, social fields, and circuits in rural science education

Schooling and science education are embedded within larger socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, influenced by global flows of capital, labor, ideas, and images. In this article we consider the ways in which ethnography traces the web of interactions (circuits), in a rural community and the ways that science inquiry was associated with character education. Our discussion examines the relationship between social fields, habitus, and meritocracy under new and ever-changing neoliberal conditions. These macro-level forces play out in everyday practices in the community and reveal schools, as well as science education, as sites for struggle.     

Registration at the third annual convention 1917

A Case Book in Discussion. By Frank C. and Mary B. Mckinney, with an introduction by Joseph V. Denny. New York: The Ronald Press, 1930: pp. vi, 267 ; $2.00.

Suggestions for instructors. By the same authors; 28 pp.

The Fred Newton Scott Anniversary Papers. By Former Students and Colleagues. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1929: pp. ix, 319.

Daniel Webster. By Allan L. Benson. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1929 ; pp. viii, 402.

Elements of Public Speech. By J. K. Horner. New York: D. C. Heath and Company, 1929; pp. xi, 313.

Literature for Oral Interpretation. By Eiohard Dennis Teall. Hollister. Ann Arbor, Michigan: George Wahr, 1929; pp. 752. $3.60.

Anniversaries and Holidays. By Mary Emogene Hazeltines American Library Association, 520 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, 1929: pp. xx, 288.

A Practical Handbook of Play Production. By D. C. Ashton.

A Book of Dramatic Costume. By Edith Dabney and C. M. Wise. New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1930; pp. x, 163. $3.

Theatre Management. By Sanford E. Stanton. New York: D. Ap‐pleton and Company, 1929; pp. vii, 154; $1.50.