又好又快：新时期自学考试发展的战略抉择——以福建省为例

"又好又快"发展理念,是胡锦涛同志在党的十七大报告中首先提出来的,这一理念也同样适用于新时期自学考试的发展模式。本文力图从战略的视角,着手分析自学考试"又好又快"发展的应有之义,基于福建省自学考试近年来的发展实践,探讨了我国新时期自学考试"又好又快"发展的三大途径,进而提出"又好又快"是当前和今后一段时期自学考试发展的战略任务的立论。     

Impact of rapid reading skills training on reading rate and reading achievement among primary school students in China

Abstract

The current study examined the effects of a silent rapid reading skills training intervention on the reading rate and reading achievement of primary school students in China in order to determine the efficacy of the intervention and explore potential gender differences. A total of 108 Chinese primary school students were randomly assigned by the classroom to either an experimental (n = 54) or control (n = 54) condition. Students in the experimental group completed 12 sessions of rapid reading skills training designed to increase their ability to rapidly read Chinese text in silence. Students in the control group engaged in regular Chinese language curriculum for the same time period. After the three-week intervention period, students in the experimental group displayed significantly greater silent reading speed of Chinese characters (M?=?1331.26 characters per minute) compared to students in the control group (M?=?617.48 characters per minute; p?<?.001). Children in the intervention group also displayed a significantly greater effective reading rate (F = 87.11, p?<?.001, partial η²?=?0.46) at post-test compared to the control. Male students displayed greater increases in reading speed than female students. Neither intervention effect nor gender difference was evident for reading comprehension. Implications for educational interventions designed to increase silent reading speed among Chinese students are discussed.     

Impacts of health-related school closures on child protection outcomes: A review of evidence from past pandemics and epidemics and lessons learned for COVID-19

Through a rapid review drawing on pandemics and epidemics with associated school closures, this article aims to understand first, the state of the evidence on impacts of school closures on select child protection outcomes and second, how governments have responded to school closures to protect the most vulnerable children. Only 21 studies out of 6433 reviewed met the inclusion criteria, with most studies exploring the effects of Ebola. While few studies were identified on harmful practices, a more robust evidence base was identified in regards to adolescent pregnancy, with studies pointing to its increase due to the epidemic or infection control measures, including school closures. The evidence base for studies exploring the impact on violence outcomes was limited, with sexual violence and exploitation located in a few studies on Ebola. Important lessons from this exercise can be applied to the COVID-19 response, particularly the inclusion of the most vulnerable children in programming, policy and further research.     

Cognitive profiling in Chinese developmental dyslexia with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders

The cognitive profiles of children with Developmental Reading Disorder (RD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) have been extensively studied in alphabetic language communities. Deficits in phonological processing and rapid naming have been implicated as core features of RD although whether the latter is a deficit specific to RD remains controversial. Similar research aiming to explore the cognitive profiles of children with both RD and ADHD in non-alphabetic language communities is limited. The specificity of rapid naming deficit to RD among Chinese has yet to be studied. In the first study, 43 Chinese children with confirmed diagnoses of RD + ADHD were assessed on their cognitive abilities in relating to reading. In the second study, the specificity deficit hypothesis of rapid naming to RD but not ADHD was examined. A digit naming test was administered to the RD + ADHD group (43 subjects) and an ADHD only group (49 subjects). In regard to cognitive profiling, rapid naming and orthographic knowledge were found to be the most common deficits among the Chinese RD + ADHD group. This co-morbid group was also found to have a significant deficit performance on the rapid naming task than the ADHD only group. The present findings support the double dissociation hypothesis in cognitive deficit between RD and ADHD. The results of both studies are discussed with reference to the findings of the Western counterparts.     

Phonemic awareness,naming, visual symbol processing,and reading

This study examined differences between adequate and poor readers in phonemic awareness, rapid continuous and confrontation naming, and visual symbol processing. It also investigated which of these skills make independent contributions to word recognition, pseudoword reading, and reading comprehension. Subjects were 170 school referrals of average intelligence, aged 6 to 10 years. The strongest differentiators of adequate and poor readers, with IQ and reading experience controlled, were phonemic awareness, naming speed for letters and pictured objects, and visual symbol processing. Letter naming speed made the largest independent contribution to word recognition, phonemic awareness to pseudoword reading, and object naming speed to reading comprehension. Confrontation picture naming accounted for minimal variance in reading skills, when IQ was controlled. It was concluded that tasks of naming speed, phonemic awareness, and visual symbol processing are valuable components of a diagnostic battery when testing children with possible reading disability.     

