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The authors examine various teacher literacy sponsorship roles that influence students' reading choices, habits, and literacy practices in an English language arts classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the guidelines "Equity in Literacy" published by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) on January 29, 2021. Topics discussed include the aim of MDE to improve literacy achievement, actions taken by Michigan since 2015 after discovering that it ranked 46th in fourth grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the role of school librarians in providing access to diverse books that can increase student motivation to read.

The article focuses on the role of teacher librarians in contemporary schools. Topics include they can help in improving student's reading literacy performance, they collaborate with classroom teachers as partners in building students' related inquiry-based learning skills, and they work with struggling readers to help to close the literacy achievement gap.

Are you looking for ways to enhance and strengthen how you teach your students to write effective opinion pieces as outlined in the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards? In this teaching tip, the authors describe an innovative and dialogic approach that elementary school teachers can use and adapt as needed to strengthen students' reading, writing, speaking, and listening abilities while teaching them to write opinion pieces effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors report findings from an evaluation of the reading competence of students in selected elementary schools in Trinidad and Tobago. The work was conducted in eight schools and involved the testing of 450 students in standards (grades) 1 and 5 for competence in comprehension, oral reading, and word recognition. Methods and results relating to each of these three areas of inquiry are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on a conceptual model that provides insight into the relationship between English reading proficiency and academic performance of first-year science and mathematics university students in Ghana, and an empirical test of that model. Longitudinal data were acquired from a sample of 133 students. Using three different mediation analyses, the study demonstrated significant medium-sized effects of English reading proficiency on students' grade point average (GPA) by the end of year 1 and a small but significant indirect relationship between reading proficiency and the final GPA scores by the end of year 4, mediated by the GPA scores after year 1. These findings show that the academic English reading proficiency of students in a non-western multilingual academic context is important for their academic achievement. It also found that academic results obtained by students in their first-year at University were a sound predictor for success at the end of their studies. Results from this study confirm the need for universities in multilingual settings to invest in L2 students' English reading proficiency at the start of their academic programs. Instructional recommendations are made, along with suggestions for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on adoption of historical narratives by teacher for encouragement of literacy learning. Topics discussed include provision of meaningful opportunities by historical fiction for extension of reading and writing skills among student; incorporation of several historical narratives such as the "The Legend of Moondyne Joe" book in classroom; and determination of language features of narratives.

This article presents an approach to reading like a digital writer to support adolescents' narrative writing in digital formats. By providing digital mentor texts for students to read like digital writers, a more comprehensive and perhaps deeper understanding of digital writing and the memoir genre can emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the evolution of the underlying theories of change in global education reform efforts between 1990 and 2015, informed by the shift in focus from access to quality and learning. We review recent data regarding how different types of donor interventions (i.e., structural or pedagogical) have contributed to improved reading outcomes and compare effect sizes over a series of intervention studies conducted from 2003 to 2015. Against this background, we present a framework for understanding how the intensity, frequency, and fidelity of the interventions as well as the enabling environments of reform affect the magnitude and rates at which reading and learning outcomes can be expected to improve. In this, we present the context for the articles that follow, identifying the program design characteristics and types of interventions that increase the likelihood of successful expansion of the interventions commonly referred to as 'scaling-up,' the ability to sustain interventions, and the value (cost effectiveness) of reading programs in low- and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study examines a reading comprehension strategy use in English as a second language in upper-secondary schools one year after teachers participated in a professional development course. The data comprises observations, teacher narratives, and student interviews. A key finding is that the teachers used a repertoire of strategies from the course, suggesting an impact of the course. A second finding was a clear difference between how students in general and vocational programmes used the strategies taught: the vocational students used them in ways that indicated their relevance to them as learners, while the students in general programmes did not. The findings also suggest how and why students employ strategies. The article discusses implications for strategy instruction and how to enhance the reading proficiency of adolescent readers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An interview with educator Chad Everett is presented. Topics discussed include classroom management, student discipline, and the issue of racial discrimination in educational institutions. Also mentioned are the importance of reading and writing for students, the relationship between students and teachers, and the need for teachers to help students become confident.

The article focuses on book talks and its benefits while suggesting engaging children in it. Benefits include exposing students to a wide variety of genres of books, making them understand comprehension strategies, and promoting voluntary reading. It discusses several tips for book talks such as encouraging students to pick the books which they would love to share with others, and mentions resources for book talks such as iPad computer applications.

