Accelerating decoding-related skills in poor readers learning a foreign language: a computer-based intervention

The results of Fast ForWord® training on English decoding-related skills were examined. Finnish fifth-grade students were identified as having reading fluency problems and poor skills in English as a foreign language learned at school and were randomly assigned to either a training group (TRG) or a control group. The TRG (n?=?13) received 50?min of daily computer program-based training for a period of approximately 10 weeks. Students in the first control group (n?=?11) received the school’s regular instructional programme. A second control group was composed of 14 average readers. The students’ English skills were examined in pre-test, post-test and follow-up measurements. The TRG students saw an acceleration in decoding-related skills. The educational implications of the results are discussed.     

Reviews

FREEDOM SPENT. By Richard Harris. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976; pp. 460. $12.95.

MALE/FEMALE LANGUAGE, WITH A COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY. By Mary Ritchie Key. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1975; pp. vii + 200; $7.95.

CONTEMPORARY SPEECH: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION. Compiled by Mary Frances Hopkins and Beverly Whitaker. Edited by Bernard Brommel. Skokie, IL: National Textbook Company, 1976; pp. ix + 316. $11.

COMMUNICATING. By Anita Taylor, Teresa Rosegrant, Authur Meyer, and B. Thomas Samples. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., pp. xiii + 466. $9.95.

MASTERING CLASSROOM COMMUNICATION: WHAT INTERACTION ANALYSIS TELLS THE TEACHER. By Dorothy Grant Hennings. Pacific Palisades, California: Goodyear Publishing Company, 1975; pp. xiii + 193. $5.95.

THE RHETORIC OF WESTERN THOUGHT. By James L. Golden, Goodwin F. Berquist, and William E. Coleman. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1976; pp. 272. Paper $9.95.     

La naturaleza del conocimiento práctico y sus implicaciones en la formación de docentes

Resumen

The article utilised data from two intervention studies carried out in low SES preschools in order to address issues in the realm of literacy interventions: Which components are more productive in promoting literacy skills (storybook reading or alphabetic training); at what age should these components be introduced (three or four years old); and who should implement the interventions (MA students or preschool teachers). The studies describe preplanned intensive interventions. The results demonstrated that storybook reading is productive in promoting vocabulary and that alphabetic training is productive in promoting a scope of alphabetic skills. Interestingly enough, a combined programme that encompasses both components, though to a lesser extent, bears the widest range of influence on both alphabetic and language skills. Three year old children benefit as much as or possibly even more from storybook reading and alphabetic skills training than their four year old peers. Both MA students and preschool teachers are efficient implementers. MA students promoted the children's skills more than preschool teachers. Yet, we recommend and discuss the benefits of preschool teachers as implementers.     

Promoting assessment efficacy through an integrated system for online clinical assessment of practical skills

This paper presents evaluation outcomes from an externally funded research project involving the online clinical assessment of practical skills (eCAPS) using web-based video technologies within a university medical programme. eCAPS was implemented to trial this web-based approach for promoting the efficacy of practical skills assessment in knee joint examinations for a pre-clinical cohort of second year medical students. eCAPS involves a progressive organisation of online video experiences and task expectations for formative and summative assessments of selected competencies. Data are presented from semi-structured interviews with the medical students (N?=?40). eCAPS successfully supported students’ skill development in knee joint examinations on fellow students and allowed remote assessment of candidates’ performances by clinicians experienced in musculoskeletal examinations. An ‘indicative standard’ paradigm, involving formative assessment of one randomly selected performance from the submission of all students’ responses within a small group, offered an efficient and efficacious avenue for providing consolidated feedback to students and promoted desirable learning behaviours. Overall, there was evidence of reciprocal learning benefits to the ‘blending’ of an online learning and assessment approach with an existing face-to-face environment. The medical students were able to successfully engage online with high quality and consistent practical skill-based materials in a flexible, independent and individual manner.     

