Inculcating Values Through Entertainment: A Study Based on Sinhala Children’s Songs

Children’s songs have an impact, on the wellbeing, personality development, communication skills and cognitive growth of preschool and elementary school children. They teach values, character education and positive behavior through creativity. This study aims to explore how Sinhala children’s songs can be used as a medium to instill values. A purposive sampling method was used to select twelve songs for analysis. Each song underwent an examination to identify phrases and ideas related to ten fundamental values using discourse analysis. Through qualitative approach, the research focused on uncovering values embedded in the lyrics. The importance of these values was assessed based on their presence and influence on the theme and narrative. Application of Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values revealed a range of values within the selected songs that reflect experiences and perspectives influenced by cultural norms, family dynamics and societal expectations. The songs highlight concepts such as thoughtfulness, empathy, respect, education, tradition, relationships, personal growth, ethical reflection and cultural values such as benevolence and harmony with nature. Among this identified values benevolence emerges as the main theme in the songs symbolizing nurturing love and support. Conversely, power appears to be the least emphasized value in these songs, suggesting that they place an importance on relationships, empathy, personal growth and kindness. In a nut- shell, it is crystal clear that children's songs have the ability to impart values in children, aiding the overall development of a child's character. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v09i01.0

Early literacy begins with ... whom? An exploration of mothering work as a component in students' educational success

"Much research has examined the benefits of family literacy programs, but only few have taken up the embedded gendered and class dynamics found in many early literacy frameworks such as storytime programs. The purpose of this thesis then is to investigate the kinds of gendered and class based assumptions involved in early literacy work. Data collection was comprised of observations from storytime programs held at a local library; in-depth interviews with librarian programmers and mother attendees; and a content analysis of read and recommended literature. The major findings from this research suggest that: a) There are specific expectations regarding ""appropriate"" literacy work; b) It is assumed that mothers will carry out such prescribed work; and ·c) Gender was not an important consideration when selecting stories, as it was expected that authors and publishers take up such issues beforehand. These results have implications for future research on mothering discourses and early literacy work.

Text-to-picture tools, systems, and approaches: a survey

Text-to-picture systems attempt to facilitate high-level, user-friendly communication between humans and computers while promoting understanding of natural language. These systems interpret a natural language text and transform it into a visual format as pictures or images that are either static or dynamic. In this paper, we aim to identify current difficulties and the main problems faced by prior systems, and in particular, we seek to investigate the feasibility of automatic visualization of Arabic story text through multimedia. Hence, we analyzed a number of well-known text-to-picture systems, tools, and approaches. We showed their constituent steps, such as knowledge extraction, mapping, and image layout, as well as their performance and limitations. We also compared these systems based on a set of criteria, mainly natural language processing, natural language understanding, and input/output modalities. Our survey showed that currently emerging techniques in natural language processing tools and computer vision have made promising advances in analyzing general text and understanding images and videos. Furthermore, important remarks and findings have been deduced from these prior works, which would help in developing an effective text-to-picture system for learning and educational purposes. - 2019, The Author(s).This work was made possible by NPRP grant #10-0205-170346 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors

Using graphic organizer in helping year five pupils to comprehend the small 'I'

Graphic organizers are structural tools that help readers organize thoughts. By using graphic organizers, pupils can experience words beyond pronunciation and display connections between ideas and concepts to improve comprehension. Graphic organizers help pupils sort, show relationship, make meaning, and manage data quickly and easily before, during, and after reading and discussion. As a result, pupils can display connections between ideas and concept, thus improving the text comprehension. The subjects were primarily Year Five pupils (n = 60) at a suburban school in Kota Kinabalu. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of using graphic organizers as a learning tool to help Year Five pupils organize thoughts and improve reading comprehension. Using a triangular approach to data collection, this 6 week study utilized a Pre-test and Post-test control group design and individual interviews to determine the effects of graphic organizers on pupils' achievement. The data suggests that using graphic organizers might have been one factor that aided pupils in the reading comprehension process. In addition, 'this study revealed that pupils believed that graphic organizers were helpful in allowing them to organize their thoughts after reading a story. A paired samples t - test determined significant difference in achievement between the groups. The experimental group improved in achievement at least as much as the control grou

