Children Of Primary Age Research Articles

Promoting language learning in the primary classroom and beyond

The aims of this study were threefold. The first was to identify some of the key methodologies used by teachers to support the language learning of primary-aged children. There is a plethora of literature that discusses various language-teaching methodologies. Whilst educational ‘jargon’ is avoided, there are specific references to academic research and educational terminology that inform and extend the discussion. Every effort is made to link these references to classroom practice. The second aim was to explore how ICT (information and communications technology) can be used to enhance the language skills of primary-aged children. Using ICT is one of three cross-curricular skills that teachers are required to promote as part of the Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007) . The third aim was to evaluate how the use of ICT in primary classrooms enhances the curriculum provided for all the children. In terms of the third aim, the evaluation was based on oral and written feedback from teachers and children, and observations were carried out in classrooms.

Incentives to exclude: the political economy constraining school fee abolition in South Africa

In 2009, the South African Department of Education extended tuition fee abolition to schools serving the poorest 60% of students, increased from 40% in 2007. This policy intends to increase access to and longevity in school for the poorest households by removing fees as a barrier and replacing private revenue with increased state funds. Despite this progressive expansion of fee-free schooling, the reported frequency of non-attendance attributable to school fees increased from 2008 to 2009, particularly among poor females and primary-aged children. This paper attempts to explain this phenomenon by presenting three constraints that hamper the potential benefits of fee abolition: (1) the rationalization of educational expenditures; (2) perverse incentives for schools to exclude non-paying children; and (3) the poor targeting mechanisms of fee abolition and government spending. As a result, we find significant lags in the implementation of fee elimination and that many poor households are still required to pay user fees. Several finance policy options are recommended for the South African schooling system. Data originate from South Africa’s National Treasury and General Household Survey.

Problemas Emocionales y Comportamentales en Niños Adoptados y No Adoptados

The aim of this paper is to determine whether adopted children are more likely to have emotional or behavioral problems than non-adopted children. Emotional and behavioural problems were investigated in a sample of children aged 7 to 16. There were three comparison groups of non-adopted children. The results indicate that adopted children show, on average, more problems of this type than their peers. The biggest problems are expressed by children in residential foster care, with other adopted children in an intermediate position. In addition, in general, boys manifest greater problems than girls; but the problems of adopted girls are greater than would be generally expected for their gender. Finally, there are no differences between children of primary education or secondary education age. Additional research examining the variability in the group of adopted children is warranted.

Children Walking to and from School in Tehran: Associations with Neighbourhood Safety, Parental Concerns and Children's Perceptions

In recent times children are more likely to use motorized transportation modes to go to and from school. This paper focuses on examining the relationship between neighbourhood safety and primary-aged children walking to and from school on their own; across different socio-economic areas in Tehran. Self-reported parental and children surveys and urban design measurements were used to determine the influential neighbourhood safety factors in choosing children's school transportation mode. The results reveal that parents and children with negative perceptions of neighbourhood safety tended to use motor vehicles or to escort their children while walking to and from school.

Do challenge, task experience or computer familiarity influence the learning of historical chronology from virtual environments in 8–9 year old children?

Studies examined the potential use of VEs in teaching historical chronology to 127 children of primary school age (8-9 years). The use of passive fly-through VEs had been found, in an earlier study, to be disadvantageous with this age group when tested for their subsequent ability to place displayed sequential events in correct chronological order. All VEs in the present studies included active challenge, previously shown to enhance learning in older participants. Primary school children in the UK (all frequent computer users) were tested using UK historical materials, but no significant effect was found between three conditions (Paper, PowerPoint and VE) with minimal pre-training. However, excellent (error free) learning occurred when children were allowed greater exploration prior to training in the VE. In Ukraine, with children having much less computer familiarity, training in a VE (depicting Ukrainian history) produced better learning compared to PowerPoint, but no better than in a Paper condition. The results confirmed the benefit of using challenge in a VE with primary age children, but only with adequate prior familiarisation with the medium. Familiarity may reduce working memory load and increase children's spatial memory capacity for acquiring sequential temporal-spatial information from virtual displays.

