Early Primary Grades Research Articles

The impact of preprimary school on primary school achievement in Bangladesh

Abstract Evidence was collected regarding changes over 3 years in the quality of a preprimary program in rural Bangladesh and differences in school achievement of children who did and did not attend. The quality of 30 preprimary schools was evaluated using the ECERS-R (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale – Revised) and ECERS-E (– Extension). Results indicated that the quality improved overall from 3.50 in 2006 to 5.24 in 2008. Samples of 180 graduates of these schools were annually followed into first and second grades and tested for five competencies: speaking, writing, reading, oral mathematics and written mathematics. Their achievement scores were compared with students in their classrooms and students in neighboring schools who did not have the opportunity to attend preprimary schools. First graders in 2008 performed significantly better than comparisons in all competencies, and better than earlier graduates. Second graders performed significantly better than comparisons on all but Reading. Qualities of the math preprimary program correlated with math achievement in Grade 1 only. Consequently the quality of the preprimary program improved over time along with higher achievement for its graduates. The findings support efforts to expand high-quality programs in developing countries to help children succeed in the early primary grades.

Literacy coaching and Reading First ‘redelivery’: a discourse analysis

Practitioners are often faced with the national legislation’s influence at the school‐based curricular level. In the United States, the federal government No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates reading instruction at the early primary grade levels. The position of literacy coach was created to support this curriculum change by providing professional development to teachers in schools. This study focused on a crucial component of literacy coaches’ professional lives – the redelivery of professional development in Reading First, in order to understand what it means to redeliver state‐mandated curriculum change. The authors interviewed two literacy coaches in the Georgia Reading First curriculum model about how they redelivered professional development. The authors used a social constructivist perspective and discourse analysis to explore how two literacy coaches operated. The coaches negotiate competing discursive forces, frame success and represent their practices in different and complex ways despite the assumed uniformity of Reading First redelivery.

Teacher qualification and the achievement gap in early primary grades.

Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110, 115 Stat. 1245, 2002) holds schools accountable for reducing the academic achievement gap between the different ethnic groups and requires elementary school teachers to have at least a bachelors degree and a state certification. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the qualification requirement of NCLB to the goal of reducing the academic achievement gap. The study found that students with a certified teacher for most of their early school experience scored higher in reading than students who did not have a certified teacher. In addition, certification was associated with slightly narrowing the academic gap between African American and European American students across early elementary grades.

Click, Clack, Moo: Designing Effective Reading Instruction for Children in Preschool and Early Primary Grades

(2009). Click, Clack, Moo: Designing Effective Reading Instruction for Children in Preschool and Early Primary Grades. Childhood Education: Vol. 85, No. 3, pp. 167-172.

Making the Invisible Process Visible: A Kinesthetic Approach to Explicit Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Early Primary Grades

Reading instruction in early primary grades tends to focus on segmenting words into sounds and there is little emphasis on explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies.Through a kinesthetic approach, I attempted to make the invisible process of applying reading comprehension strategies visible. Students used a remote, similar to that of a TV, to play and pause their reading process.This enabled them to effectively use meaning-making strategies which took shape through signaling. Students would physically motion to themselves various signs which indicated the four reading comprehension strategies modeled in my think alouds (visualization, questioning, making predictions and making connections). The outcome was a highly motivated group of grade one students who could apply reading comprehension strategies and engage in discourse that reflected a higher level of understanding.

Early Childhood Corner: Developing Five-ness in Kindergarten

In the early primary grade classroom, significant time is dedicated to developing number sense. Number sense is much more than being able to write numerals, count a quantity of objects, or recognize a set of a specific quantity of objects. Number sense is knowing, for example, what five is in a variety of contexts and representations. The essence of understanding “five-ness” is understanding what the symbol 5 indicates and how five can be represented and visualized in different ways.

Preparing Teachers to Support Struggling First-Grade Readers

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these sound-to-letter correspondences by students who are not achieving on grade level. The evidence presented herein shows the need for preservice teachers to fully understand how to assess and enhance phonemic awareness in young children, a building block for decoding, and to identify and concentrate on teaching alphabetic relations as part of the early literacy curriculum. Given the increasing numbers of students with diverse ethnic/language backgrounds and special needs in mainstream early childhood and primary grade settings, teacher education programs need to provide preservice teachers with the knowledge and skills required to meet the instructional needs of children from these populations. Education professors have a great responsibility to ensure that preservice teachers have the necessary background knowledge to prevent reading failure for young children struggling with learning sound-to-letter correspondences. It is important that this aspect of early reading instruction be clearly explained and promoted with preservice teachers receiving certification in teaching children in Grades K–3.

