Primary Grade Children Research Articles

Sustaining Resilient Families for Children in Primary Grades

(2007). Sustaining Resilient Families for Children in Primary Grades. Childhood Education: Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 2-7.

Getting the “Most Bang for Your Buck”

The purpose of this investigation was to compare instructional effectiveness and efficiency among the use of phonic analysis, incremental rehearsal, and traditional drill and practice word reading techniques during repeated reading lessons. Sixty primary grade children who had difficulty acquiring basic oral reading fluency skills were randomly selected to participate in one of the three word reading techniques + repeated reading conditions. Cumulative oral reading fluency and cumulative words learned from initial to repeated reading of passages as a function of type of word reading technique served as measures of instructional effectiveness. Instructional efficiency was measured by cumulative oral reading fluency and cumulative words learned per total instructional time (rate-based measure). Results showed that there were no significant differences between children in the phonic analysis + repeated reading group and children in the two whole word + repeated reading groups. However, there were differences between the two whole word + repeated reading groups favoring the traditional drill and practice over the incremental rehearsal group. Additionally, the group that received the traditional drill and practice + repeated reading lessons was the most efficient in learning to read words in passages than the groups that received either phonic analysis + repeated reading or incremental rehearsal + repeated reading. Implications for school psychologists are discussed.

Children's Writing Processes When Using Computers: Insights Based on Combining Analyses of Product and Process

Children and young people are increasingly performing a variety of writing tasks using computers, with word processing programs thus becoming their natural writing environment. The development of keystroke logging programs enables us to track the process of writing, without changing the writing environment for the writers. In the myMoment schools project, children in primary school grades one to five were provided with a web-based interactive writing environment, which they could use to read and write stories and comments. The parallel study on myMoment suggests that interviews and analyses of writing processes can provide detailed information about the effect that writing environment and instructions have on writing. An individual case study illustrates the potential that triangulating product and process analyses can offer in the teaching of literacy skills at elementary school level.

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.

Clinical Issues: Making Evidence-Based Decisions About Language Intervention With Primary Grade Children

Clinical Issues: Making Evidence-Based Decisions About Language Intervention With Primary Grade Children

An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades.

Teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is essential. Previous studies of teaching vocabulary (word meanings) using story books in the primary grades reported gains of 20%-25% of word meanings taught. The present studies concern possible influences on word meaning acquisition during instruction (Study 1) and increasing the percentage and number of word meanings acquired (Study 2). Both studies were conducted in a working-class school with approximately 50% English-language learners. The regular classroom teachers worked with their whole classes in these studies. In Study 1, average gains of 12% of word meanings were obtained using repeated reading. Adding word explanations added a 10% gain for a total gain of 22%. Pretesting had no effect on gains. In Study 2, results showed learning of 41% of word meanings taught. At this rate of learning word meanings taught, it would be possible for children to learn 400 word meanings a year if 1,000 word meanings were taught. The feasibility of teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is discussed.

First and Second Graders Writing Informational Text

The author of this article investigated, described, and interpreted the ways in which primary-grade children interacted with informational texts and wrote their own informational texts. In a qualitative study of informational writing in the primary grades, 24 first and second graders worked in pairs over a period of two weeks to research self-selected topics and to produce written work suitable for (classroom) publication. Analysis of the students' written text, together with the transcripts of their conversations, showed that while the students wrote their new texts, their talk centered around the following topics: content suggestion, generating ideas, syntax negotiation, spelling, concern for conventions, organizing and categorizing information, rereading the writing, and revision. Results suggest that common instructional practices in the primary grades may underestimate the ability of these students to comprehend (age-appropriate) informational texts and to produce informational writing of their own.

Primarily Peaceful: Nurturing Peace in the Primary Grades

Conflict is a very real part of relationships that occur on global, national, and local scales, as well as in daily interpersonal relationships. This article details the relevance of peace studies for children in the primary grades, both in terms of current events and in classroom applications. Suggestions are presented for addressing this topic through an ecological approach that includes the establishment of a peaceful learning environment and the development of a diversified, literature-rich curriculum. Readers are invited to explore developmentally appropriate approaches for teaching conflict resolution strategies, as a venue for helping students to cultivate the skills and dispositions to live and learn peacefully with one another.

