Sharing Stories: Parents' Involvement in Reading with Inner-City Nursery Children

Recent research has underlined both the benefits of parents reading stories to their children before they start school and of parental involvement in the early reading stages. A one-year project was carried out in the nursery class of an inner-city primary school to set up a regular book borrowing service to enable and encourage parents to read regularly to their pre-reception class children. The level of parental and child interest was monitored throughout. An attempt to measure the effect of the input was made by testing the children involved in the project at the end of their reception class year. Although the results do not show any significant difference in the level of achievement between the experimental school and the two control schools, the project did reveal an unexpectedly high level of parental interest in orienting children towards literacy.     

Social Foundations of Education as an Unwelcome Counter-Narrative and as Educational Praxis

I am grateful for this opportunity to reflect on the field of Social Foundations of Education (SFE), in part because it affords an opportunity to advance an historical analysis of the trajectory of the field different from what we provided when my colleagues and I sent to press the Handbook of Research the Social Foundations of Education in 2009 (Tozer, Gallegos, Henry, 2011 Tozer, S. E., & Butts, R. F. (2011). The evolution of social foundations of education. In Tozer, S., Gallegos, B., & Henry, A., (Eds), Handbook of research in the social foundations of education (pp. 1–14). New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). I also welcome the opportunity to acknowledge a particular activist tradition established by earlier generations of Social Foundations scholars who have influenced my work. To quote Stuart Hall, these men and women engaged Social Foundations “as a practice which always thinks about its intervention in a world in which it would make some difference, in which it would have some effect” (in Tozer et?al., 2011 Tozer, S., Gallegos, B., & Henry, A. (2011). (Eds.). Handbook of research in the social foundations of education (p. 11). New York, NY: Routledge. [Google Scholar], p. 11). Finally, this occasion invites a perspective on the equity work in Chicago Public Schools that we have pursued since I introduced it in my AESA Presidential Address in 2006.     

Unreal Friends

It has become quite common for people to develop `personal' relationships nowadays, exclusively via extensive correspondence across the Net. Friendships, even romantic love relationships, are apparently, flourishing. But what kind of relations really are possible in this way? In this paper, we focus on the case of close friendship. There are various important markers that identify a relationship as one of close friendship. One will have, for instance, strong affection for the other, a disposition to act for their well-being and a desire for shared experiences. Now obviously, while all these features of friendship can gain some expression through extensive correspondence on the Net, such expression is necessarily limited –you cannot, e.g., physically embrace the other, or go on a picnic together. The issue we want to address here however, is whether there might be distinctive and important influences on the structure of interaction undertaken on the Net, that affect the kind of identity ``Net-friends' can develop in relation to one another. In the normal case, one develops a close friendship, and in doing so, one's identity, in part, is shaped by the friendship. To some extent, through extensive shared experience, one comes to see aspects of the world (and of oneself) through the eyes of one's friend and so, in part, one's identity develops in an importantly relational way, i.e., as the product of one's relation with the close friend. In our view, however, on account of the limits of, and/or the kind of, shared contact and experience one can have with another via correspondence on the Net, there are significant structural barriers to developing the sort of relational identity that is a feature of close friendship. In arguing our case here, and by using the case of Net ``friendship' as our foil, we aim to shed light on the nature and importance of certain sorts of self-expression and relational interaction found in close friendship.     

The differential influence of instructional context on the academic engagement of students with behavior problems

The teacher–student interactions of 39 students exhibiting high externalizing behavior problems and 59 students exhibiting average behavioral adjustment from urban elementary schools were directly observed. Comparisons between these students within four different instructional contexts indicated that levels of student engagement were significantly related to both behavior and classroom context. Although teachers’ use of behavioral management strategies was minimal, it was significantly related to the type of instructional context in which it occurred. Findings are discussed in terms of how different instructional contexts place unique demands and offer distinct affordances for students with behavior problems. A more comprehensive understanding of the influence of these environmental contexts can allow teachers to scaffold task demands to bring them within the domains of the student's ability.     

