Literacy Tasks Research Articles

Analysis of Primary Students’ Spatial Literacy on Reasoning

Spatial thinking is critical to mathematical thinking and achievement, important not only in mathematics learning and but also important in education research. In order to have similar opportunity in supporting primary students’ spatial literacy on reasoning, it needs a clearer picture of primary students’ spatial literacy on reasoning in solving Mathematical Literacy Tasks (MLT) as the aim of this study. The characteristic of MLT satisfies the PISA framework and considering Context, Content (shape and space), Process as well as level of problem. Researcher only focuses on three MLT problems. The result is about description of analyzing three participants’ solution of MLT based on how they use kinds of spatial literacy on reasoning strategies. Dimensional reasoning is effective but the students didn’t use it often, the students seem like unfamiliar with these strategies. The responses suggest that because of the teacher didn’t use dimensional strategies in the class, so the student commonly didn’t use it often. Therefore, students need experiences that supporting their reasoning of spatial objects and its relationship and teacher can help students by using learning models, methods, or strategies in the class so their mathematical literacy (spatial literacy on reasoning) better than before.

Is there a gender gap? A meta-analysis of the gender differences in students' ICT literacy

The study of gender differences in academic achievement has been one of the core topics in education, especially because it may uncover possible gaps and inequalities in certain domains. Whereas these differences have largely been examined in traditional domains, such as mathematics, reading, and science, the existing body of empirical studies in the domain of ICT literacy is considerably smaller, yet abounds in diverse findings. One of the persistent findings however is that boys consider their ICT literacy to be higher than that of girls. This meta-analysis tests whether the same pattern holds for students’ actual performance on ICT literacy tasks, as measured by performance-based assessments. In total, 46 effect sizes were extracted from 23 empirical studies using a random-effects model. Overall, the gender differences in ICT literacy were significant, positive, and favored girls (g = + 0.12, 95 % CI = [0.08, 0.16]). This effect varied between studies, and moderation analyses indicated that the grade level students were taught at moderated its magnitude—effect sizes were larger in primary school as compared to secondary school. In conclusion, our findings contrast those obtained from previous meta-analyses that were based on self-reported ICT literacy and suggest that the ICT gender gap may not be as severe as it had been claimed to be.

Making us proud: young children engaging with schooled literacy discourses

ABSTRACTThis article takes a Literacy as a Social Practice approach to explore the ways in which a class of five- to six-year-old children in a London primary school accounted for the operation of schooled discourses of literacy. It presents data from an ethnographic study which suggests that the children made demonstrations of practices expected by schooling to teaching adults in the classroom, but placed less emphasis on demonstrating other practices that, whilst helpful, did not align with schooled expectations for how children should practise literacy. This suggests that the children worked within the constraints of schooled literacy, whilst maintaining their own beliefs about how best to engage with schooled literacy tasks. An implication here is that the emphasis of schooling on ensuring children meet adult expectations may restrict educators’ view of the complexity of young children’s in-school literacy practices.

A beginning exploration of text generation abilities in university students with a history of reading difficulties.

There is a fundamental lack of understanding of how university students with a history of reading difficulties perform on various demanding literacy tasks. We compared the text generation skills, measured with timed summary writing and proofreading tasks, of university students with a history of reading difficulties to those of students with no such history. We further examined whether between-group differences in text generation skills remained after controlling for transcription skills (spelling and handwriting fluency), word reading, and reading comprehension. Forty-six university students with a history of reading difficulties were matched on age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence to 46 students without this history. We found that the students with a history of reading difficulties performed poorer on both measures of text generation than students without this history. When differences in transcription skills, word reading, and reading comprehension were controlled, we found that only differences in timed summary writing remained significant. These results suggest that students with a history of reading difficulties experience challenges with specific aspects of text generation that are beyond what one would expect from their difficulties with transcription and word reading. We suggest that, if not addressed, text generation deficits are likely to create obstacles for academic success.

Bias in Physical Educators’ Grading Practices With ELA Literacy

As accountability initiatives in public education such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) begin to gain traction, it is apparent that physical educators must integrate English Language Arts (ELA) literacy tasks into their daily instruction. This study tested whether physical education (PE) teachers have less experience and exhibit bias when grading ELA literacy tasks, compared to non-PE teachers. Participants from this study included 201 teachers from 77 schools in a local region of New York State. Results revealed that approximately 90% of PE teachers reported having little to no experience with grading ELA literacy assignments. In addition, physical educators were significantly more critical than their non-PE counterparts; ELA assignments were judged as being lower quality, being less neat, having poorer sentence structure, and showing less effort. The lack of consistency between PE teachers and non-PE teachers raises questions about validity and whether there is a need for more professional training should the CCSS mandate continue in PE. Subscribe to TPE

