Shared book reading behaviours of children with Down Syndrome before and after participation in the MultiLit reading tutor program: an exploratory study

This exploratory study compares the shared book reading behaviours of five school aged children with DS (aged 11 years 6 months to 15 years 6 months) before and after participation in an intervention which included selected components of the MultiLit Reading Tutor Program. The program was delivered 1:1 to participants each week over a 12 week period. Analysis of the average performance across the group revealed that the proportion of reading errors relative to the number of words read from preintervention to postintervention were significantly reduced. Significant improvement was also seen in shared book reading fluency following intervention. Individual case study data is also presented. Postintervention, reading errors per minute were reduced for two participants (P4 and P5). Reading dysfluencies per minute decreased for two participants (P1 and P5) while all participants improved in shared book reading fluency. Preliminary results suggest that children with DS can generalise skills taught in the MultiLit Reading Tutor Program to shared book reading, although variability regarding changes in literacy abilities postintervention was observed.     

Concurrent validity of the Slosson full‐range intelligence test: Comparison with the Wechsler intelligence scale for children–third edition and the Woodcock Johnson tests of achievement–revised

This study examined the concurrent validity of the Slosson Full‐Range Intelligence Test (S‐FRIT) by comparing S‐FRIT scores to the scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Third Edition (WISC‐III) and the Woodcock‐Johnson Tests of Achievement–Revised (WJ‐R). Data from 123 elementary students' screening and psychological testing results were examined. Results revealed that the S‐FRIT scores were more related to overall intelligence, verbal, and math abilities than nonverbal intelligence, reading, or written language abilities. Further, it was found that 89% of the participants' S‐FRIT Full‐Range IQ scores fell within one standard deviation of their WISC‐III FSIQ scores, with an average discrepancy of 7.6 points. Discrepancies between S‐FRIT and WISC‐III scores were also examined by educational diagnostic categories and ability levels. Limitations and suggestions for future research are provided. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

‘Hey diddle diddle,the cat and the fiddle: What ever happened to Mother Goose?’

Mother Goose and other types of playful rhymes are an important part of children's oral language development and help them understand several important oral and written language concepts, including words, phonemes, segmentation, matching, and position. Inclusion of nursery rhymes in the early childhood curriculum provides a natural, enjoyable way to help children develop these language skills.Joanne R. Nurss is Professor of Early Childhood Education at Georgia State University in Atlanta.     

The Processing of Inflectional Morphology: A Comparison of Children with and without Dyslexia

Children aged 11–12 years with a diagnosis of dyslexia (DR) were compared to chronological and reading-age matched poor readers (PR), and two normal reader groups, age-matched (CA) and spelling and reading-age matched (SA–RA), on their processing of inflectional morphology. In comparison to SA–RAs and PRs, the DRs made more spelling errors on regular past tense verb endings relative to irregular past tense verbs and non-verbs. In reading, the DRs took longer than the other groups to make decisions in the written but not oral condition of a tense judgement task. In addition, they were less affected than the PR and SA–RA groups by case altered disruption to the morpheme boundary of inflected verbs. The findings suggest dyslexic children do not show deficits in morphological processing in spoken language, but they are slower at reading and less accurate at spelling regularly inflected verbs compared with normally developing younger children. This difference could plausibly be accommodated within the Phonological Deficit Hypothesis of dyslexia.     

Assessing emergent literacy in preschool classrooms

Recent research on the literacy development of children during the preschool years has emphasized the notion of “emergent literacy,” according to authors Kontos (1986) and Teale and Sulzby (1986). According to this view, preschool children learn about reading and writing as they participate in a literate culture. Early social interactions involving print are crucial to children's reading and writing development, according to the Early Childhood and Literacy Development Committee (1986).     

A Comparison of Reader Strategies on Two Versions of A Newspaper Editorial

Reading is seen as a communication process, a meaningful interaction between the reader and his reading text. A number of factors are known to affect this interaction. One prominent factor is the type of text being read. That is, reader strategies may vary in relation to text characteristics. This study used miscue analysis to find out patterns of reader strategies on two types of texts: a syntactically complex and high vocabulary loaded text and a syntactically simple and low vocabulary loaded text. To this end, cloze tests of passages derived from two versions of a newspaper editorial completed by twenty undergraduate education students from the University of Jos were analysed. The results indicated that the readers of the difficult text had less access to semantic and syntactic cues than the readers of the simplified text. Readers for whom the difficult text was on frustration level made less use of context than did readers for whom the same text was on instructional level. There was very little difference in quality of miscues by readers of the simplified text reading on independent level as compared with those reading the same text on instructional level. Readers who performed on instructional level on the difficult passage used similar reading strategies to those who performed on instructional level on the simplified passage. The implications of the findings for reading instruction were discussed.     

Pedagogical Reflections by Secondary Science Teachers at Different NOS Implementation Levels

This study investigated what 13 secondary science teachers at various nature of science (NOS) instruction implementation levels talked about when they reflected on their teaching. We then determined if differences exist in the quality of those reflections between high, medium, and low NOS implementers. This study sought to answer the following questions: (1) What do teachers talk about when asked general questions about their pedagogy and NOS pedagogy and (2) what qualitative differences, if any, exist within variables across teachers of varying NOS implementation levels? Evidence derived from these teachers’ reflections indicated that self-efficacy and perceptions of general importance for NOS instruction were poor indicators of NOS implementation. However, several factors were associated with the extent that these teachers implemented NOS instruction, including the utility value they hold for NOS teaching, considerations of how people learn, understanding of NOS pedagogy, and their ability to accurately and deeply self-reflect about teaching. Notably, those teachers who effectively implemented the NOS at higher levels value NOS instruction for reasons that transcend immediate instructional objectives. That is, they value teaching NOS for achieving compelling ends realized long after formal schooling (e.g., lifelong socioscientific decision-making for civic reasons), and they deeply reflect about how to teach NOS by drawing from research about how people learn. Low NOS implementers’ simplistic notions and reflections about teaching and learning appeared to be impeding factors to accurate and consistent NOS implementation. This study has implications for science teacher education efforts that promote NOS instruction.