Introducing a mentor into a children's composition project: Reflections on a process

This article reports on a case study where a professional musician was assigned to a primary school as mentor in a project where 14 primary-aged children, with their teacher's direction, were involved in the composition of a piece of music that would act as prologue to the school's major production. The researchers were interested in aspects of the composition project that appeared to develop student's compositional skills and motivation and how the mentor might exercise his role in the composition project alongside the teacher, who was the school's music specialist. A range of data was analyzed: classroom observations, emails, questionnaires, and one-on-one and focus-group interviews. Findings suggested that the involvement of the mentor was well received by the pupils and that the mentor and teacher complemented one another in their enactment of both pedagogical and compositional roles. Students enjoyed a high sense of success in the production of their composition. Student learning were highly variable and a range of activities and processes was identified by students as contributing to their learning.

The Effect of Availability and Distance to School on Children’s Time Allocation in Ghana and Guatemala

In this paper the author present evidence on the impact of distance to school and school availability on households' decisions concern primary age children's time allocation between work, schooling and household chores activities using data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey 1998-99 (GLSS) and the Guatemalan Living Standards Measurement Survey 2000 (ENCOVI). Overall, the results indicate that the increased and eased access to school has a well-defined impact on children's time use with both similarities and striking dissimilarities between the chosen countries. In particular, in Ghana the availability and the travel distance from schools (both primary and middle) in the community influence children's work in both economic activities and household chores and school attendance. The longer the travel time to school the more difficult is for children to reconcile work and school attendance. In Guatemala, secondary school access constraints have almost no effect on children's time allocation. In addition, reducing the cost of access to primary education has an effect only on children's school attendance but it does reduce neither child work nor time spent in household chores. The results are robust to control for the endogeneity of school placement and per capita expenditures.

Ways of working

Ways of working details the development of workshops for primary age children focusing on the giving and receiving of feedback during selected tasks. This is the first stage in work on peer coaching skills with this age group. The paper discusses the rationale for the chosen tasks and the changes made to the workshops through the experiences with different groups of children. The paper ends with reflections on the process by the researchers from different backgrounds and suggests ways of moving forward with this area.

The role of intergenerational influence in waste education programmes: The THAW project

Whilst the education of young people is often seen as a part of the solution to current environmental problems seeking urgent attention, it is often forgotten that their parents and other household members can also be educated/influenced via home-based educational activities. This paper explores the theory of intergenerational influence in relation to school based waste education. Waste Watch, a UK-based environmental charity ( www.wastewatch.org.uk), has pioneered a model that uses practical activities and whole school involvement to promote school based action on waste. This methodology has been adopted nationally. This paper outlines and evaluates how effective school based waste education is in promoting action at a household level. The paper outlines Waste Watch’s ‘Taking Home Action on Waste (THAW)’ project carried out for two and half years in Rotherham, a town in South Yorkshire, England. The project worked with 6705 primary age children in 39 schools (44% of primary schools in the project area) to enable them to take the “reduce, reuse and recycle message” home to their families and to engage these (i.e. families) in sustainable waste management practices. As well as substantial increases in students’ knowledge and understanding of waste reduction, measurement of the impact of the project in areas around 12 carefully chosen sample schools showed evidence of increased participation in recycling and recycling tonnages as well as declining levels of residual waste. Following delivery of the project in these areas, an average increase of 8.6% was recorded in recycling set out rates which led to a 4.3% increase in paper recycling tonnages and an 8.7% increase in tonnages of cans, glass and textiles collected for recycling. Correspondingly, there was a 4.5% fall in tonnages of residual waste. Waste Watch’s THAW project was the first serious attempt to measure the intergenerational influence of an education programme on behaviour at home (i.e. other than schools’ own waste). It clearly shows that household recycling behaviour can be positively impacted by intergenerational influence via a practical school-based waste education model. However, although the model could potentially have a big impact if rolled out nationally, it will require seed funding and the long-term durability of the model has not yet been fully quantified.

Swallows and Amazons Forever: How Adults and Children Engage in Reading a Classic Text

This qualitative case study explores the nature of reading engagement, taking a reader response approach to analysing and discussing the experiences and perspectives of real readers. The paper reports a collaborative research project in which a group of five primary-age children and a group of five adults of different ages were asked to read and respond to Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. Rather than offering separate models of reading for children and adults, the study focuses on common responses and practices across time and generations. Transcripts of group discussions and individual interviews along with written memories and accounts are examined to generate themes that illuminate the processes of engagement used in reading, or rereading, the novel. Whilst some of these responses demonstrate an active pleasure in reading, there is also evidence that most readers encountered difficulties with Ransome’s text. It is suggested that engagement with a text like Swallows and Amazons relies on three dimensions reflecting a situated reading event: reader identity, immersion, and resilience.