Oral Communication Barriers Facing Arab Medical Students

Effective oral communication skills are critical to progress and success in academic and health care environments. As it happens, medical students at the College of Health Sciences in Umm Al Qura University in Saudi Arabia are required to perform various academic oral literacy tasks as preliminary requirement of medical curricula. These tasks include task-based learning/problem-based learning (TBL/PBL) sessions, classroom interaction, group/team work, delivering poster presentations and oral presentations. In order to navigate through these tasks successfully, they heavily depend on their ability to communicate their intended meaning-an opportunity for them to exhibit their proficiency at such tasks. Unfortunately, as these students engage in oral interactions their communication ability and progress in getting through such tasks are hindered by various barriers. This study takes a holistic view of understanding the oral communication barriers facing Arab medical students during their performance in the oral literacy tasks. Four colleges from the College of Health Sciences were chosen as targets for this study. The study adopted a qualitative research design where interviews were used a major tool to collect data from eight current medical students and eight content area professors. Findings reveal that medical students are required to spend significant amounts of time interacting orally with each other as well as with the content area professors during these tasks. It might be argued that success or failure in such tasks depends on the tacit assumption of having good oral communication skills and communicative competence. The students were found to be facing different types of barriers; both Internal and External. The majority of the students were found to have positive attitudes towards the status, prestige and instrumental significance of oral communication skills. However, around one fourth of the students were found to think of English as an alien language and disregarded its instrumental significance.

From the Editors

From the Editors

What really matters: The role of behavioural engagement in multiple document literacy tasks

One‐hundred and twenty‐seven Norwegian upper‐secondary school students completing college preparatory courses (41% female) were asked to select the texts they wanted to use in order to write a letter to the editor about a socio‐scientific topic, with 60 students assigned the topic of climate change and 67 students assigned the topic of nuclear power. Afterwards, they were asked to justify their text selections, read the selected texts and write their letters to the editor. Across both topics, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that students' behavioural engagement in the selection, justification, reading and writing tasks contributed to their performance over and above their reading comprehension, topic knowledge and topic interest. Specifically, behavioural engagement in the selection and justification tasks improved the prediction of their content‐based and source‐feature based justifications for text selection, and behavioural engagement in the reading and writing tasks improved the prediction of the content coverage and content integration observed in their written products, with large effect sizes obtained for behavioural engagement across the two topics. The theoretical and educational significance of the study is discussed and directions for future research are suggested.

Literacy interest, home literacy environment and emergent literacy skills in preschoolers

PurposeChildren's literacy interest is positively associated with their literacy attainments. However, interest in literacy activities, particularly for younger children, is likely influenced by their home literacy environment (HLE), which may also be bound up with socio‐economic factors, such as parental education levels.MethodIn the present study, we examine whether literacy interest, HLE and socio‐economic status (SES) make independent contributions to emergent literacy skills. Fifty‐five preschoolers aged 4 to 5 years completed a self‐report measure of interest in literacy and three emergent literacy tasks. The parents provided information on SES and HLE.ResultsChildren's literacy interest explained nearly 25% of the variance in emergent literacy skills after controlling for HLE and SES (which also made significant contributions).ConclusionsThe findings underscore the importance of literacy interest, independent of HLE and SES, and highlight the role that children themselves play in choosing their literacy environments.

Expanding the Home Numeracy Model to Chilean children: Relations among parental expectations, attitudes, activities, and children’s mathematical outcomes

We used structural equation modeling to evaluate an enhanced version of the Home Numeracy Model proposed by Skwarchuk and colleagues (2014, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 121, 63–84). Participants were 390 Chilean preschool children and their parents. Children completed numeracy and literacy tasks at the beginning of preschool (mean age: 4 years and 7 months) and approximately 8 months later. Parents reported on the home numeracy activities they engaged in with their children, including formal (i.e., mapping and operational), informal (i.e., parents’ number-game knowledge), and home literacy activities (i.e., code-related and meaning-related), as well as on numeracy and literacy attitudes and expectations for children’s performance prior to Grade 1. We found that parents with more positive numeracy attitudes and higher academic expectations reported a higher frequency of formal numeracy (mapping and operational) activities. In turn, formal operational activities predicted number line estimation and applied problem-solving skills. In contrast, informal activities (i.e., parents’ number-game knowledge) predicted children’s non-symbolic arithmetic and non-symbolic number comparison tasks, as well as their applied problem-solving skills. The links between home activities and numeracy outcomes were domain specific: Parents’ reports of literacy activities did not predict early numeracy skills. We discuss how our results support the enhanced Home Numeracy Model and thus provide a more complete framework connecting parents’ engagement in numeracy activities and children’s mathematical outcomes.