Results and Implications of a 12-Year Longitudinal Study of Science Concept Learning

This paper describes the methods and outcomes of a 12-year longitudinal study into the effects of an early intervention program, while reflecting back on changes that have occurred in approaches to research, learning and instruction since the preliminary inception stages of the study in the mid 1960s. We began the study to challenge the prevailing consensus at the time that primary school children were either preoperational or concrete operational in their cognitive development and they could not learn abstract concepts. Our early research, based on Ausubelian theory, suggested otherwise. The paper describes the development and implementation of a Grade 1–2 audio tutorial science instructional sequence, and the subsequent tracing over 12 years, of the children’s conceptual understandings in science compared to a matched control group. During the study the concept map was developed as a new tool to trace children’s conceptual development. We found that students in the instruction group far outperformed their non-instructed counterparts, and this difference increased as they progressed through middle and high school. The data clearly support the earlier introduction of science instruction on basic science concepts, such as the particulate nature of matter, energy and energy transformations. The data suggest that national curriculum standards for science grossly underestimate the learning capabilities of primary-grade children. The study has helped to lay a foundation for guided instruction using computers and concept mapping that may help both teachers and students become more proficient in understanding science.

Challenge and opportunity: educating Liberia's war affected children in primary grades

Challenge and opportunity: educating Liberia's war affected children in primary grades

PASS cognitive processes, phonological processes, and basic reading performance for a sample of referred primary‐grade children

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among cognitive processing, phonological processing and basic reading skill performance. Cognitive theorists propose that Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive (PASS) processes are related to various phonological skills. A sample of 62 Primary Grade children referred for reading problems were administered measures of cognitive processes (Cognitive Assessment System), phonological processes (Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing) and basic reading achievement (Woodcock‐Johnson Tests of Academic Achievement‐III). Findings indicated that some cognitive processes were significantly related to phonological processes as well as basic reading skills. The strongest relationships were found between phonological memory and successive processes and between phonological awareness and basic reading performance.

Capitalism, Calculus, and Conscience

IN JUNE 2002, in a 4-to-1 decision, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court ruled that it's okay to rip off the children of New York City. The Appellate Division judicial crew overturned a landmark ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse. DeGrasse had outraged Gov. George Pataki and his business and political cronies by ruling that New York's state funding system deprived city children of their right to a basic education. Responding to the complaint of a coalition of parents and teachers, DeGrasse ordered reforms to bring certified teachers, reduced class sizes, up-to-date texts, and upgraded technology to city schools that lacked all these things. He ordered that all New York City schoolchildren must be afforded the same kinds of educational opportunities as children in more affluent sections of the city and in the suburbs. In DeGrasse's decision didn't have any of the tricky nuances employed by the Business Roundtable or the U.S. Congress, among others. For DeGrasse, reform meant spending money to make more democratic by making sure that all children in New York had equal access to the types of schools that affluent students consider their due. Politicians and their corporate handlers didn't sit still for such a ruling. Equity is not on the capitalist, corporate, congressional agenda. Along with their brethren around the country, politicos in New York operate according to the rule handed down from the summit convened at IBM headquarters when Bush the Elder was in office and Clinton was the education governor of Arkansas. This rule decrees that schools must find their gold in high standards and the hoopla surrounding testing, not in the public purse. These fellows draw on what passes for research and is issued by those at Heritage, Fordham, Manhattan, Cato, et al. -- ideologues who chant the mantra, We've tried throwing money at schools. It doesn't work. Pull up your bootstraps, and raise your test scores. Right. Their slogan might be, Just Say No to Low Test Scores. Money doesn't solve problems; high- stakes tests solve problems. Led by Gov. Pataki, the state of New York appealed DeGrasse's ruling. And there we have for the global economy in a nutshell: the state sues to make sure remains better for the rich and worse for the poor. The Global Economy Swamps the Schoolhouse In writing the New York Appellate decision, Justice Alfred Lerner explained why city children must be treated differently from children living in more affluent areas. Society needs workers in all levels of jobs, the majority of which may very well be low-level. That's a direct quote.1 Thus does the global economy engulf the schoolhouse, and the children are discarded as so much refuse. The method is clear: announce that schools must prepare all to be high-tech workers; then cook the books so that 20% to 30% fail the high-stakes tests and don't receive diplomas. That's the test failure rate. Hordes of others, seeing they aren't going to pass the test, drop out before reaching the 10th grade, where the exam is administered. To make the 10th-grade passing rate look rosier, more and more districts are holding students back in ninth grade, and dropout rates are increasing in middle school. Examining data from the Massachusetts Department of Education, noted analyst Anne Wheelock has reported a 300% increase in dropouts from middle school between 1995 and 2000.2 Dropouts from middle school. That's what happens when you start retaining children in primary grades. The global economy needs these dropouts. If schools are successful in turning out swarms of well-educated youngsters, who's going to flip our burgers and clean our toilets at minimum wage? Who'll sell merchandise for Wal-Mart? Work in day care? Take a look at the job projections from the Center for the Study of Jobs and Education in Wisconsin.3 They include data on jobs throughout the U. …