Private tutoring at transition points in the English education system: its nature, extent and purpose

International surveys indicate that the prevalence of private tutoring in England is relatively low but as few national surveys have been undertaken, there is little detailed evidence available. The aim of this research is to provide a systematic description of the nature and extent of private tutoring at three points of transition in the English education system and to explore students' and parents' views of the reasons for its use. Over 3000 students completed a questionnaire survey providing information on the extent of private tutoring in school curriculum subjects, reasons for the employment of tutors and demographic information. Over 1100 parents supplied information on their motivation for employing tutors. At the time of the survey, 7.6% of Year 6 pupils were in receipt of tutoring in mathematics, 8.1% English and 3.2% science. Comparable figures for Year 11 pupils were 7.9% mathematics, 2.6% English and 2.8% science. Overall, 27% of students reported that they had received tutoring at some stage during their school career and there were clear associations with family socio‐economic status and cultural background. Parents employed tutors to increase their child's confidence, improve their understanding of the subject and to help them do well in tests and examinations. Most primary age children indicated that tutors were not needed as their teachers and families provided sufficient educational support. Some families appear to be making strategic use of tutors to help their children make successful transitions in the education system.

High prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and its association with BMI-for-age among primary school children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

BackgroundDeficiencies of micronutrients can affect the growth and development of children. There is increasing evidence of vitamin D deficiency world-wide resulting in nutritional rickets in children and osteoporosis in adulthood. Data on the micronutrient status of children in Malaysia is limited. The aim of this study was to determine the anthropometric and micronutrient status of primary school children in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.MethodsA cross sectional study of primary aged school children was undertaken in 2008. A total of 402 boys and girls aged 7-12 years, attending primary schools in Kuala Lumpur participated in the study. Fasting blood samples were taken to assess vitamin D [as 25(OH)D], vitamin B12, folate, zinc, iron, and ferritin and haemoglobin concentrations. Height-for-age and body mass index for age (BMI-for-age) of the children were computed.ResultsMost of the children had normal height-for-age (96.5%) while slightly over half (58.0%) had normal BMI-for-age. A total of 17.9% were overweight and 16.4% obese. Prevalence of obesity was significantly higher among the boys (25%) than in the girls (9.5%) (χ2 = 22.949; P < .001). Most children had adequate concentrations of haemoglobin, serum ferritin, zinc, folate and vitamin B12. In contrast, 35.3% of the children had serum 25(OH)D concentrations indicative of vitamin D deficiency(≤37.5 nmol/L) and a further 37.1% had insufficiency concentrations (> 37.5-≤50 nmol/L). Among the boys, a significant inverse association was found between serum vitamin D status and BMI-for-age (χ2 = 5.958; P = .016).ConclusionsThis study highlights the presence of a high prevalence of sub-optimal vitamin D status among urban primary school children in a tropical country. In light of the growing problem of obesity in Malaysian children, these findings emphasize the important need for appropriate interventions to address both problems of obesity and poor vitamin D status in children.

The politics of aspiration: neo-liberal education policy, ‘low’ parental aspirations, and primary school Extended Services in disadvantaged communities

Geographical research on education has grown rapidly in both volume and scope during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and one relatively new theme to emerge from this growing literature is that of education and aspiration. Much of the nascent interest in aspiration concerns access to quality schooling and University education. In this paper by contrast we highlight the importance of studying the ways aspirations are (re)produced within the school community. Our empirical focus is on low-income England under New Labour. Here we pursue a two-fold approach: firstly examining how education professionals define parental aspirations for primary-aged children as low; before secondly considering their alternative understandings of appropriate aspirations and the practices through which they seek to promote these, both in school and through the use of Extended Services for parents and children. In conclusion we highlight the importance of inward and outward geographies of education which ‘recouple’ schools with their social context, and discuss the moral and political ambiguities involved in practices designed to raise aspirations.

Challenges for Quality Primary Education in Papua New Guinea—A Case Study

There is an urgent need to reform the educational system to achieve universal primary education in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Even after 35 years of independence, PNG has been struggling to educate an estimated 2 million elementary- and primary-aged children and faces numerous challenges in providing Education for All (EFA). This study was conducted in four primary schools of Buma Yong area of Lae district of Morobe Province, PNG. The study revealed that the quality of education has been deteriorated over the past few decades. Many schools in PNG do not have classrooms, teachers, and basic facilities. As a result, the children are losing interest in going to school. The children dropped out of school so as to assist their families in the household and agricultural activities. It also reveals that the dropout rate of girls is more than that of the boys due to the gender disparity in the country. The study recommended that budgetary allocations should be increased so as to improve the infrastructural facilities and encourage the children to attend primary school and thus achieve the Millennium Development Goal/Education For All in PNG.

