The effects of rime‐ and phoneme‐based teaching delivered by Learning Support Assistants

This paper evaluates three word‐level teaching programmes delivered by trained Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) for Year 1 children ‘at risk’ of reading difficulties. Rime‐based, phoneme‐based, and ‘mixed’ (rime and phoneme‐based) interventions were contrasted with controls receiving only the National Literacy Strategy. Phonological onset‐rime and phoneme manipulation, spelling, and word and non‐word reading were measured before and after the nine‐week intervention. High rime neighbourhood (HRn) non‐words (e.g. ‘dat’– with many real word rime neighbours) and low rime neighbourhood (LRn) non‐words (e.g. ‘tav’ with few real word neighbours) were used to evaluate onset‐rime‐ or grapheme‐phoneme‐based decoding strategies. Results showed greater phonological onset‐rime skills, letter‐sound knowledge and non‐word reading skills in all LSA‐taught intervention groups. There was no difference between the HRn and LRn non‐words. The only reliable difference between the intervention groups was an advantage in phoneme blending for the rime‐taught group. It was concluded that LSAs can enhance literacy development for 6‐year‐old poor readers. There appears to be no simple association between rime‐ or phoneme‐based teaching intervention and changes in the size of unit used by children following interventions.     

Minority students vs. majority faculty and administrators in teacher education: Perspectives on the clash of cultures

This paper strongly suggests that the views of minority students must be included in any meaningful assessment of teacher preparation programs' efforts to address racial diversity. The project was initiated during the 1990–91 academic year by interviewing minority juniors and seniors (total of 24), selected faculty, and administrators (deans, associate deans, department chairs) at two colleges of education as well as extensive document reviews. Intermittent follow-up interviews and document reviews continued through the 1993–94 academic year. These minority students did not feel that their teacher preparation programs had adequately prepared them to teach in racially diverse settings. Faculty and administrators agreed with the contention of the students but also pointed to a few tangible efforts that had been initiated to rectify this problem.     

Places and Spaces: The Historical Interaction of Technology, Home, and Privacy

While recent developments in information and communication technologies have produced heightened concern over privacy issues, technology and privacy have a long history of interaction. The home has served as a key locus for this interaction. By distinguishing inside from outside, the home supports the allocation of particular behaviors and information to different areas, both physical and virtual. This article explores how different technologies, including structural elements, have affected and reflected over time the boundary represented by the home and how that boundary has helped shape the construction of privacy in the West. This illustrates how privacy might be conceptualized as a social condition arising from the interaction of various boundaries, including the principal one separating the public and the private.     

Post-it Culture: Post-modernism and Art and Design Education

This paper examines the phenomenon of Post-modernism and its growing relationship to art and design education and its limitations in that context. It examines how and why an authentic architectural style developed into a late twentieth century philosophy, was exploited by visual artists, and was then applied to art and design education. The paper looks at a range of issues and concepts coterminous with the growth of post-modern thought, particularly the idea of post-historicism. In that sense it posits Post-modernism as one narrative amongst a number. The language of Post-modernism is also explored, as is the idea of a ‘post-medium age’. It is then suggested, using the argument of Post-modernism itself, that art and design education for the next millennium depends upon the recognition of the need for a range of new narratives.     

大学对城市的影响

尊敬的副部长、市长、王校长、各位校长、复旦的老师、同学们、女士们、先生们：你们好!王校长,在这个特殊的纪念日——复旦的百年校庆,我带来了牛津大学所有学者对您和复旦学者的祝贺!站在上海这座伟大的城市,站在复旦这所成就辉煌的杰出学府,发表题为“大学对城市的影响”的演讲,使我感到战战兢兢。下面就这一话题谈一些我的认识,并简要介绍一下牛津大学在这方面的情况。     

The Scaffolding of Emergent Literacy Skills in the Home Environment: A Case Study

The ways in which parent-child interactions can encourage the development of emergent literacy skills in young children remains to be fully explored. The present report describes how one parent scaffolded her young child’s emergent writing and letter knowledge in the home. Environmental print provided many rich and meaningful examples for the parent to show that print conveys meaning and is constructed with letters that have names and make sounds. The parent used idiomorphs, a multisensory approach incorporating the tracing of letters and whole body movements, and common household objects to guide the child’s learning of letter names, sounds, and shapes. Emergent writing skills were scaffolded by using directional language and by the child copying environmental print. The strategies and examples that are described may give guidance to parents and teachers on how to provide engaging opportunities for literacy learning in the home environment or in an early educational context.     