Finding an effective instruction mode for ESL students in the US educational system has not been an easy task. The country's secondary and tertiary institutions continue to struggle to meet the needs of their large non-native student populations. The article revisits the debate whether sheltered instruction is an effective model to follow. In our study, a sheltered section of a college-level reading class was more effective in improving students' reading abilities compared to mainstream sections where the international students were mixed with native speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of the Common Core in many states across the country means we need to explore instructional approaches that promote student language use in order to meet many of the complex linguistic standards that comprise the Common Core. In this Teaching Tip, we provide a blueprint for a 4-week collaborative discussion mini-unit that a second grade teacher used in one of her small reading groups. We found that collaborative discussions can be implemented with relative ease and efficiency, and work with both bilingual and monolingual speakers alike. However, not all texts work for such discussions, and the teacher's role in facilitating participation is a necessary dimension of effective small group discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to appraise insights from participationist approaches to learning for understanding students' knowledge acquisition. The first part explicates the concepts of positioning, recognition, and identity through presenting a common ground for participationists and discussing different views on (a) the relationship between learning the content domain and positioning, recognition, and identity negotiation; (b) dynamicity of situativity; (c) relation of moment-to-moment situativity to long-term interaction patterns; (d) awareness of positioning, recognition, and identity. This allows an appraisal in the article's second part of a claim inherent to participationist views: It is necessary to adopt a system's view on learning opportunities presented to students in class because of the way positioning, recognition, and identity negotiation influence students' engagement with curricular content. A fifth issue emerges concerning the nature of this influence. Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence combine to support the conclusion that the claim holds some, not all, of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author reflects on the various insights offered by several students during the panel session at One-Day Conference held by scholarly communication association UKSG which focuses on the students' experiences and expectations on electronic and print books. Among the issues raised by the students include the currency problem on the accessibility of the resources, the ownership of the books, and the advantages and disadvantages of the materials.

In this article, the authors focus on the importance of writing ability provided by teachers to students for professional development. Topics discussed include principles of the U.S.National Writing Project which was begin in 1974 such as importance of teachers for writing skills development in students; role of teachers for improvement of research paper understanding among students and suggestions to improve writing skills such as frequent writing whenever get time.

The article positions the body as a neglected entity within education today. In opposition to seat based and individual oriented learning, the article presents the process drama convention of 'tableau' as an example of collaborative, embodied learning that gets students out of their seats and moving as they create representations of texts. The article is grounded in Vygotsky's theory of tools as shaping cognition and in the article, tableau is presented as a tool that changes the way students think about informational texts and enhances comprehension. In light of current reading policy on the close reading of informational texts, the author considers tableau as an alternative and innovative approach to representing the main ideas within such texts. However, the article also provides examples for the use of tableau across a range of text genres and steps for teachers to follow in the implementation of tableau in their classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know that students who enjoy reading are likely to choose to read more often than students who do not enjoy reading. We also know that the more students read the better readers they become. The bottom line is that reading proficiency has been linked to a better and more productive academic, social, and civic life. We really don't need to be convinced that reading is a good thing for our students. The larger question is how do we help out students develop the reading habit? Recent research suggests three promising practices for supporting and nurturing the reading habit: design reading instruction based on principles of motivation, make reading relevant to the real world, and provide reading texts and tasks that are high-interest and moderately challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tier 3 interventions are necessary for improving the reading performance of students who fail to respond adequately to Tier 1 general education instruction and Tier 2 supplemental reading intervention. In this pilot study, we identified 8 students in 3rd and 4th grade who had demonstrated slow response to Tier 2 reading interventions for three years. Students participated in a researcher-developed Tier 3 intervention for 8 weeks that focused on skill development in word analysis, word identification, and reading rate. In the 6 months prior to Tier 3, students were making minimal growth in reading; however, during Tier 3, the 8 students demonstrated strong growth on measures of word identification and reading rate. Although results are promising for poor readers who are difficult to remediate, several aspects of the Tier 3 intervention need further testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses teaching English and Drama at Rutherford College in Auckland, New Zealand. Topics discussed include encouraging students to read, student activities and visual presentations. Other topics such as written assignments for students, diary planner and performance piece are also discussed.

The author discusses reading among students, books and his report called Reading Unbound: Why Kids Need to Read What They Want - and Why We Should Let Them. Topics discussed include vampire stories, horror stories and dystopian fictions. Other topics such as benefits of reading and reading plays are also discussed.

