Literacy Goals Research Articles

Treasure by M. K. Doman

Doman, Mary Kate. Treasure. Costa Mesa: Saddleback, 2013. Print.Treasure, one installment from The Heights series, is the story of Todd Bardo Jr., a junior at Penn State and his adventure diving for treasure off the shore of Ecuador. As a thank you for his work with the poor in that country, Todd’s father, a prominent and respected doctor, was awarded salvage rights to five miles of the reef by the Ecuadorian government. Todd inherits the salvage rights at his father’s death, and needs to complete the dive before his rights expire. With the help of a diving team headed by his best friend’s father, he and his team attempt the impossible – to find and claim treasure from a sunken ship. With her audience in mind, Doman has woven an adventure story driven by plot, dialogue, and simple language. This high-interest low-vocabulary book introduces readers to the country of Ecuador and its colourful history. Through Todd’s eyes we experience the excitement of organizing a treasure dive and some of its challenges. Will Todd find enough money to fund the expedition? Will his ship be targeted by thieves? Will his team be attacked by sharks? Ultimately, will he succeed and find a treasure?Students who appreciate simpler text and an exciting plot will enjoy this read. The resolution of some conflicts seems a bit convenient, but certainly keeps the story moving. The interest level is grade 5 to 8; the reading level is grade 1 to 2. This book is available at Saddleback Educational Publishing.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Anita HammondAnita Hammond taught English Language Arts and music with Regina Catholic Schools for eleven years. Currently, as a full-time mother, she has returned to Education studies at the University of Alberta in the Masters of Education program specializing in teacher-librarian studies. She has enjoyed the opportunity to read numerous high-interest low-vocabulary titles, and hopes to share these titles and others with colleagues and students to support literacy goals.

App-tivate Your Social Skills Groups

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderApp-titude1 Apr 2015App-tivate Your Social Skills GroupsDownload these apps for a more visual, interactive conversation-building session with students. Sean J. SweeneyMA, CCC-SLP Sean J. Sweeney Google Scholar More articles by this author , MA, CCC-SLP https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.APP.20042015.40 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Listening. Taking turns. Responding flexibly. These are obvious targets of social intervention with children on the spectrum. We want to get kids talking and sharing cooperatively—and the good news is that many apps offer visual and interactive materials to help. Several of them stand out as social-skills stars. For reading. The Epic! app provides a free electronic books portal to educators (available on iOS; sign up for an educator account), offering picture books that can prompt discussion of social behaviors. E-books help build students’ conversational language, address literacy goals and reduce time spent collecting materials. As speech-language pathologists know, book discussion requires the key conversational skills of listening, responding to questions, storytelling and generating comments. Book contexts can also relate directly to social concepts, such as those imparted in the Social Thinking® methodology (based on the work of Michelle Garcia Winner, see www.socialthinking.com for many books and free resources) and tools such as The Incredible 5-Point Scale. For watching. Videos present similar social contexts, and movie-watching—however brief—is always a hit with students. Guided by the interests of your age group, locate videos from Sesame Street, My Little Pony or even TV commercials that demonstrate positive or negative social interactions for modeling and discussion. You can find a huge range of options by searching for videos on the Pinterest app (free for multiple platforms). Playing from the app eliminates the distractions of related video choices in the YouTube app. For taking turns. Sharing an iPad among students helps them develop skills of turn-taking, negotiation, awareness of time and collaboration within group goals and play. Consider open-ended “sandbox” apps as a way to develop narrative play and other skills. Apps such as Toca Town, suitable for elementary-age groups ($2.99 across multiple platforms), present different environments in which students can move characters, all while assuming cooperative roles. In Toca Town, users can interact with a world of cartoon characters across settings, including a park, restaurant and grocery store—useful for role-playing in varied situations. For gaming. The key to using game-based apps within groups is pace. Games that are flexibly paced and lack time-sensitive moves allow clinicians to control turns and pull the iPad back to scaffold interaction and problem-solving among students. Under these conditions, you can use even the ever-developing series of Angry Birds games ($2.99 for multiple platforms) to initiate group plans and strategize while using language for interaction. Discuss emotions using the context of the game and use complementary activities such as hands-on games, the wordless Angry Birds Toons videos, and crafting. Additionally, check out the work of SLP Tara Roehl on addressing social and executive functioning through game contexts such as Angry Birds. For creating. LEGO offers a series of free apps with creation features that you can use in group projects involving—just for example—art, crafts or cooking. With LEGO Movie Maker (free for iOS), kids can work together to create simple stop-motion animation, using figurines and playsets, to demonstrate body language and other communication skills. LEGO Friends Story Maker (free for iOS, Android) is easily employed as a cooperative activity, allowing students to visualize communication within scenes using word and thought balloons. Check out Comics Head Lite (free for iOS, Android) for similar activities. Author Notes Sean J. Sweeney, MA, CCC-SLP, is a private practitioner and middle school instructional technology specialist in Newton, Massachusetts. His blog, SpeechTechie (www.speechtechie.com), looks at technology “through a language lens.” [email protected] Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 20Issue 4April 2015 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Apr 1, 2015 Metrics Current downloads: 765 Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2015 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

