Improving content area reading comprehension of Spanish speaking English learners in Grades 4 and 5 using web-based text structure instruction

Reading and comprehending content area texts is important for academic and professional success as well as life skills necessary to maintain good health and quality lifestyle. Spanish speaking English language learners have shown poor performance on high-stakes assessments in reading comprehension. The number of Spanish speaking English learners (ELs) in our schools continues to increase at a fast pace, and therefore it is imperative that we address their reading comprehension needs swiftly and effectively. The text structure strategy has shown positive results on comprehension outcomes in many research studies with students at Grades 2, 4, 5, and 7. This study is the first implementation of instruction about the text structure strategy expressly designed to accommodate the linguistic and comprehension needs of Spanish speaking ELs in Grades 4 and 5. Strategy instruction on the web for English learners (SWELL) was designed to deliver instruction about the text structure strategy to Spanish speaker English learners. A randomized controlled study with pre and post-tests was conducted with 14 classrooms at fourth-grade and 17 classrooms at fifth-grade in high poverty schools where over 85% of students were Spanish speaking bilinguals or ELs. Analysis of data using multi-level models show moderate to large-effects favoring the students in the SWELL classrooms over the business as usual control classrooms on important measures such as a standardized reading comprehension test and main idea and cloze tasks. This research has practical implications for the use of web-based tools to provide high-quality and supportive instruction to improve Spanish speaking ELs reading comprehension skills.     

Teaching Psychobiology at a Distance

Psychobiology is an area of knowledge that deals with the biological basis of behaviour. Its concretion as a specific area of study originates in the confluence and development of other areas such as physiological psychology, experimental and comparative psychology, ethology, biology and the neurosciences. For some, psychobiology would be that part of the neurosciences that deals with the study of the processes of emotion, motivation, cognition and learning. Others are of the opinion that it covers a much wider area, and that its objective is rooted in the study of all biological mechanisms that govern behaviour — and these, undertaken from a philogenetic and ontogenetic perspective.

In the last decade, we have witnessed the creation of psychobiology departments throughout the world. These departments participate in the teaching of faculties of medicine, psychology, biology and zoology. In some universities, these departments even contribute to the teaching imparted by the faculties of philosophy and educational sciences. Sooner or later, the universities teaching at a distance had to consider the creation of departments of psychobiology to attend to the up‐dating of the curriculum of diversive faculties.

In the National University of Education at a Distance, U.N.E.D. (Madrid, Spain) the teaching of psychobiology is entrusted to a department of the same name which started during the academic year of 1982–83. Even though the experience is very short to be able to advance a complete evaluation, the difficulties encountered in the organization of the form and content of different courses imparted by the department of psychobiology (D.P.) could be useful to the reader. Therefore, these difficulties must be understood within the educational model of teaching at a distance at U.N.E.D.     

Comprehension evaluation and regulation in learning from science texts

Metacognitive variables influence students' learning from science texts. This article deals with the comprehension monitoring abilities of secondary school science students, one of the areas of metacognition which has drawn considerable attention from researchers. The aims of the study are, in particular: (a) to know the extent to which comprehension is monitored by secondary science students as revealed by inconsistency detection in manipulated science texts, and (b) to identify the strategies used to regulate comprehension by the students who detect the inconsistencies. The results indicate that knowing that one understands or fails to understand science texts could be as important a problem as understanding proper. Besides, some incorrect regulatory strategies used by students who notice the inconsistencies in the texts are identified. These could also have an annoying influence in the regulatory behavior of students when studying regular science texts.     

Child Development and the Social Demography of Childhood

This article provides background information and a practical guide for including demographic information in developmental research. First, it portrays historic demographic trends reflecting critical ways in which the family and economic environments of children have been, and continue to be, transformed in the United States. Second, it presents current demographic statistics to provide a basis for researchers to compare their special study population to the general population of children and to formulate specific hypotheses about ways in which their result might differ for children in various demographic situations. Third, it offers an Appendix with standardized wording for a minimum set of questions needed to measure the demographic characteristics and environments of children. The Appendix provides researchers the technical capacity to collect such data, so they can develop and test hypotheses about how family and econmic environments shape child development processes and outcomes.     

Effects of blood flow restriction without additional exercise on strength reductions and muscular atrophy following immobilization:A systematic review

Purpose:To investigate whether blood flow restriction(BFR) without concomitant exercise mitigated strength reduction and atrophy of thigh muscles in subjects under immobilization for lower limbs.Methods:The following databases were searched:PubMed,CINAHL,PEDro,Web of Science,Central,and Scopus.Results:The search identified 3 eligible studies,and the total sample in the identified studies consisted of 38 participants.Isokinetic and isometric torque of the knee flexors and extensors was examined in 2 studies.Cross-sectional area of thigh muscles was evaluated in 1 study,and thigh girth was measured in 2 studies.The BFR protocol was 5 sets of 5 min of occlusion and 3 min of free flow,twice daily for approximately 2 weeks.As a whole,the included studies indicate that BFR without exercise is able to minimize strength reduction and muscular atrophy after immobilization.It is crucial to emphasize,however,that the included studies showed a high risk of bias,especially regarding allocation concealment,blinding of outcome assessment,intention-to-treat analyses,and group similarity at baseline.Conclusion:Although potentially useful,the high risk of bias presented by original stodies limits the indication of BFR without concomitant exercise as an effective countermeasure against strength reduction and atrophy mediated by immobilization.     

Bilingualism and the gifted intellect

Teaching young gifted children a second language enriches their ability for linguistic expression.     

Effect of verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies in basketball free throw shooting

We assessed the effects on basketball free throw performance of two types of verbal directions with an external attentional focus. Novices (n = 16) were pre-tested on free throw performance and assigned to two groups of similar ability (n = 8 in each). Both groups received verbal instructions with an external focus on either movement dynamics (movement form) or movement effects (e.g. ball trajectory relative to basket). The participants also observed a skilled model performing the task on either a small or large screen monitor, to ascertain the effects of visual presentation mode on task performance. After observation of six videotaped trials, all participants were given a post-test. Visual search patterns were monitored during observation and cross-referenced with performance on the pre- and post-test. Group effects were noted for verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies and free throw performance. The 'movement effects' group saw a significant improvement in outcome scores between the pre-test and post-test. These results supported evidence that this group spent more viewing time on information outside the body than the 'movement dynamics' group. Image size affected both groups equally with more fixations of shorter duration when viewing the small screen. The results support the benefits of instructions when observing a model with an external focus on movement effects, not dynamics.