Deficits in phoneme awareness do not arise from failures in rapid auditory processing

Many studies have found that phonologicaldeficits in poor readers are associated withdeficits in speech perception. Two hypotheseshave been proposed concerning the nature of thelatter: a speech-specific and a generalauditory hypothesis. The main topic of thepaper is the general auditory hypothesis andits special form as proposed by Tallal and hercolleagues (1993). Thepaper reviews the evidence for these hypothesesand finds it to be either purely correlationalor flawed by misinterpretation of resultsand/or lack of necessary experimental controls.Moreover, a recent control study, the first ofits kind, found no support for Tallal's specialform of the general auditory hypothesis. Thepaper concludes that deficits in speechperception often observed in impaired readersare phonetic (speech-specific), not auditory,in origin.     

Transfer of reading-related cognitive skills in learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese elementary school children

This study investigated transfer of reading-related cognitive skills between learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese children in Hong Kong. Fifty-three Grade 2 students were tested on word reading, phonological, orthographic and rapid naming skills in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). The major findings were: (a) significant correlations between Chinese and English measures in phonological awareness and rapid naming, but not in orthographic skills; (b) significant unique contribution of Chinese and English rapid naming skills and English rhyme awareness for predicting Chinese word reading after controlling for all the Chinese and English cognitive measures; (c) significant unique contribution of English phonological skills and Chinese orthographic skills (a negative one) for predicting English word reading after controlling for all the English and Chinese cognitive measures; and (d) significant unique contribution of Chinese rhyme awareness for predicting English phonemic awareness. These findings provide initial evidence that developing reading-related cognitive skills in English may have facilitative effects on Chinese word reading development. They also suggest that Chinese orthographic skills or tactics may not be helpful for learning to read English words among ESL learners; and that Chinese rhyme awareness facilitates the development of English phonemic awareness which is an essential skill predicting ESL learning.     

Community perceptions of home environments that lead children & youth to the street in semi-rural Kenya

Research with street-involved children and youth (SICY) in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past three decades has established a complex web of both micro and macro-level factors that simultaneously "push" and "pull" children and youth to the street. There is still little research with adult family and community members in communities from which SICY originate. Forty men and women from five semi-rural villages in Meru County, Kenya participated in a Rapid Rural Appraisal utilizing a fishbone diagram to explore main and underlying reasons for why children may be or may feel unwelcome in the home and thus migrate to the street. Responses were analyzed in terms of ecological levels, child or parent perspective, and the push/pull framework. Overall, community members identified families and households experiencing stress and lacking the necessary resources to successfully adjust and adapt. Four ecological levels of influence were proposed as main reasons, with parent and caregiver factors mentioned most often, followed by household factors, children’s intrapersonal factors, and interpersonal (family) factors. Community and environmental level factors were also proposed as underlying factors. Analysis by gender revealed that both men and women emphasized push factors over pull factors, though men proposed more pull factors (from peers and street life) than women did. Men placed more responsibility on the children than women did, citing children's negative behaviors, dissatisfaction with home, and a desire for independence and work/income. Women, in contrast, emphasized children's feelings of being unloved and the experience of harsh punishment or abuse from caregivers. Findings suggest that interventions to reduce street involvement should support economically, medically, and psychologically vulnerable families and households through comprehensive family strengthening programs that build financial capacity, improve parenting and communication skills, and promote education over child work and labor.     

Developmental changes in the contributions of phonological processing skills to Chinese character reading and arithmetic

This study examined the associations of phonological processing skills with reading and arithmetic ability in Chinese kindergartners (Mage = 5.56 years), third graders (Mage = 9.72 years), and fifth graders (Mage = 11.75 years) (N = 413) of Han descent. The results showed that phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) showed stronger relations than phonological memory with reading and arithmetic across grades. Furthermore, the associations of phonological awareness and RAN with reading were much stronger in kindergartners than in primary school children, whereas their relationships with arithmetic remained stable across grades. Among phonological skills, phonological awareness has a unique influence on arithmetic that is independent of Chinese character reading in third-graders and kindergartners. In contrast, RAN uniquely explained the variation in arithmetic skills in fifth graders when reading was statistically controlled for. These findings have important implications for understanding the co-development of reading and arithmetic across grades and raise the possibility of training in phonological awareness and/or RAN to help children at risk for learning disabilities.