Third Grade Of Primary School Research Articles

Children’s questions as a base of teaching

The paper considers interrelationships between children?s questions and teaching and learning in the light of experimental studies on the role and aim of children?s questions in Nature and Society teaching in the third grade of primary school. The experiment comprising two parallel groups was carried out on the sample of 150 respondents from two primary schools in Sabac during the second term of the academic year 2002/2003. The present paper involves a portion of the results obtained for the type of questions children asked during teaching process as classified by independent observers; average distribution of some types of questions; qualitative analysis of discussions conducted with children after two classes where identical teaching content was presented in groups E and K; qualitative analysis of two interviews conducted with teachers after those classes in groups E and K; observers? general impression of classes in groups E and K. The results showed that teaching based on children?s questions encourages children?s proactive attitude towards learning and leads to its higher cognitive efficiency and that children express a high degree of satisfaction by participating in thus organized work during classes and preference of atmosphere present in the classroom during such classes compared to the atmosphere during classes managed in a traditional way. Communication between children and between teacher and children is less formal, more relaxed and dynamic, which all produces motivational effects on children makes them more engaged in learning during teaching whose base is in their questions and not in teaching managed by teacher?s questions.

Training in Inductive Reasoning and Problem Solving

The present study investigated the effects of an inductive reasoning training program for teaching children (Klauer, 1989b). The experiment assessed the effects of training and the range of transfer of the training achieved. The subjects were 34 third-grade primary school children of average ability. The children were matched on age, sex, and IQ. Children from the training condition ( N = 17) received a 1-week course of training (five 30-min sessions). The results demonstrated a significant, positive training effect on childrens′ performance of inductive reasoning tasks. A near-far transfer was observed, i.e., children were able to solve tasks in which they had not been trained. These effects persisted for 4 months. Far-far transfer, however, was not observed, because the children were not able to solve mathematics problems which relate to inductive reasoning, in which they had received no training. Implications for training children within the context of regular schools and the range of transfer are discussed.

Residual Fluorine in the Mouth Following the Use of a Fluoride Mouth Rine

The present study was made for the purpose of reinvestigating the safty of fluoride mouth rinse, the possibility of caries-preventive effect and the rinsing method itself by determining the amount of fluoride that remains in the mouth after the use of fluoride mouth rinse.A total 80 children in the third grade of primary school (consisting of 44 boys and 36 girls) were selected as subjects. They were instructed to rinse with 10ml of the fluoride mouthrinsing solution (containing 500ppm of F-; pH 5.0, phosphoric acid-acidified NaF solution) that had been exactly measured for 30 seconds, and then rinse the mouth twice with 10ml of distilled water for 10 seconds at a time. The fluorine content of the portion of the agent that remained in the rinsing cup, the amount of fluorine that was spit out after use of the rinse, and the fluorine content of the rinsing distilled water were determined. For the determinations, an ORION ion meter (model 801) and fluoride ion activity electrodes were used.As a result, the sum of fluorine content of the portion of the rinsing agent that remained in the rinsing cup and the amount of fluorine that was spit out was 4.69±0.12mg in the boys and 4.58±0.12mg in the girls, corresponding to 93.79% in the boys and 91.52% in the girls of the amount of fluorine that had been given.Using the conventional rinsing method, the amount of residual fluorine in the mouth was 0.31±0.12mg (6.21%) in the boys and 0.42±0.12 (8.48%) in the girls. When the use of fluoride mouth rinse was followed by a rinsing with water, the retention of fluorine was 0.16±0.12mg (3.13%) in the boys and 0.27±0.12mg (5.46%) in the girls. In 65 children, corresponding to 81.3% of the total 80 children, the retention of fluorine after use of the conventional fluoride mouth rinse was less than 0.5mg.From these findings, it was proved again that the fluoride concentration and volume of rinsing solution is entirely safe provided the rinsing method is adequate, and fluoride mouth rinse is an effective fluoride application method for the prevention of dental caries.