Psychometric data for teacher judgments regarding the learning behaviors of primary grade children

AbstractThe psychometric properties of the Classroom Performance Profile (CPP), a teacher rating scale, were investigated using primary grade children from economically at‐risk families. Students were rated as they progressed from kindergarten through third grade. The CPP demonstrated high internal consistency yielding Cronbach alpha coefficients for the total score of at least .96. CPP ratings were correlated with scores from the Woodcock‐Johnson Psycho‐Educational Battery–Revised: Tests of Achievement and the Social Skills Rating System–Teacher Form, Elementary Level. Results suggest that the CPP ratings were positively correlated with measures of academic achievement, academic competence, and social skills, and negatively correlated with problem behaviors. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Discussion: Statistics, from a Tool for State and Society to a Tool for all Citizens

Garfield, J.B. & Gal, I. (1999). Teaching and assessing statistical reasoning. In Developing mathematical reasoning in grades K-12. 1999 Yearbook, Ed. L.V. Stiff, pp. 207-219. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Joram, E., Resnick, L. & Gabriele, A.J. (1995). Numeracy as a cultural practice: An examination of numbers in magazines for children, teenagers, and adults. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 26, 346-361. Lehrer, R. & Schauble, L. (2000). Inventing data structures for representational purposes: Elementary grade students' classification models. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 2(1& 2), 51-74. Manley, M. & Tout, D. (2000, December). Numeracy in the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Project. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Mathematical Association of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. McLennan, W. (1997). Aspects of literacy: Assessed skill levels Australia 1996. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Metz, K. (1998). Emergent understanding and attribution of randomness: Comparative analysis of the reasoning of primary grade children and undergraduates. Cognition and Instruction, 16, 285-365. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: Author. Pratt, D. (2000). Making sense of the total of two dice. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31, 602-625. Schmidt, W.H., McKnight, C.C., Valverde, G.A., Houang, R.T. & Wiley, D.E. (1997). Many visions, many aims (Volume 1): A cross-national investigation of curricular intentions in school mathematics. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Statistics Canada and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (1996). Literacy, economy, and society: First results from the International Adult Literacy Survey. Ottawa: Author. Steen, L.A. (Ed.) (1997). Why numbers count: Quantitative literacy for tomorrow's America. New York: The College Board. Watson, J.M. (1997). Assessing statistical literacy using the media. In The Assessment Challenge in Statistics Education, Eds. I. Gal and J.B. Garfield, pp. 107-121. Amsterdam: IOS Press and The International Statistical Institute. Watson, J.M. (1998). The role of statistical literacy in decisions about risk: Where to start. For the Learning of Mathematics, 18(3), 25-27. Watson, J.M. (1999). The media, technology and statistical literacy for all. In Developments in school mathematics education around the world, Ed. Z. Usiskin, Volume 4, pp. 308-322. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Watson, J.M. (2000). Statistics in context. Mathematics Teacher, 93, 54-58. Watson, J.M. & Moritz, J.B. (1999). The beginning of statistical inference: Comparing two data sets. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 37, 145-168. Watson, J.M. & Moritz, J.B. (2000a). Developing concepts of sampling. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 31, 44-70.