Gliding text: a new aid to improve the reading performance of poor readers by subconscious gaze control

In support of efforts at reducing the number of dyslexics and illiterates in industrialized countries it is proposed, for the first time, to use gliding text ‐ as known in television subtitles ‐ as a method of text display to help those learning to read. Beginners, having the difficult task of precisely directing their gaze letter by letter along the line of text, experience with gliding text automatic gaze guidance as in so‐called ‘optokinetic nystagmus’. This subconscious gaze control allows beginners to pay more attention to contextual processing. First training courses have shown that exercises with gliding text are very efficient. Reading difficulties were eliminated for 21 second‐grade elementary school children in only 24 training sessions, each of 15 min duration. The mean reading speed increased from ten to 24 words per minute (WPM).     

Life skills for ‘real life’: How critical thinking is contextualised across vocational programmes

Background: This article presents an analysis of how critical thinking is contextualised in everyday teaching in three vocational education and training (VET) programmes: Vehicle and transport, Restaurant and management, and Health and social care.

Purpose: The main question addressed is: What knowledge discourses permeate different VET-contexts, and hence what kinds of opportunities for critical thinking do they offer students?

Method: The qualitative analysis draws on data from a four-year ethnographic project exploring learning processes that can be characterised as civic education in Swedish vocational education. The analysis presented here used data collected during 85 days of observations of teaching in six VET classes, interviews with 81 students and 10 teachers, and collected teaching material. To explore why some contextualisations provided more opportunities and encouragement for critical thinking than others, we applied Bernsteinian concepts of ‘horizontal and vertical knowledge discourses’ and ‘discursive gaps’.

Findings and conclusions: Overall, teaching that was observed focused primarily on ‘doing’. However, in all three programmes, the analysis identified that there were also situations that touched upon critical thinking. Three major themes were identified: critical thinking related to ‘Personal experiences’, ‘The other(s)’ and ‘Wider perspectives’. It appeared that the frequency and nature of such situations varied with the knowledge discourses permeating the programme. Furthermore, we discuss the manifestations of critical thinking in relation to the wider context of what Bernstein refers to as pedagogic rights; individual enhancement, social inclusion and development of the competence and confidence to participate in political processes.     

Learning arithmetic outdoors in junior high school – influence on performance and self-regulating skills

This study aims to explore the influence of outdoor teaching among students, aged 13, on arithmetic performance and self-regulation skills as previous research concerning outdoor mathematics learning is limited. This study had a quasi-experimental design. An outdoor and a traditional group answered a test and a self-regulation skills questionnaire before and after a 10 weeks unit in arithmetic. Findings suggest differences in changes in academic performance between the groups in favour of the outdoor group and no significant changes in self-regulation skills, apart from a decrease in intrinsic motivation in the traditional group.     

Perceptions of studying during adolescence: student typologies and the relationship with attainment

This research explores perceptions of studying among students taking public examinations at age 16. Cluster analysis was used to classify 826 Year 11 students, in their final year of compulsory schooling, according to their study typology. Pupils were drawn from eight outer London schools and completed a self-report questionnaire to assess perceptions of studying. The analysis revealed six distinctive groups with differences in the use of metacognitive, effort-management, time-management and study strategies. The groups differed in relation to attainment and the amount of homework that students reported completing. Clusters were identified with poor students, who had become disengaged with their studies, and hard working students, who valued the task and adopted a variety of strategies. Other clusters displayed poor time management strategies, use of planning and organisational strategies. For the future, it appears important to understand characteristics that are exhibited by individual students, if all are to be assisted in achieving their potential.     

Avoiding the Perils of “Teacher-Proof” Online Design: A Content Analysis

This content analysis explored how previously validated Web-based inquiries (WBIs) for science instruction are designed and to what extent they match the proposed teacher-support guidelines of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Examined WBIs implemented few recommended teacher-support mechanisms. This article explores the reasons why so few mechanisms were supported and proposes ways to enhance the curricular usefulness of WBIs by incorporating more recommended mechanisms.