CHALLENGE AND CHANGE IN SCHOLASTIC JOURNALISM AS RELATED TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

Changing notions of literacy impact and complicate ways in which English language arts educators adapt curriculum in meaningful ways for students. In this paper, I position scholastic journalism as authentic, 21st
 It is a wintery Saturday morning and a small group of student writers and editors wait outside Publications Room 70 eager for me to unlock the school door. The group is ready to work. They
 century ELA coursework. I provide an historical overview of scholastic journalism. I emphasize impacts of media law, emergent technologies, and redesigned school literacy goals to the ways in which scholastic journalism negotiates acceptance within ELA curriculum.

The analysis of the changes in integration of nature of science into Turkish high school chemistry textbooks: is there any development?

To attain the goal of scientific literacy, the nature of science (NOS) is one of the areas that should be addressed. In many countries, the training of scientifically literate generations is a fundamental aim of science education, as a result there is an emphasis on NOS in science curricula and curricular materials. Textbooks prepared to teach curricula should incorporate aspects of NOS for all grades. In Turkey, the secondary science curricula were reformed in 2013. In this document analysis, aspects of NOS were included, the approach adopted for integrating aspects of NOS (i.e., explicit-reflective, implicit, and historical), and content-embeddedness of integration were analyzed in the reform-based and old high school chemistry textbooks published and provided by the National Ministry of Education. The results revealed that from the 9th to the 12th grade, the number of NOS aspects mentioned in the textbooks decreased. The most frequently cited aspects were the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, the empirical basis of science, and the difference between observation and inference. However, models in science, creativity and imagination were NOS aspects that were overlooked. Regarding the approach, contrary to the suggestion of the literature, the implicit approach was employed frequently. Finally, NOS aspects were provided in a content-embedded way in the 9th and 10th grades whereas they were presented mostly in a content-generic way in the 12th grade. Only the 9th grade textbook provided two NOS activities for teaching NOS. Although some changes have been made regarding teaching NOS, some important parts are missing. In light of the results, we suggest that all NOS aspects should be integrated into textbooks in an explicit-reflective way. Additionally, for teaching NOS, explicit-reflective activities should be offered in textbooks.

Fostering Scientific Literacy and Critical Thinking in Elementary Science Education

Scientific literacy (SL) and critical thinking (CT) are key components of science education aiming to prepare students to think and to function as responsible citizens in a world increasingly affected by science and technology (S&T). Therefore, students should be given opportunities in their science classes to be engaged in learning experiences that promote SL and CT, which may trigger the need to build and develop knowledge, attitudes/values, thinking abilities, and standards/criteria in an integrated way, resulting in their ability to know how to take responsible action in contexts and situations of personal and social relevance. This paper reports on a study to design, implement, and assess science learning experiences focused on CT toward SL goal. Results support the conclusion that the learning experiences developed and implemented in a grade 6 science classroom had a significant influence on the students’ CT and SL. Within this elementary school context, the theoretical framework used appears to be a relevant and practical aid for developing learning experiences that promote CT/SL and in supporting teaching practices that are more in line with the goals of critical scientific literacy.