Food for Thought: Poverty, Family Nutritional Environment, and Children's Educational Performance in Rural China

Insecure access to nutritious food is a common experience for poor households in developing countries. Despite the global scale of food insecurity, it has not been conceptualized by sociologists as a significant component of home environment or dimension of poverty that might matter for children's outcomes. Analyzing data from rural China, the authors show that nutritional environment in the home is associated with household socioeconomic status, that it predicts children's school performance, and that it is a significant mediator of poverty effects on schooling for children in early primary grades.

Reading between the Lines: Observations on the Report of the National Reading Panel and its Critics

Mr. Cooper steps back and tries to see the whole picture that might emerge from the different pieces of research on reading instruction. I COULD NOT read the preceding exchange between Elaine Garan, Stephen Krashen, Timothy Shanahan, and Peggy McCardle and Vinita Chhabra from the perspective of a reading expert.1 I'm not a reading expert. In fact, I can't say I've read much about reading instruction beyond parts of the original Report of the National Panel (NRP) and the articles that are principal to this debate.2 Rather, I examined these articles as someone who knows a bit about the methodology of research synthesis,3 as a former two-term school board member who lived through the Reading Wars side by side with our superintendents and principals who needed to make decisions about reading instruction,4 as the spouse of a first- grade teacher with over 25 years' teaching experience, and as the dad of two kids who successfully learned to be avid readers in America's public schools. So I apologize for my loose technical language, which I know will drive reading experts crazy. Phonics Instruction What did I learn from my reading on phonics instruction? Let me start with the bottom line. I found it very informative to read the article by Gregory Camilli, Sakako Vargas, and Michele Yurecko, but not to take from it the lessons that the authors offered. They chose to focus on how their results differed from those of the NRP. Just as easily, and perhaps more usefully, they might have framed their findings to highlight the consistency between the two sets of results. I was impressed with the fact that Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko and the NRP approached the evidence differently -- most notably by focusing on different comparison groups to test the effect of phonics and by using different effect size weighting schemes -- but came to similar conclusions. In particular, I think both sets of research synthesists would agree with the following findings of the research: * the advantage of instructional approaches that include systematic phonics over instructional approaches that include some or no phonics is statistically significant; * however, instructional approaches that include systemic phonics instruction show their greatest advantage in the early primary grades; and * instruction in systematic phonics should be integrated with other types of reading instruction to create a balanced reading program, for phonics instruction is never a complete reading program. The research literature examined by Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko has been disassembled and reassembled, trashed and praised, pushed to the left, and tugged to the right. Yet it seems to me that neither side has been able to make these three findings go away. What do these results mean to school superintendents and principals? If I were the superintendent of a school district using a reading approach that did not include teaching systematic phonics in early grades or if my district's approach used phonics only, I would find out how much money I could get for our teaching materials on eBay. Then again, maybe I would just hold onto our stuff and purchase the appropriate complementary materials. Why did Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko seem so focused on their differences with the NRP rather than their agreements? Although they labeled themselves agnostic in the Wars, we know that there are no agnostics (or atheists) in a foxhole. Making such a claim challenges readers to search for where the authors' hidden theory creeps in. Rather than claim neutrality, it is most helpful to users of research syntheses -- indeed of any research -- when the authors try to interpret the results from multiple points of view. Imagine the familiar eight- ounce water glass. As a researcher, I may be able to estimate that the glass contains four ounces of water. I may use multiple techniques to arrive at this conclusion, and the conclusion might even be the average of several estimation procedures. …

Supporting Children with Learning Disabilities

This paper presents a prevention model for supporting children with learning disabilities. The model holds that children can be identified as at-risk for learning disabilities by identifying and supporting potential academic failure early in their elementary years. A prevention model includes two elements, identification and instruction. Identification entails recognizing those children at-risk for poor achievement in the early primary grades. The second component of the model is to implement a program of effective instruction that focuses on the explicit teaching of phonological processing skills and eventually, teaching these skills in context. Early effective instruction will create an environment that enables children with learning disabilities to experience success. Early success for children who may be at-risk for many years of struggle and frustration cannot be underestimated. Enabling success at an early age creates a positive cycle where efficacy and motivation is fostered in turn alleviating the academic and psychosocial stresses and challenges often associated with learning disabilities.

Constructivist Early Education for Moral Development

In this article, we examine the role constructivist teachers play in fostering moral development in young children. Drawing on Piaget's theory and related empirical research, we trace the development of perspective-taking, autonomy, and self-regulation, and examine the effects of different teaching and parenting practices on children's moral development. We then provide examples of autonomous moral reasoning and behavior in preschool and early primary grade children, and describe how teachers can promote optimal moral development through establishing a sociomoral atmosphere in which mutual respect is continually practiced.