Focusing on information behaviours in the context of everyday life, this study seeks to explore the information needs and uses of international students--one of the fastest-growing student groups within the university--in their daily activities. Using data from 60 respondents to the survey questionnaire and a total of 263 information activities from the online diary survey of 28 participants, this study investigated four research questions regarding information needs, information sources, the digital devices used for information searches, and the relationships between information needs, information sources, and digital devices in international students' daily information environments. The findings demonstrate that international students with diverse information needs sought information from a wide range of information sources, including search engines and human-mediated sources, using portable digital devices for their information searches. This study revealed that participants used different information sources and digital devices depending on the type of information needs. The findings provide useful insights into the information services available to international students in a higher education context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a two-year qualitative study of electronic reading device use with high school sophomores, most of whom self-identified as reluctant or struggling readers. Electronic readers were used primarily in one weekly fifty-minute class period, during silent sustained reading, wherein students chose freely their texts. The author-researcher identifies five qualities of using electronic readers that appeared to help keep students engaged with reading: convenience, novelty, escape, privacy, and flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the benefits of retelling the academic articles as fairy tales in order to improve students’ reading skills and their understanding of the lessons.

The University of North Texas Libraries received a grant for e-book readers for students purchasing digital textbooks. The grant provided a way to access electronic information in the form of digital textbooks to those who wish to use them but could not afford to purchase e-readers. The university bookstore offers digital textbooks, but not many students have used them. Through administering the grant the authors learned how to implement and market the e-reader service and how students felt about the technology. Evaluation methodology included a pre- and post-test outcomes-based survey for students using the technology. Future considerations are also noted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Exposure to books and high culture provides important academic advantages. But the reasons for this are hotly disputed. Elite closure theory posits that culture merely signals children's elite status to gatekeepers who then grant them unjust advantages. But other theories suggest that scholarly culture provides cognitive skills that improve academic performance, which schools justly reward. We attempt to adjudicate between these theories using data on academic performance from 42 national samples with 200,144 cases from OECD's PISA. We find that a key aspect of scholarly culture, the number of books in the family home, exerts a strong influence on academic performance in ways consistent with the cognitive skill hypothesis, regardless of the nation's ideology, political history, or level of development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on common strategies for students in choosing appropriate books to facilitate student independence in selecting texts that match their independent reading level. Topics discussed include encouraging children to abandon books that pose too many challenges for them, Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and national discussions on text complexity, and the ongoing conversations on instructional reading level and matching readers to texts.

The article presents a personal narrative in which the author reflects on his experiences as a reader and student in Great Britain.