Fostering Disciplinary Literacy? South African Physics Lecturers' Educational Responses to their Students' Lack of Representational Competence

Recently, the South African Institute of Physics undertook a major review of university physics education. The report highlighted the necessity for further transformation of the teaching of physics, particularly in relation to the teaching of under-prepared students. In this article we examine how physics lecturers in South Africa reported how they respond to the teaching challenges that they face in terms of representational competence. We argue that the goal of any undergraduate degree is the production of disciplinary literate graduates, where disciplinary literacy refers to the ability to competently deal with the various representational formats used within the discipline. For physics the development of disciplinary literacy involves competence in a wide range of representations, such as written and oral languages, diagrams, graphs, mathematics, apparatus and simulations. Our interest in this study was the way in which individual physics lecturers described how they deal with their students' lack of representational competence. To this end, we interviewed 20 physics lecturers from five purposefully selected representative South African universities about their students' lack of representational competence and the educational strategies they use for dealing with this problem. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed for potential patterns. Iterative, interpretive analysis resulted in the identification of six qualitatively different response strategies that South African physics lecturers indicate they invoke to deal with their students' lack of representational competence. We suggest that an understanding of this range of possible response strategies will allow physics lecturers to better understand their own responses and those of their peers, and that this, in turn, may lead to changes in educational practice. Based on the differences in individual response strategies that we find, we further argue that inter- and intra-faculty discussions about undergraduate disciplinary literacy goals have the distinct potential for reforming South African undergraduate physics. Here, we suggest that the disciplinary literacy discussion matrix that we used to initiate dialogue in our interviews may also double as a useful starting point for such faculty discussions.

Critical Literature Pedagogy

This article introduces Critical Literature Pedagogy (CLP), a pedagogical framework for applying goals of critical literacy within the context of teaching canonical literature. Critical literacies encompass skills and dispositions to understand, question, and critique ideological messages of texts; because canonical literature is often taken-for-granted as conveying literary merit or cultural value, it offers apposite opportunity to engage students with critical literacies. Using Of Mice and Men as an example, this article illustrates how literacy educators can use CLP to teach their students to examine how canonical texts are embedded in and shaped by ideologies.

K-5 Literacy Education: A Comparison between American Common Core State Standards and Chinese National Curriculum Standards

Literacy education is the most important part in school education and its efficiency determines the students’ achievements in their future education and career. In 2010, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were released, which aimed to provide common standards for K-12 public school students in the whole country to improve the educational quality in the U. S. The goals of language literacy in CCSS were illustrated from four dimensions: standards for reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language, which was from the micro-perspective of language learning. In CCSS, English Language Arts Reading is emphasized and the teaching aims, teaching contents, language skills, and the function of new technology was proposed to guarantee the quality of the literacy education. In 2011, Chinese National Curriculum Standards (NCS) was released. The goal of NCS for language learning was designed based on three dimensions: knowledge and ability, process and methods, and emotion, attitude, and values, which was from the macro-perspective of language learning. This paper introduced the background of the implementation of the two curriculums, compared the components and goals between the American CCSS and Chinese NCS, as well as the characteristics of each curriculum to try to find out the implications for each other.

Reading Thematically Related Texts to Develop Knowledge and Comprehension

When literacy instruction uses books selected on the basis of thematic content, it can foster the attainment of literacy goals while developing readers’ knowledge. This paper provides a rationale for the use of thematically-related texts in literacy instruction and describes some thematic units that have been a part of literacy intervention research with struggling readers. Examples illustrate how to begin with simple texts, read multiple texts on a topic to develop knowledge, include a more challenging, culminating text, and use themes to develop useful genre knowledge. Tips for teachers who wish to develop their own content themes are suggested.