Researching the first year of the National Singing Programme Sing Up in England: An initial impact evaluation.

ABSTRACT - The article reports on the first year of an independent evaluation of the National Singing Programme 'Sing Up' (2007-2011) in England. The aim of the Sing Up Programme is to provide all primary-aged children (up to the age of 11 years) with opportunities for singing under high quality vocal leadership both within their school curriculum and outside of school on a regular basis. As part of the evaluation, members of the research team visited 81 schools across England, and assessed the singing behavior and development of 3,762 individual children using the combination of two established rating scales. The focus was on providing an initial profile of children's singing prior to the launch of the National Programme and, subsequently later in the first year, to conduct a small number of additional visits to see if there was any evidence of early impact. The results confirm that children's singing is subject to developmental processes, with variations related to sex, age and ethnicity. There is also some evidence that, notwithstanding such variations, a programme of sustained singing education can have a positive benefit on children's singing behaviors and development. KEYWORDS - children's singing development, Sing Up INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Research suggests that singing behaviors are subject to developmental processes in which individual neuropsychobiological potentiality is shaped (nurtured and/or hindered) by learning experiences within sociocultural contexts (Knight, 2010; Welch, 2007, 2011). Although singing is commonplace, it is also marked by cultural diversity, with development related to opportunity (e.g., Mang, 2007), the prosodie features of indigenous languages (Azechi, 2008), as well as the dominant characteristics of the local musical soundscapes (Welch, 2006a, 2006b, 2011; Welch, Sergeant, & White, 1997). In many parts of the world, the ability to sing is a mark of an individual's underlying musicality (cf. Sloboda, Wise, & Peretz, 2005). Consequently, those individuals whose singing development has been hindered in some way are often labelled (including self-labelled) in some absolutist sense under a bipolar categorization of 'can'/'cannot' sing, with variations in their ascribed musical identity as a 'non-singer', 'tone-deaf', or 'tone-dumb' being found in virtually all cultures. Yet, as mentioned above, contrary evidence from developmental and neurological studies continues to emerge that singing and musical behaviors are context bound and susceptible to improvement with appropriate experience which can be informal as well as formal (e.g., Brown, Martinez, Hodges, Fox, & Parsons, 2004; Dalla Bella, Giguere, & Peretz 2007; Fuchs et al., 2007; Kleber, Veit, Birbaumer, & Lotze, 2007; Koelsch, Fritz, Schulze, Alsop, & Schlaug, 2005; Mang, 2006, 2007; Mithen & Parsons, 2008; Stewart & Williamen, 2008; Welch et al., 2008; see Welch, 2006a for review). Furthermore, the recent wealth of studies into the neurosciences and music (cf. Avanzini, Faienza, Minciacchi, Lopez, & Majno, 2003; Avanzini, Koelsch, Lopez, & Majno, 2005) continue to amass evidence of the multi-sited representation of musical behaviors in various regions of the brain, including singing (Kleber et al., 2007). These and related studies also indicate that there are various other-than-musical benefits that can accrue for the individual from engaging in musical (including singing) activity, such as related to physical and psychological health and well-being (Clift & Hancox, 2001; Clift et al., 2007; Kreutz, Bongard, Rohrmann, Hodapp, & Grebe, 2004; Welch, 2005), social skill development and social inclusion (Odena, 2007; Portowitz, Lichtenstein, Egorova, & Brand, 2009) and cognitive development (Schlaug, Norton, Overy, & Winner, 2005). Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that music is figuring more significantly in the contemporary educational policies of several of the world's governments. …

Healthy homework pilot study: Qualitative findings from a physical activity and nutrition intervention for primary-aged children

Healthy homework pilot study: Qualitative findings from a physical activity and nutrition intervention for primary-aged children

The parenting dimensions of British Pakistani and White mothers of primary school children

