Primary Grade Classrooms Research Articles

A sociocultural perspective on symbolic development in primary grade classrooms

This chapter examines literacy development from within children's social worlds and illustrates the sociocultural dynamics through which children may negotiate a Junctional role for writing within their symbolic repertoires.

Profiles of Children's Learning Behavior

Abstract Children from two primary grade classrooms were observed in three different instructional settings: Teacher Directed/Large Group; Teacher and Child Directed/Large and Small Group; and Child Directed. Aspects of the children's cognitive functioning, materials use, language behavior, peer interaction, and task involvement were recorded. Three questions were investigated: (a) Do children in the same lesson behave alike? (b) Do children change their behavior from one lesson type to another? (c) What effects do lesson types have on these five aspects of children's behavior? The results revealed a homogeneity of behavior among children within lesson type and a shift in behavioral modality from one lesson type to another. These results are consonant with Barker's (1968) critique of human ecology and Stodolsky's (1989) study of the influence of subject matter. Children's learning behaviors were congruent with lesson type, too. Larger group, more teacher directed lessons resulted in a more passive-respons...

Contextualization cues in the classroom: Discourse regulation and social control functions

ABSTRACTUnder certain circumstances, contextualization cues become powerful means of achieving social order. The social organization of a daily group meeting in an American primary grade classroom is closely examined. Participants recurrently generate certain contexts within the meeting in varying sequence from day to day. Transitions from one to another regularly occur smoothly and unremarkably as interaction unfolds. On some occasions, however, this does not happen. Order breaks down, and the teacher and students implicitly negotiate what the context will be. On the surface, these contrasting patterns seem to arise unpredictably as students choose either to “behave” or “misbehave.” That is how the teacher accounts for them. Nevertheless, a closer analysis shows that they are explainable with reference to some subtle contextualization cues that the teacher, without being consciously aware of it, routinely provides but occasionally omits at context boundaries. Students routinely act on the presence and absence of these cues, which thus become a tacit, jointly constructed means of discourse regulation and social control. Their inadvertant “omission” becomes a recurrent source of interactional trouble. (Context, contextualization cues, classroom discourse, ethnography of speaking)

Learning to read in Japan

Japanese and American reading programs in kindergarten and the primary grades differ extensively. This is partly because the Japanese written language makes initial learning easier and later learning more difficult. In addition, bolstered by a long history cf literacy, Japanese parents provide more uniform support for their children's academic progress than do parents in the United States. From classroom observations and discussions with school principals and teachers about their programs and their instructional goals, it is apparent that Japanese kindergarten programs feature social development and cooperative group activity rather than academic skills. Finally, unlike reading instruction in American classrooms, Japanese primary grade classrooms are organized for whole class reading lessons and are paced slowly to emphasize reading fluency and deep interpretation of text information. (One table is included, and 35 references are appended.) (Author/MS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READING A READING RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER REPORT Technical Report No. 449 LEARNING TO READ IN JAPAN Jana M. Mason, Richard C. Anderson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Aldmichl Omura Tokyo University Nobuko Uchida Ochanomizu Women's University Mutual Imai University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign January 1989 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign SI Gerty Drive Champaign, Illinois 61820 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY ,NNaos..ts TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC). U DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) O This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of view or opinions stated in INS docu ment do not necessarily represent official OEM position or policy The work upon which this publication was based was suprted in rt The to the second author from the Japan Society for Promotion ofSciencepa. e grant publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency supporting the research.

Creating and Using Formal Occasions in the Classroom

Videotapes of morning meetings in two primary grade classrooms are analyzed using a sociolinguistic scheme for describing formal meetings devised by Judith Irvine. Possible cognitive and affective effects of the structuring of meetings are considered. It is suggested that classroom meetings may vary in the extent to which they help children learn to participate in group meetings, develop a sense of identity, and learn to use more elaborated context-independent speech. Trade-offs among these potential functions are considered. CLASSROOM FORMALITIES; CLASSROOM INTERACTION ANALYSIS; SYMBOLIC INTERACTION.

Cognitive Abilities, Conditions of Learning, and the Early Development of Reading Skill

TWO GROUPS of primary-grade classrooms differing in their instructional approach to beginning reading were compared to assess the relationship between learning activities, cognitive abilities, and reading skill. Students' activities in 20 classrooms were observed, confirming that half of the classrooms followed an individualized language-experience approach and half a decoding-oriented basal reader approach. Year-end testing of the students revealed basic level reading skill to be less universally acquired in the language-experience group, but no difference in information processing and linguistic abilities between the two groups. In addition, while the various cognitive measures generally correlated positively with reading in the decoding-oriented group, significant negative correlations between linguistic ability and reading skill were observed in the language-experience group. It is argued that linguistic ability facilitates beginning reading only after a threshold of print-specific skills is acquired, and that the observed difference between the two groups stemmed primarily from their varying emphasis on systematic instruction, with corrective feedback, of these print-specific skills.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Summary. Ten ‘informal’ and ten ‘comparison’ primary grade classrooms matched according to socio‐economic neighbourhood, grade, and instructional organisation were observed using the Pupil Activity Scan, an observation instrument specifically designed for the present study to record pupil behaviour. Analysis of the observational data indicated that children in informal classes engaged in child‐to‐child interaction, play activities, individual conferences with the teacher, and independent work to a greater extent than comparison pupils. In the comparison classrooms, word analysis activities, printing activities, independent silent reading, and teacher‐led group experiences were more prevalent. Substantial variation in curricula was also observed across all classrooms. Testing of the children at the end of the school year indicated no differences between the two groups in language development, problem‐solving, fine motor‐figural perception, role‐taking, or understanding of classification, but the performance of pupils in the informal classrooms appeared to be lower with respect to reading and mathematics.

Let's Do It!: Using cubes

Those wooden or plastic cubes often found in primary-grade classrooms can be a wonderful vehicle for learning some basic mathematical concepts. Children like to use the cubes for building all kinds of structures and teachers like to use them as concrete material for teaching addition and subtraction facts. But there is so much more that can be done with those beautiful cubes.

A study of verbal behavior patterns in primary grade classrooms during science activities

A study of verbal behavior patterns in primary grade classrooms during science activities

Editorial comment: As we read

The modern elementary school teacher deals easily with number sentences, inequalities, and other basic ideas for expressing the characteristics of number relationships. Such an expression as 4 + □ = 7 is common in most primary-grade classrooms. Ideas of negative integers are not unfamiliar to the elementary school pupil. Solution sets cover many a junior high school mathematics class chalkboard. These ideas are not difficult and seem quite natural in the context of the elementary- junior high school curriculum. But, when I went to school, we called it algebra! And we called it algebra in the first year of high school! No sooner.