Implementing a disciplinary-literacy curriculum for US history: learning from expert middle school teachers in diverse classrooms

In recent years, educators in the USA have emphasized disciplinary literacy as an essential path forward in cultivating adolescents’ understanding of subject matter in tandem with literacy practices. Yet, this agenda poses challenges to teachers who have been tasked with its implementation. Here, we examine two expert US history teachers’ efforts to implement curriculum that integrates reading, writing and thinking in history with academically diverse eighth graders. We conduct qualitative analyses of teacher observations and interviews as well as student work. This analysis provides insight into several issues that emerge in efforts to teach disciplinary literacy in history classrooms: the nuances of teachers’ use of curriculum materials created by people other than themselves, teachers’ appropriation and adaptation of curriculum materials and teachers’ understanding of curriculum materials and disciplinary literacy goals. We find that teachers’ knowledge of the discipline and attention to students’ ideas allowed them to skillfully adapt the curriculum to better meet students’ needs and push students’ thinking. Orienting teachers toward disciplinary learning, ensuring a foundational understanding of their discipline and providing teachers with tools to teach disciplinary literacy are important steps to help students meet the demands of the disciplinary literacy agenda.

Middle School Assessments that Contribute to Literacy Goals

Assessment in physical education is not new. What is new is a national focus on teacher evaluation systems that include the use of student achievement scores from administered assessments. An additional educational focus is on the implementation of Common Core Learning Standards in all subject areas, including physical education. Physical educators are now being charged with implementing literacy concepts throughout their curricula. Although many effective physical educators have incorporated literacy concepts into their curricula for decades, recent reform efforts have placed the added expectation of documenting student learning in physical education. This article presents examples of field-tested middle school assessments that could be used in teacher evaluation systems to show student learning. The assessments presented can also be used as viable, realistic, and authentic evaluations in physical education that contribute to literacy goals associated with the Common Core Learning Standards.

Challenges Facing the Sustainability of Adult and Continuing Education Programmes in Kenya

Generally, not much research has been done in the area of Adult and Continuing Education Programmes (ACE) programmes in Kenya just as in other parts of the world. According to (Carron, 1990) Adult literacy has been a neglected area in terms of data collection and research, so much that finding even precise information about simple facts like the number of enrolled adults or instructors has been difficult in most cases. The few studies done however, indicate a lack of genuine commitment and seriousness in the recognition and actual implementation of the programmes to the extent they are not achieving the goal of adult literacy. This spaper therefore seeks to discuss the challenges facing the sustainability of the ACE programmes in Kenya. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n5p159

Kindergarten teachers' literacy beliefs and self-reported practices: On the heels of a new national literacy curriculum

This study took place six years after the introduction of a national early literacy curriculum in Israel. We compared the beliefs of kindergarten teachers on the importance of literacy goals with their perception of parents' and the educational system's beliefs. We examined teachers' self-reported practices and how these practices changed with the curriculum adoption. Teachers (N = 120) responded to a closed questionnaire, and 12 of them were interviewed. Incongruence emerged between teachers' own beliefs and the beliefs they attributed to others. This incongruence facilitates understanding of the rationales for their practices and their relationships with parents and professional partners.

Comic Strip Videos

This article describes a pilot of an intervention strategy that combined established evidence from the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) with evidence from other fields along with clinician experience to provide a pivotal learning experience that addressed reading comprehension along with social communication skills. The intervention strategy coined “comic strip videos” used speech and thought bubbles in comic strip form followed by video supported self-management. The comic strip format was used much like a storyboard to show the overall outline of the story designed to help the students to focus on important information. The speech and thought bubbles were utilized to help the students gain character perspective and social information. Finally, a video of the students acting out the story was intended to support the development self-management of social communication skills. The intervention addressed a combination of literacy and social communication goals in a single process.