Simple and Not-So-Simple Views of Reading

Few hypotheses in the field of literacy have proven as robust as the Simple View of Reading (SVR). Two studies included in this special issue use large participant samples and sophisticated quantitative analyses to confirm the basic claim of the SVR, that decoding and listening comprehension together predict reading comprehension. One also demonstrates a developmental shift from decoding to language as the primary predictor after about Grade 3. A third paper challenges the adequacy of the SVR for older readers, offering evidence that the nature of the text being read also must be taken into account in predicting comprehension outcomes. All three studies, though, use rather simple comprehension outcomes. I argue that reader skills in academic language, in perspective taking, and in argumentation are additional important predictors of comprehension when readers are confronted with 21st century literacy tasks, which require analysis, synthesis, and critique, not just literal inferences and summaries.

Mediation

Mediation

The Effect of Mandatory Iodine Fortification on Cognitive Test Scores in Rural India

This paper is the first to provide evidence of a direct causal impact of iodine fortification in early life on cognitive skills in childhood. I apply a differences-indifferences strategy using exogenous variation from a nationwide iodine fortification policy in India, comparing test scores of school aged children in naturally iodine sufficient and deficient districts over time. I find that the policy increased the probability of attaining basic numeracy and literacy skills by 2.67 - 5.83%. Previous papers find a larger effect on longer term human capital for women. I do not find a gender differential for basic skills but I observe a positive effect on more difficult literacy tasks for girls but not for boys. Additionally, I find that the male treatment effect on basic numeracy vary with district level son preference.

Learning to Read Bilingually Modulates the Manifestations of Dyslexia in Adults

ABSTRACTAccording to the Grain Size Accommodation hypothesis (Lallier & Carreiras, 2017), learning to read in two languages differing in orthographic consistency leads to a cross-linguistic modulation of reading and spelling processes. Here, we test the prediction that bilingualism may influence the manifestations of dyslexia. We compared the deficits of English monolingual and early Welsh–English bilingual dyslexic adults on reading and spelling irregular English words and English-like pseudowords. As predicted, monolinguals were relatively more impaired in reading pseudowords than irregular words, whereas the opposite was true for bilinguals. Moreover, monolinguals showed stronger sublexical processing deficits than bilinguals and were poorer spellers overall. This study shows that early bilingual reading experience has long-lasting effects on the manifestations of dyslexia in adulthood. It demonstrates that learning to read in a consistent language like Welsh in addition to English gives bilingual dyslexic adults an advantage in English literacy tasks strongly relying on phonological processing.

Early Executive Function at Age Two Predicts Emergent Mathematics and Literacy at Age Five.

Previous work has shown that individual differences in executive function (EF) are predictive of academic skills in preschoolers, kindergartners, and older children. Across studies, EF is a stronger predictor of emergent mathematics than literacy. However, research on EF in children below age three is scarce, and it is currently unknown whether EF, as assessed in toddlerhood, predicts emergent academic skills a few years later. This longitudinal study investigates whether early EF, assessed at two years, predicts (emergent) academic skills, at five years. It examines, furthermore, whether early EF is a significantly stronger predictor of emergent mathematics than of emergent literacy, as has been found in previous work on older children. A sample of 552 children was assessed on various EF and EF-precursor tasks at two years. At age five, these children performed several emergent mathematics and literacy tasks. Structural Equation Modeling was used to investigate the relationships between early EF and academic skills, modeled as latent factors. Results showed that early EF at age two was a significant and relatively strong predictor of both emergent mathematics and literacy at age five, after controlling for receptive vocabulary, parental education, and home language. Predictive relations were significantly stronger for mathematics than literacy, but only when a verbal short-term memory measure was left out as an indicator to the latent early EF construct. These findings show that individual differences in emergent academic skills just prior to entry into the formal education system can be traced back to individual differences in early EF in toddlerhood. In addition, these results highlight the importance of task selection when assessing early EF as a predictor of later outcomes, and call for further studies to elucidate the mechanisms through which individual differences in early EF and precursors to EF come about.

Parents' reading history as an indicator of risk for reading difficulties.