Teaching and learning centres: towards maturation

Approximately 70% of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres have been restructured and/or have undergone leadership changes in the last three years. The volatility of this environment reflects the number of significant challenges faced by Teaching and Learning Centres. In determining what makes Centres successful, the issues that are likely to impact on their ability to succeed were examined. It emerged that a myriad of factors influence whether or not a Centre was recognised as being an integral and valued part of the university's teaching and learning community – a hallmark of having reached maturity. This paper identifies four factors as being critical to the ability of Centres to succeed, noting that a combination of other factors, appropriate to each unique context, must also be in place in order for Centres to maximise their value.     

Whose Science and Whose Religion? Reflections on the Relations between Scientific and Religious Worldviews

Arguments about the relationship between science and religion often proceed by identifying a set of essential characteristics of scientific and religious worldviews and arguing on the basis of these characteristics for claims about a relationship of conflict or compatibility between them. Such a strategy is doomed to failure because science, to some extent, and religion, to a much larger extent, are cultural phenomena that are too diverse in their expressions to be characterized in terms of a unified worldview. In this paper I follow a different strategy. Having offered a loose characterization of the nature of science, I pose five questions about specific areas where religious and scientific worldviews may conflict—questions about the nature of faith, the belief in a God or Gods, the authority of sacred texts, the relationship between scientific and religious conceptions of the mind/soul, and the relationship between scientific and religious understandings of moral behavior. My review of these questions will show that they cannot be answered unequivocally because there is no agreement amongst religious believers as to the meaning of important religious concepts. Thus, whether scientific and religious worldviews conflict depends essentially upon whose science and whose religion one is considering. In closing, I consider the implications of this conundrum for science education.     

The need for a General Comment for Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Toward enlightenment and progress for child protection

ObjectiveTo present the need and plan for development of a General Comment for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 19 which has the potential to transform and advance child protection through the infusion of a child rights approach.MethodsThe Committee on the Rights of the Child (Committee) authorized ISPCAN and IICRD to draft a General Comment for CRC Article 19 (GC19) and to introduce implementation supports. An international working group (GC19WG), Expert Advisory Panel (EAP), and GC19 Focal Group of Committee members (GC19 CRC FG) have been organized to help guide and carry out the program of development. Analyses of relevant histories and knowledge, including effective and promising child protection strategies, are being applied to guide formulation of the GC and high priority implementation components. Consultations on the draft and supportive products will be conducted in cooperation with UNICEF, WHO, the NGO Group for the CRC, and other NGOs.Advice is to be solicited from interested parties and organizations in person and through distance communication throughout the world.ResultsIn addition to the GC19, numerous implementation supports will be planned and some will be produced and piloted during the program of development. Under consideration are an implementation guide and resources; commentary; accountability models, indicators, measures and evaluation systems; a clearing house and resource website; a child-appropriate version of GC19; and education/training curricula and programs.Practice implicationsGC19 has the potential to transform child protection by fostering a paradigm shift in its conceptualization, theory, research, and practice. Article 19 encourages an interpretation and application beyond narrow child protection conceptualizations and practices which have been found seriously inadequate. The General Comment can advance effective prevention of maltreatment and protection of personal security by promoting the child's rights, well-being, health, and development in all aspects of child protection. GC19 will provide support to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its monitoring and guiding functions, and to States Parties, professionals, and civil society agents concerned with the protection and well-being of children.