Physicians’ Roles in Creating Health Literate Organizations: A Call to Action

Physicians’ Roles in Creating Health Literate Organizations: A Call to Action

Disciplinary differences in the use of English in higher education: reflections on recent language policy developments

In post-Bologna Europe, there has been a noticeable increase in English-medium instruction. In this article we take the case of Sweden as an illustrative example of the wider disciplinary issues involved in changing the teaching language in this way. By 2008 the use of English in Swedish higher education had risen to such an extent that it had to be regulated at the governmental level and through university language policies. Such policies have attempted to provide generalised pragmatic guidelines for language use across educational programmes. In this paper we argue that such general policies fail to take into consideration fundamental disciplinary differences and their potential impact on language use. We present a theoretical argument about the knowledge structures of disciplines, relating these to the disciplinary literacy goals of educational programmes. We then illustrate our argument using data from an extensive survey carried out at a major Swedish university. We conclude that the disciplinary variation in the use of English can be seen as a product of different knowledge-making practices and educational goals. This conclusion problematises “one-size-fits-all” language policies which only deal with general features of language use and do not allow for discipline-specific adjustments.

Correlation between MCAT Biology Content Specifications and Topic Scope and Sequence of General Education College Biology Textbooks

Most American colleges and universities offer gateway biology courses to meet the needs of three undergraduate audiences: biology and related science majors, many of whom will become biomedical researchers; premedical students meeting medical school requirements and preparing for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT); and students completing general education (GE) graduation requirements. Biology textbooks for these three audiences present a topic scope and sequence that correlates with the topic scope and importance ratings of the biology content specifications for the MCAT regardless of the intended audience. Texts for "nonmajors," GE courses appear derived directly from their publisher's majors text. Topic scope and sequence of GE texts reflect those of "their" majors text and, indirectly, the MCAT. MCAT term density of GE texts equals or exceeds that of their corresponding majors text. Most American universities require a GE curriculum to promote a core level of academic understanding among their graduates. This includes civic scientific literacy, recognized as an essential competence for the development of public policies in an increasingly scientific and technological world. Deriving GE biology and related science texts from majors texts designed to meet very different learning objectives may defeat the scientific literacy goals of most schools' GE curricula.

Instruction Coordinators and Higher Education Accreditation: A Study of Awareness and Assessment Documentation Use

This study gauges instruction and information literacy coordinators' awareness of higher education accreditation processes at their institutions and provides a picture of how coordinators use assessment documentation produced by units external to the library. The study took the form of a survey sent to a random sample of instruction coordinators and information literacy librarians stratified by regional accrediting body. Results showed that instruction coordinators generally are aware of accreditation processes but that only about half use documentation relating to student learning assessment, which may include written student learning outcomes at the institution, program, or course level, plans for assessing learning outcomes, and reports on assessment activities and results, to further their information literacy goals. Accreditation awareness is influenced by time in position, time in the profession, and, to some extent, regional accreditor. Use of and considered importance of assessment documentation is influenced by size of institution, regional accreditor, and, to some extent, time in position. Suggestions for increasing awareness and use of documentation include introducing the accreditation process to new librarians in library school, encouraging contribution of experiences with assessment documentation to the literature and regional conferences, and advocating for instruction coordinators to serve on campus assessment committees.

Using Harry Potter to teach literacy: different approaches

The ubiquity of the Harry Potter phenomenon offers an opportunity to examine the different ways educators use popular books to teach reading. This study analyses a number of journal articles that address the Harry Potter novels as tools for the classroom. These articles show a great diversity of approaches. Government testing of discrete, assessable skills can dominate contemporary discussions of literacy, and the Harry Potter books are sometimes used to address these targets. Other educators use Harry Potter to teach children about multimedia technologies. Most often, educators who embrace the Harry Potter novels affirm the value of reading for pleasure. This view often also promotes reading as a route to the critical literacy goal of social inclusion and the psychological development of the child. Taken together, these uses of Harry Potter present a confused picture, with no clear agreement on what good reading is or how it should be taught.

The learning continuum: economical best practices for implementing and achieving a community’s information literacy goals

Information literacy is a driving force in the field of librarianship, however, the often underestimated complexity of the concept, the primary focus on academic libraries, the intricacies involved with transliteracies, and the obstacles associated with technology make it difficult to establish a strategy for meeting a community’s information literacy needs. Budget cuts have especially impacted public library programming, pushing information literacy goals further out of reach. Faced with this adversity, Lancashire Library Service partnered with Credo to enhance their current information literacy plan, which yielded immediate results and provides a blueprint that public libraries may follow to achieve similar goals.