Children from families whose members have reading impairments are found to be poorer performers, take less advantage of instruction, and require more time to reach the reading level of children whose relatives are good readers. As a family's reading history may not be available, a self-report of reading abilities is used to identify children's background. In this paper, we explored the contribution of phonological, literacy, and linguistic abilities and reported parental reading abilities to predict reading achievement at the end of the school year in a Spanish sample. Children who were starting to read were assessed in a variety of oral language, phonological, and literacy tasks at the beginning and end of the school year. Parents filled out a self-report questionnaire about their reading abilities. Their answers were used to assign children to good or poor reader parent groups (GRP vs PRP). A logistic and ROC analysis were used to assess the variables' discriminative capability, considering literacy scores at the end of the year as a measure of reading achievement. GRP children obtained higher scores than PRP children did. Performance on tasks of rapid naming assessment (RAN) letters (78.6%), Word Reading (75.7%), and Deletion (75.6%) were the most accurate predictors of children's reading achievement. IPRA showed slightly lower accuracy (73.8) than did the behavioral measures and as high specificity as RAN letters (96.2%), similarly to the percentages found in previous studies. Although behavioral measures were shown as the best predictors, parents' self-reports could also provide a quick estimation of family risk of difficulties in literacy acquisition.

Pilot Testing a Digital Career Literacy Training for Vocational Rehabilitation Professionals

Digital career literacy encompasses the skills needed to find and maintain employment in the modern job market. Unfortunately, many state vocational rehabilitation (VR) professionals report feeling unprepared to help their consumers with digital career literacy tasks. To address this gap, we developed and tested five training webinars with VR professionals in Montana, Alabama, and Washington. We randomly assigned VR offices to intervention or control group. VR professionals in the intervention group received access to the training webinars. We collected survey data at baseline and 4 months after the intervention’s conclusion ( n = 136). A repeated measures ANOVA showed significant group by factor effects in counselor preparedness to use online tools during the VR process (intervention group: M1 = 24.41, SD1 = 7.62; M2 = 28.76, SD2 = 7.27; control group: M1 = 25.94, SD1 = 8.64; M2 = 27.21, SD2 = 9.14); F(1, 124) = 5.957, p = .016. A McNemar nonparametric test indicated that more VR professionals in the intervention group reported using LinkedIn at the 4-month follow-up, as compared with the control group ( p = .039). There were no significant changes in use of other online tools. This may relate to administrative policies that do not provide clear guidelines for using online tools in the counseling process.

Rapid Automatic Naming Performance of Young Spanish–English Speaking Children

The aim of this preliminary study was to examine the feasibility of a rapid automatic naming (RAN) task for young Spanish–English speaking dual language learners (DLLs) and to examine the relationship between children’s performance on RAN and other standardized language and literacy assessments. A total of 275 Spanish–English speaking children in kindergarten and first grade attempted a RAN task and completed assessments of language and early literacy. Correlational analyses and quantile regression was conducted to examine relationships. Overall the RAN task was feasible for 74% (n = 203) of the DLLs; however, 42% of participants in kindergarten were unable to complete the task. There was a moderate positive correlation between RAN performance and standard scores in receptive vocabulary and letter identification, a small positive correlation with non-verbal intelligence, and no significant relationship with phonological awareness. There was a differential relation between RAN and English sentence imitation. The results support further consideration of RAN as a feasible and useful measure for young Spanish–English speaking DLLs.

Implications of Differences and Similarities of Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy

The differences and similarities between the learning areas Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy have been debated. Nine years after the introduction of Mathematical Literacy in South Africa, this debate is still raging. This paper reports on an analysis of teachers’ views on mathematics (M) and Mathematical Literacy (ML) tasks, in some selected schools in Gauteng, South Africa. In this paper, four (M) and four (ML) teachers from four schools, with contrasting backgrounds, were asked to state their views and experiences of M and ML tasks. The findings revealed that no clear distinctions were made between M and ML tasks as seen by teachers who participated in the study. Those tasks, which were part of mathematics, were deemed to emanate from ML papers. Si milarly, tasks that were taken from ML papers were viewed as M tasks. Therefore, the researchers recommend th at, in order to minimise confusion, ML teachers should be adequately trained in the content of Mathematical Literacy in the way Mathemat...

The Effects of a Summary Writing Strategy on the Literacy Skills of Adolescents with Disabilities

ABSTRACTMany adolescents, particularly adolescents with disabilities, have difficulty with literacy tasks such as reading and writing. Yet research has found that when students with disabilities receive appropriate instruction, they typically are able to improve their overall writing outcomes. This study explored the effectiveness of a summary writing strategy taught through a mnemonic device (WINDOW) with prompts for self-regulation on the summary writing and reading comprehension of high school students with disabilities. Results indicated that the students who received the intervention wrote longer and higher quality summaries and improved their reading comprehension scores after learning the strategy when compared to a control group. These outcomes indicate that the WINDOW strategy may have the potential to improve reading and writing outcomes for high school students with disabilities. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.