Reading after closed head injury in childhood: Effects on accuracy, fluency, and comprehension

Two studies of reading decoding, reading fluency, and reading comprehension after childhood head injury are reported. Study 1 tested whether age at head injury and the type of contusional brain damage were related to reading outcomes. Fifty-five children with head injuries were tested on measures of word decoding accuracy and reading comprehension. Children who sustained head injuries in the preschool years before basic word decoding skills are acquired or in the early primary grades when decoding skills are being taught, and children with bilateral or left-sided contusions were most at risk for difficulties in acquiring basic word decoding and reading comprehension skills. In particular, children injured before 61/2 years of age were most at risk for difficulties in acquiring reading decoding skills in comparison to children injured after this age. Study 2 tested whether deficits in processing speed after head injury are also found in reading. Forty-three head-injured children were matched with controls on a pair-by-pair basis for age, grade, and word decoding accuracy. The children with head injuries were slower at naming words, particularly those with less common orthographic patterns, although the groups did not differ on speeded naming of pronounceable nonwords. Reading fluency in the head-injured group was related to reading comprehension, suggesting that slow word-level processing has negative consequences for text comprehension in these individuals. The results are discussed with respect to how head injuries affect the development of skills yet to be acquired and the further acquisition of those skills that are in a rapid phase of development at time of injury. The results are also discussed with reference to models of how head injury affects speeded processing.

Emerging Cognitive Skills for Writing: Sensitivity to Audience Presence in Five-Through Nine-Year-Olds' Speech

A prevailing claim in frequently cited writing research is that children in the early primary grades cannot modify their speech to be verbally informative for an audience that they cannot see or hear. In this study, I test that claim. Ten children between 5 and 9 years old taught 5 magic tricks to absent and present peers through tape-recorded and face-to-face instructions. Children's informative, descriptive, and persuasive speech was compared for absent and present peers, and effects of age, practice, and trick length were assessed. When dictating their instructions for an absent peer, children used morn descriptive words and phrases, talked about more steps, and listed the materials needed for the tricks. However, children were less likely to remark about their absent peer's attitudes or explain for absent peers why steps had to be done in a certain way. These results reveal skills for informative and expository writing—a task that permeates schoolwork—that primary school teachers can build on in young children.

Preschool behavior and first-grade school achievement: The mediational role of cognitive self-control.

Universit6 du Qutbec h Montrtal The purpose of this study was to test a model of school achievement that included children's intellectual abilities, preschool behavior, and cognitive self-control. It suggested that teacher-rated preschool behavior such as aggressive, anxious-withdrawn, and prosocial behaviors influence cognitive self-control, which in turn positively determines school achievement at the end of first grade (when controlling for intellectual abilities). Participants were 291 kindergarten children. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that all hypothesized path models were significant, except the one between anxious-withdrawn behavior and cognitive self-control. A second model was thus specified in which a path between anxious-withdrawn behavior and school achievement was estimated. The second model offered a better representation of the sample data (comparative fit index = .99, normormed fit index = .98), ×2(19, N = 286) = 29.43, p > .05, and the path between anxious-withdrawn behavior and school achievement was found significant. The role of preschool behavior and cognitive self-control in first-grade school achievement is discussed. There is a consensus that children's successful school transition from kindergarten to the first grade is particularly important because children's grades in the first years of school substantially affect subsequent achievement trajecto- ries (e.g., Alexander & Entwisle, 1988; Alexander, Entwisle, & Dauber, 1993; Ensminger & Slusarick, 1992; Reynolds & Bezrucko, 1993; Willms & Jacobsen, 1990). Moreover, children's poor school achievement may constitute a risk factor for mental health difficulties in later childhood or adolescence (e.g., Feldman & Wentzel, 1990; Tremblay et al., 1992) and in adulthood (Caspi, Elder, B Kazdin, 1985). Therefore, a quintessential research problem exists in identifying specific processes that could impair or facilitate children's academic performance during the first years of schooling. Particular attention has been given to the influence of the family processes (e.g., the affective climate, the cognitive stimulation, the quality of the parent-child interaction, parental involvement) and characteristics (e.g., socioeco- nomic level) on school achievement (Crane, 1996; Gorges & Elliott, 1995; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Pianta & Harbers, 1996). Children's school experience with peers and their Sylvie Normandeau, ,5.cole de Psychotducation, Universit6 de Montrtal; Frtdtric Guay, Dtpartement de Psychologic, Universit6 du Qutbec h Montrtal. This research was supported by grants from Le Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l'Aide ~t la Recherche (FCAR- Qutbec) and the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and also by a doctoral fellowship from SSHRC. We thank the children and teachers who so kindly participated in this study. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sylvie Normandeau, Ecole de Psychotducation, Universit6 de Montrtal, P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre-ville, Montrtal, Qu6- bee, H3C 3J7, Canada. Electronic mail may be sent to normande@ere.umontreal.ca. engagement in the school as well as their school-related behavior, such as their motivation or beliefs about them- selves, have been considered in studies of middle-school children or adolescents (e.g., Beyer, 1995; Gottfried, Flem- ing, & Gottfried, 1994; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Wentzel, 1991, 1993; Wentzel, Feldman, & Weinberger, 1991; Wentzel, Weinberger, Ford, & Feldman, 1990). Among the processes that have been associated with school achieve- ment, children's ability to engage in self-control (Kendall, 1993) is of particular importance during the early grades. Indeed, children's ability to concentrate on a task and to participate in the academic routine are determinants of their school achievement (Alexander et al., 1993). Such behavior during the early primary grades enhances learning opportu- nities and contributes favorably to school achievement. Therefore, it is important to focus on processes such as children's ability to engage in cognitive self-control in a learning situation. Cognitive serf-control abilities, along with self-efficacy perception and commitment to academic goals, are a key element involved in children's serf-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 1989, 1990). The current prospective study was undertaken to assess the interplay between children's behavioral characteristics and their ability to engage in cognitive self-control as predictors of their school achievement in first grade. Some limits identified in previous studies led us to consider the mediating role of children's cognitive self-control between their behavioral characteristics in kindergarten and their school performance in first grade. First, little is known about specific processes that could play a mediating role between children's preschool behav- ioral characteristics and later school achievement (Belsky & MacKinnon, 1994). Second, most of the studies that have considered the association between children's behavioral characteristics (anxious-depressive, aggressive, or prosocial 111