There is a debate in Political Science concerning how best to teach American Government courses. We investigate whether students learn more effectively with texts from the great tradition or from textbooks and other secondary sources. Which medium better guides students toward becoming better citizens? We examine how teaching “The Great Tradition” may increase success in student-learning outcomes. We examine four categories of learning outcomes in the Introduction to American Government classroom: general knowledge, knowledge of current events, civic engagement, and civic virtue. These outcomes were pretested and posttested with a quasi-experimental design. The experimental group studied Tocqueville'sDemocracy in America, while the control group studied traditional textbooks. The purpose of this project is to see if reading Tocqueville increases success in student-learning outcomes over classes that do not. We test two main sets of hypotheses. The first set concerns group/overall class improvement, and the second set deals with individual student improvement. Our results demonstrate that students’ mean improvement scores pre- to posttest increase more in the experimental sections than in the control sections for the general knowledge, civic engagement, and civic virtue learning components. This research suggests a return to the “classics” as a pedagogical innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Oral reading fluency is frequently used in school settings to assess student reading skills, but it is somewhat commonly believed that some students can read words fluently while not comprehending (i.e., word callers). Previous studies examining the prevalence of word callers typically included native English speakers rather than English learners (ELs). Third- and fifth-grade ELs were screened with a measure of oral reading fluency and given a large-scale measure of reading comprehension. In addition, teacher judgments of participants' reading skills were explored with a focus on the accuracy of teachers' word caller nominations in their classrooms. The results showed that word callers who are ELs emerged at a similar level in the third (6%) and fifth (8%) grades. The third-grade proportion was higher than in previous studies with native English speakers. Analysis of teacher ratings indicated that there were inaccuracies associated with teachers' judgments of reading skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated students' spontaneous use of source information for the resolution of conflicts between texts. One-hundred fifty-four undergraduate students read two conflicting explanations concerning the relationship between blood type and personality under two conditions: either one explanation with a higher credibility source and the opposite explanation with a lower credibility source or the same two explanations but with the sources interchanged. Afterwards, students wrote their opinions about the controversial issue. In their opinion essays, students were more likely to resolve the conflicts between the two explanations by affirming the one from the higher credible source and/or negating the opposite one from the lower credible source, though source manipulation had a small and partial effect on intertextual conflict resolution compared with the perceived quality of each explanation and prior attitudes. However, students' attention to source information during reading and their use of the information for justifying their intertextual conflict resolution were limited. These results suggest that undergraduate students are capable of, but not good at, using source information for intertextual conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How students negotiate what to include, and exclude, in multimodal texts is, in this article, explored in order to find out how, and to what extent, creating multimodal texts in language education can be regarded as a literacy practice at the boundary. When students create multimodal texts in classrooms they may incorporate contextual references from domains outside of education, such as popular culture, in the multimodal texts. By incorporating contextual references from activities outside of education, the multimodal texts become boundary objects which potentially connect educational and everyday practices. Boundary objects have different meanings in different activity systems but may connect, as well as divide, the activity systems involved. By analyzing student interactions this article aims to illuminate to what extent the students relate to multimodal texts as boundary objects. The ambiguous nature of boundaries accommodates for variations which are discernible in how the students relate to, and incorporate contextual references from several literacy practices in their multimodal texts. The students sometimes utilize the multimodal text as a boundary object which connects the activity systems involved, but by excluding certain contextual references the division between the activity systems is also enacted by the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research literature from around the world suggests that younger children can benefit from finance education as much as older ones if not more. Playing games is also equally attractive for children and young adults, so combining finance education with games can provide them with opportunities for learning about different financial decision through trial-and-error without putting themselves into risk situation. Pecunia - the game world - is developed with exactly this aim in mind. Pecunia in Latin means money. Pecunia utilizes the open-source platform OpenSim (similar to Second Life) where students take the role of an 18 years old male/female character and live his/her life in terms of making various financial decisions and see through the consequences. The game provides a sound underpinning of the skills needed to make good financial decisions, hence preparing students for being good citizens in later life. The financial rules can be changed so the game can be used worldwide for people in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the teaching of writing in Australian elementary schools. Topics discussed include methods of critical discourse analysis, teaching of structure and skills to build identity of students and necessity of writing for students from multilingual backgrounds. It also discusses accountability requirements in education.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the guest editor discusses consequences of writing assessment in terms of student's learning and writing abilities.

In this paper a systematic and well-defined student participation assessment scheme for college courses is proposed. The scheme supports the involvement of students in a variety of areas of participation within and outside the classroom with the aim of improving their learning. The scheme addresses mostly the challenges related to the practicality of the structure and design of the assessment. It also addresses the subjectivity of grading student participations. Areas of participation are widened to allow the faculty more accurate information about the conduct of each individual student towards more objective assessment. In addition, it provides the faculty with the flexibility to select areas that best fit the learning outcomes, nature of the course, availability of time and resources, and class atmosphere. The proposed scheme is initiated and developed using feedback from the teaching staff of Nizwa College of Technology, (NCT) through a survey and open discussion. The results indicate that over two thirds of the surveyed staff show agreement with the concept of assessing participation and find the scheme design clear and systematic, while 82% of them perceive the scheme as effective in improving the motivation and learning of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contextos Educativos is the property of Universidad de la Rioja, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses several aspects of assessment blueprints which basically provide a method for assessing the skills and competencies of a student. It states that assessment blueprints include the method of translating learning objectives into assessment practices and its basic role is to ensure that assessment is evaluated as per the learning objectives.

The reading scores of 4712 Hong Kong primary Grade 4 students in the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study were analyzed alongside (a) information about their gender, reading ability, independent reading practices, and attitudes towards reading; (b) parental reading attitudes and home educational resources; and (c) the way the students were taught to read in school and the school's overall reading achievement index. Multilevel analyses were carried out to model the relationship between the student characteristics and home and school contextual factors and reading attitude. It was found that the students' reading attitudes reflected the influence of the student's gender, reading ability, and independent reading practices and that parental reading attitudes and home educational resources made significant contributions to the students' reading attitudes. Moreover, teaching the students reading skills explicitly and the school's overall reading attainment were positively related to the students' reading attitudes. The significance of the findings is examined and the educational implications are explored and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composing with different modes - image, sound, video and the written word - to respond to and analyze literary and informational text helps students develop as readers and digital communicators. This article showcases five multimodal strategies for engaging children in rich literature-based learning using digital tools and Internet resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]