How do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? A national survey

A random sample of primary grade teachers from across the United States was surveyed about their instructional practices in handwriting. Nine out of every ten teachers indicated that they taught handwriting, averaging 70 minutes of instruction per week. Only 12% of teachers, however, indicated that the education courses taken in college adequately prepared them to teach handwriting. Despite this lack of formal preparation, the majority of teachers used a variety of recommended instructional practices for teaching handwriting. The application of such practices, though, was applied unevenly, raising concerns about the quality of handwriting instruction for all children. Preparation of this paper was supported by the Center to Accelerate Student Learning, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs Grant H324V980001.     

Teaching writing in grades 4–6 in urban schools in the Greater China Region

A random sample of 1102 grade 4–6 Chinese language arts teachers in Beijing, Macao, and Taipei City were surveyed about their instructional writing practices. Seventy-eight percent (n = 857) of the teachers completed the survey. Teachers were generally positive about the usefulness of their college teacher preparation program. They slightly agreed that they liked to write, teach writing, and were effective writing teachers. Their beliefs about writing were related to the instructional practices they reportedly applied, and textbooks along with school guidelines played a prominent role in shaping their overall writing program. Teachers’ programs emphasized product-based instruction, but also placed considerable emphasis on writing process and content. They further indicated an average writing class lasted 69 min, but almost 80 % of teachers indicated they taught writing only once every 2–4 weeks, raising a concern about amount and timing of writing instruction. Consistent with social/cultural theory, Chinese writing teachers in these three urban locations evidenced differences on almost every variable studied. We expected such differences as macro-level features involving government and educational policy varied across locations. The observed differences were mostly a matter of degree (i.e., teachers applied certain practices more or less frequently) versus a more general difference in how writing was taught.     

The Role of Play in the Pedagogy of ICT

Today’s children meet a wide range of technology in their everyday lives, and they become competent users of devices such as mobile phones and games machines without any formal instruction. It appears that highly complex ICT processes and techniques can be learned through informal methods which are very much learner directed—unfocussed exploration, creative invention, trial-and-error, cooperation with friends and asking people who are more experienced. Indeed, the children themselves tend to see their activity as play rather than learning.This paper describes a project carried out in a number of informal learning situations. The children involved were relatively disadvantaged economically, and the majority were not very confident in using a PC. Most had access to both a games machine and a mobile phone, however, and rated themselves as very confident with these. The project aimed to find out how they developed competence in using unfamiliar hardware and software, and how much they learned from self-directed study in a loosely structured learning environment. In order to investigate these issues, groups of children were introduced to new software tools and left to ‘play’ with the software in order to explore the possibilities and discover new features. The children were observed and their questions answered, and the researcher also discussed their experiences with them afterwards.Despite their lack of previous experience with PCs and the particular software used for the project, the children were generally successful in gaining specified competencies with the software. Several children reflected that they were learning in the same way as they had learned to use mobile phones, although there was no evidence for transfer of specific techniques. This indicates that the role of higher order learning skills is important, and evidence emerged that the influence of self-efficacy may be more important in gaining success than previous experience with PC technology. This factor is suggested as the focus for further investigation.     

Comparison of sequence of trunk and arm motions between short and long official distance groups in javelin throwing

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of sequences of the trunk and arm angular motions on the performance of javelin throwing. In this study, 32 male and 30 female elite javelin throwers participated and were separated into a short official distance group or a long official distance group in each gender. Three-dimensional coordinates of 21 body landmarks and 3 marks on the javelin in the best trial were collected for each subject. Joint center linear velocities and selected trunk and arm segment and joint angles and angular velocities were calculated. The times of the initiations of the selected segment and joint angular motions and maximum angular velocities were determined. The sequences of the initiations of the selected segment and joint angular motions and maximum angular velocities were compared between short and long official distance groups and between genders. The results demonstrated that short and long official distance groups employed similar sequences of the trunk and arm motions. Male and female javelin throwers employed different sequences of the trunk and arm motions. The sequences of the trunk and arm motions were different from those of the maximal joint center linear velocities.     

Handwriting fluency and the quality of primary grade students’ writing

Reading and Writing - Until children can produce letters quickly and accurately, it is assumed that handwriting disrupts and limits the quality of their text. This investigation is the largest...