Metacognitive knowledge in primary grades: A longitudinal study

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to explore the development of metacognitive knowledge in primary grade children (6–9 years, n=196) from pre-school to third grade. Knowledge about cognitive processes was obtained from children’s oral explanations. The results indicated that the average metacognitive knowledge of the primary grade children developed significantly during the first three school years. The children knew much about simple factors and strategies influencing cognitive activities, but after the first three school years, more complex strategies still remained unfamiliar to them. Moreover, the content analyses of children’s oral explanations revealed interesting differences in children’s metacognitive thinking. There appeared to be two groups of children with either non-developing or developing explanations. In addition, the children understood mental processing better in memory and learning activities, whereas comprehension processes were largely unknown to them.

Reliability and Validity of the Writing Essential Skill Screener—Elementary Version (WESS-E)

The Writing Essential Skill Screener - Elementary Version (WESS-E) was designed to screen primary-grade children who are at risk for writing difficulties. 'Four independent samples of boys and girls ages 6-7 were used to study the WESS-E's reliability and validity. Internal consistency of WESS-E items (n = 499) was .91, while 30-day test-retest reliability (n = 83) was .86. On item analysis of the standardization sample, items ranged in difficulty from .28-.98 (median = .49), while 88% of WESS-E items met or exceeded a.50 item discrimination criterion. The WESS-E yielded concurrent validity coefficients (n = 125) of .75 with scores on the Woodcock-Johnson: Tests of Achievement - Revised (WJ-R) Broad Written Language Domain and .78 with scores on the Wide-Range Achievement Test - Revised (WRAT-R) Spelling subtest. Exploratory factor analytic procedures suggest the WESS-E is comprised of two dimensions: writing skills and name writing. However, this factor structure did not fit the data well using confirmatory factor analytic procedures. A diagnostic efficiency study indicated the WESS-E's total predictive value was 84%, sensitivity = .92, specificity = .76, positive predictive power = .79, and negative predictive power = .90.

Nipping early risk factors in the bud: preventing substance abuse, delinquency, and violence in adolescence through interventions targeted at young children (0-8 years).

This bulletin describes state-of-the-art universal and selective prevention programs designed to promote parent and teacher competencies and to prevent conduct problems. In addition, it describes indicated interventions designed for children who already have been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and/or conduct disorder. Emphasis is placed on empirically supported programs that have identified key malleable risk factors in children, families, and schools, which have been shown in longitudinal research to be related to later development of substance abuse, delinquency, and violence. We have targeted preschool and primary grade children, ages 0-8 years, in this review because research suggests that the most effective interventions can nip in the bud risk behaviors in the early years, before antisocial behaviors become crystallized. Guidelines for selecting effective interventions are provided.

Which manuscript letters do primary grade children write legibly?

The authors examined the manuscript letter writing skills of 300 students in Grades 1-3. The participating children were asked to write the lowercase manuscript alphabet from memory. A relatively small number of letters (4-8) accounted for slightly more than half of all illegibilities at each grade level. Three letter characteristics (i.e., all parts, correction formation, and no rotations or reversals), grade, and alphabet fluency each made a significant contribution to the prediction of letter legibility after the effects of the other predictors were controlled. Letter legibility in turn made a significant contribution to the prediction of text legibility after all other predictors were controlled. Implications for instruction and evaluation are discussed.

Which manuscript letters do primary grade children write legibly?

Which manuscript letters do primary grade children write legibly?

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.