AbstractThere is increasing emphasis internationally on the use of parenting programmes to support the development of appropriate social behaviour in children. However, in such programmes diversity is often ignored. Research into the parenting styles and practices (dimensions) of different ethnic groups is needed in order to investigate the applicability of universal programmes, to guide their design and implementation in the future. Thirty‐four British Pakistani and 34 British White mothers of primary aged children, comprising equal numbers of males and females, completed English or Urdu versions of the Parental Dimensions Inventory—Short Version (PDI‐S), (Power, Int. J. Behav. Dev. 67: 302–313) and a child behavioural screening instrument, the SDQ (Goodman, J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 38: 581–586).More similarities than differences between the parenting dimensions of Pakistani and White mothers were found overall. However, compared with White mothers, Pakistani mothers reported more ‘following through on discipline’ as well as ‘reminding’ as a disciplinary action. Further, Pakistani mothers reported following through on discipline more with boys than White mothers did and the more they reported inconsistent parenting, the more their children reportedly had behaviour problems. It is concluded that while these findings provide some support for the cross‐cultural applicability of generic parenting programmes, programme efficacy studies are also needed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

A Multidimensional Analysis of Parent–Child Interactions During Academic Tasks and Their Relationships With Children's Self-Regulated Learning

This study explored the extent to which parents were able to scaffold their children's Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in the context of authentic academic tasks and attempted to identify specific dimensions within the parent–child interaction (socioemotional and instructional) that were related to children's SRL. Fifteen Chilean parents and their underachieving primary-aged children participated in set of six SRL-enhancing activities in the areas of reading comprehension and mathematical problem solving. Individual assessments of children's SRL in the same curriculum areas were carried out before and after these activities. The assessment outcomes revealed that, although at the group level children showed positive changes in some aspects of SRL (metacognitive knowledge and regulation of cognition), individual variation was also noticeable within the group. Children's evidence of SRL during the parent–child activities was related to both social and instructional dimensions of the interaction. SRL posttest outcomes, however, showed stronger associations with instructional behaviors.

Effective learning in science: The use of personal response systems with a wide range of audiences

This paper describes the flexibility of Personal Response Systems (PRSs), (also known as ‘clickers’ or electronic voting systems (EVS)), as part of strategies to support students’ learning in science. Whilst variants of this technology began to appear 12 years ago, there is now a steadily increasing adoption of these systems within higher education, including science programmes, and this use has grown significantly in the last six years. They have previously been shown to offer a measurable learning benefit. Typically, someone at an institution buys these systems for learning support and they never make it out of their cases. Far less work has been done with these systems at school level. In this practitioner based paper, the broad range of practical uses for these systems is described in a variety of formal and informal learning situations – from testing the understanding of science concepts (from primary aged school children up to physics undergraduates), to undertaking evaluation of events as well as public participation in data collection for research on attitudes to careers. In addition, the data collected on such handsets can be mapped to demographic factors such as gender and age yielding further layers of analysis. Overall this is a highly flexible and transferable approach to the use of interactive technology for engaging learners of all ages as well as carrying out research.

The Cultural Politics of Celebrity

[Extract:] Celebrities are a ubiquitous aspect of contemporary Western culture. Although the phenomenon of celebrity itself predates the twentieth century, the rise of the modern mass media – popular newspapers, cinema, radio, and television, and more recently the Internet and other digital communication technologies – has done much to promote and circulate public knowledge of celebrities during the last 100 years. The presence of multi-channel digital television, radio, and the World Wide Web in Western households at the turn of the twenty-first century has not only increased the number of places in which celebrities can be seen and heard, but has also required media producers to compete with each other and with alternative leisure activities for the attention of fragmented audiences, an increasingly precious commodity. The rise of celebrity culture is inextricably linked to developments in media systems that operate within capitalist systems of commodity exchange. Most obviously, celebrities provide a well-proven route to attracting and retaining audiences, helping to offset the risks inherent in cultural production. They also play out a fantasy of the individual simultaneously performing within public and the private spheres. As P. David Marshall neatly puts it, celebrities might be seen as a “production locale for an elaborate discourse on the individual and individuality” (1997: 4). However the ubiquity of celebrity culture does not mean that its considerable diversity can be ignored. A cursory glance through the prime-time television schedules, for instance, reveals how one might choose between shows featuring celebrity hosts and guests, contest-based reality television shows that participate in the construction of celebrity, personality driven lifestyle programming, sports shows featuring star athletes and commentators, and even political shows with celebrity journalists. All of this is indicative not just of the pervasiveness of modern celebrity culture but also its diversity and breadth.