How are living things alike and different? First graders' knowledge of basic life science concepts

Children's abilities to compare living things, and to articulate their fundamental properties (eating, breathing, etc.), were assessed. Forty first-grade children were asked to identify similarities and differences among pairs of different organisms (bears, trees, frogs, fish, and ants). Results indicated that: (a) children were consistently more able to generate differences than similarities; and (b) they used the same superficial properties (size, colour, etc.) as a basis for both types of judgment. While the fundamental properties of living things were used by some children as a basis for similarity judgements, these properties were inconsistently applied across different types of organisms. Implications for life sciences curricula in the early primary grades are discussed.

Cost Effective Approaches to Identifying Developmental Delay in 4- to 7-Year-Old Children

Recent enactment of public laws have mandated early identification of children at risk for delayed development. Several complex assessment batteries have demonstrated satisfactory predictive and classificatory accuracy when biomedical and social-environmental measures obtained in infancy are used as predictors of later IQ scores. Yet, these complex batteries are too costly for wide- spread adoption. The present study examined the effectiveness of smaller sets of predictor variables for correctly identifying children as developmentally delayed at four through seven years of age. The results show that a combination of six biomedical risk items, maternal education level, and four subscale scores from the HOME scale are effective when used as a screening battery across a four year period. The practical implications are for this battery to be used to screen children in the preschool period for developmental delay in the early primary grades.

Creating Successful Schools for All Children: A Proven Step

Research on class size in early primary grades (K-3) is showing the efficacy of small classes (p  .01) of 1:15. Application of these early experimental results in 17 poor counties was followed by a major rise in the average rank of the 17 systems among the state's system. Additional studies show the lasting benefits to pupils through grade 5 of having been in 1:15 classes during K-3. Professors should disseminate these results, and administrators should actively apply these—and other—research results in their quest for successful schools for all children.

An educational therapy perspective

Preparing to dial effectively with the challenging behaviour of some children in early primary grades requires a re‐examination of the notion of “support”. Joint problem solving is seen as an aspect of practice which permits class teachers to develop effective ownership of solutions to problematic behaviour.

Narrative rationality and “first stories”: Pedagogical implications for children's television

This essay explores the implications of the inter‐relationships that exist among the narrative paradigm, children's television, media deregulation, epistemology, and education. Particular attention is paid to the concept of narrative fidelity and the impact of television's “first stories” upon the evolution of that concept in children. Specific implications and recommendations for the preschool and early primary grades are addressed.

Marks and classroom adjustment as early indicators of mental health at age twenty.

The data are derived from a 15-year longitudinal study of 659 urban children who entered kindergarten in 1968, 371 who were interviewed at the age of 20. Analyses related school adjustment and academic performance in the early primary grades, early adolescence, and middle adolescence to mental health outcomes based on responses to a short form of the MMPI at age 20. The results suggest that poor marks, absence of positive coping behaviors, and presence of negative coping behaviors are indicators of later mental health problems, that the absence of positive coping behaviors may be more indicative of later problems than the presence of negative coping behaviors, and that there are sex differences in the time periods at which indicators of school productivity are important.