Philosophical perspectives on school effectiveness and school improvement

This article discusses critically the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). The following issues are addressed: the importance of literacy in advanced societies; increasing public concern about literacy standards in English and Welsh primary schools; the perceived need for a large-scale intervention into the teaching of literacy from the standpoint of international comparisons and school inspection evidence. The literacy process, its complexities and controversies, are considered and critiqued, along with the extent to which the NLS is able to accommodate the implications of research findings. In conclusion, the evaluation reports on the impact of the NLS are discussed.     

Pre-Service Reading Teacher Efficacy and Tutoring: A Review

Teachers’ personal self-efficacy about their ability to motivate students and encourage learning has been shown to affect the classroom they create and student achievement. Therefore, research has been conducted on ways to increase teacher efficacy for in-service and pre-service teachers. One area of research that has been explored is the impact of field experiences on pre-service teachers. This review explores the research on field experiences and tutoring as well as the role these different experiences may play in pre-service teacher efficacy and knowledge of teaching reading. Overall, researchers have found that field experiences have varying effects on efficacy; however, researchers have found that tutoring field experiences in particular have been found to have a positive impact on pre-service teachers’ abilities to teach a particular content (e.g., reading) to the individual student and to put theory into practice. On the whole, this literature review suggests that we currently lack research exploring the possible benefits of simultaneously impacting efficacy and reading knowledge in pre-service teachers through tutoring.     

The influence of reading unit size on the development of Stroop interference in early word decoding

The purpose of the experiments was to determine the automatic use of large or small word reading units in young readers in the absence of word decoding strategies. Picture-word Stroop interference was examined from four types of conflicting labels: (a) words containing both highly predictable grapheme–phoneme correspondence (GPC) units and highly consistent rime units (henceforth, Hi-GPC + Hi-Rime); (b) words with highly predictable GPC units and less consistent rime units (Hi-GPC + Lo-Rime); (c) words with low predictability GPC units and highly consistent rime units (Low GPC + High Rime); (d) nonwords that contained both highly predictable GPC and highly consistent rime units. Naming time for pictures containing these labels was compared against that for pictures with random letter strings or no labels. In Experiment 1, Stroop interference was examined in first, second, and third grade children to determine whether there was developmental change in the presence of rime or GPC interference. In Experiment 2, Stroop interference was examined as a function of relative reading skill in first grade children. In Experiment 3, Stroop interference in adults was compared to the use of rime or GPC pronunciation strategies for nonword reading. In all experiments, Stroop interference in picture naming was longer for pictures with highly predictable GPC unit labels than less predictable GPC unit labels. However, in Experiment 3, even though adults showed interference from predictable GPC units in the Stroop task, they always preferred rime pronunciation for ambiguous nonwords in the nonword reading task. It is argued that the current experiments provide evidence for a flexible units model. The results of this study were presented at the Cognitive Development Society meeting, November 2001, Virginia Beach, VA, and the American Educational Research Association meeting, April 2004, San Diego, California.     

Introduction to the special issue on genes, environment, and reading

This introduction to the special issue on Genes, Environment, and Reading presents an overview of the background for behavior- and molecular-genetic research on dyslexia and individual differences across the normal range. The general methods, questions addressed, and selected results are summarized for each of the papers in the order of their presentation in the special issue. Concluding comments reflect on the influence of environmental range on estimates of genetic and environmental influences, and the future of behavior- and molecular-genetic research on reading.     

Processing of phonological,orthographic and cross-modal word representations among adult dyslexic and normal readers

This study examined the extent to which adultdyslexic readers exhibit concurrent deficitsfor phonological, orthographic and cross-modalword representations, and the relationshipbetween these deficits and decoding ability.Participants were 18 phonological dyslexics and19 normal readers at college level. Compared tonormal readers, dyslexics exhibitedsignificantly slower reaction times acrosstasks, and were less accurate on the unimodalorthographic task. Word pattern processing wasmore extensively related to decoding abilityamong dyslexic as compared to normal readers,but more robustly related to baseline measuresof phonological and orthographic processingamong normal readers. The results are discussedin the context of integrating the phonologicaland orthographic aspects of words, speed ofprocessing deficits, and the importance of taskselection when assessing adult dyslexicpopulations.     

在阅读教学中提高学生的审美素质

\"培养学生高尚的道德情操和健康的审美情趣,形成正确的价值观和积极的人生态度\",是新课程理念下语文课程的重要内容,语文教师应在阅读教学中,充分利用语文教材丰富的文本资源,培养学生在理解中感受形象美,在想象中拓展意境美,在品味中体会语言美,在诵读中体验情感美,培养学生健康的审美情趣,提高学生的审美素质.