Bard Free Press, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March, 14, 2000)

https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/bardfreepress/1000/thumbnail.jp

Parent-Teacher Interactions: Engaging with Parents and Carers

This study sought to identify factors that parents and teachers described as impacting on their interactions. Previous research indicated that student performance levels increase when parents and teachers work together; however, in practice, there are underlying tensions. The key findings revealed that the nature of parent-teacher interactions was either collaborative or non-collaborative, several activities underpinned these practices, and positive or less than satisfactory outcomes were afforded to students. Furthermore, parents and teachers had similar preferences on what practices made their interactions collaborative; however, they had different views (preferences) on what constituted non-collaborative practices. The findings from this research have implications not only for teachers and school leaders, but also for universities and pre-service teachers. This study recommends professional learning opportunities for teachers and pre-service teachers examining these collaborative and non-collaborative practices

Children's voices: The contribution of informal language practices to the negotiation of knowledge and identity amongst 10-12 year old school pupils

This research addresses the ways in which children's informal language practices contribute to their negotiations of knowledge and identity. An ethnographic study of 10-12 year olds' talk in and around school was carried out, which included the collection of continuous tape-recordings of talk across the school day, observation and recording of literacy activities, and interviews with thirty four children. Using an ethnography of communication framework together with ideas from the Russian socio-historical writers, this data is analysed and features of children's talk examined in relation to their negotiations of knowledge and identity. In particular, analysis focusses on children's collaborative linguistic strategies, their uses of narrative and literacy, and their taking on of other people's voices. Attention is also paid to the ways in which different aspects of context are involved in the constitution of meaning within dialogue. It is argued that a more dialogic model of communication needs to be developed in order to understand. the function and meaning of children's talk and literacy activities. In relation to this, it is suggested that Bakhtin and Volosinov's ideas about dialogic, heteroglossic and intertextual. aspects of language use provide an important way of extending current thinking about the role -of language in children's construction of knowledge and identity, in relation to more constructivist conceptions of culture, social activity and the self

Effects of combining narrative and expository text on young children's conceptual knowledge and expository text comprehension

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston UniversityFar too many children begin school with large knowledge gaps that, when left unaddressed, widen and contribute to long-term reading comprehension failure (Hart & Risley, 1995). Early knowledge gaps are often rooted in opportunity gaps (i.e., accumulated inequities in access to key educational resources), with text being a key resource for knowledge acquisition (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993). Text is particularly important for building knowledge that enables expository text comprehension because much ofthis knowledge is abstract and far removed from everyday experiences. However, there are differing views regarding which text genre or combination thereof best develops the knowledge that enables expository text comprehension. Without clear guidance, text anthology publishers and teachers likely will continue employing uneven text selection methods and knowledge gaps will persist. Thus, identifying optimal text selection is essential if we are to reduce the opportunity gaps underlying poor reading comprehension achievement. Towards this end, I examined effects oftext genre on first-graders' conceptual knowledge and comprehension growth using a cluster-randomized design. Children (N = 57) were randomly assigned to informational narrative and expository text (C, n = 26) or expository text only (E, n = 31) groups. Both C and E children received the same five- week read-aloud intervention. Instruction was organized around a central science conceptandusedtopically-relatedtext. Keyfeaturesincludedexplicitvocabulary instruction, semantic word sorts, scaffolded discussions, and application to new contexts. Results suggest that use of both texts facilitated: (1) greater gains in knowledge breadth and depth (but not statistically significant); (2) greater gains in comprehension depth (gains for narrative text were statistically significant); (3) a significantly larger increase in conceptual knowledge and narrative text recall accuracy and a larger increase in expository text recall accuracy; (4) sustained effects as C children demonstrated continued knowledge and comprehension growth six weeks after the intervention concluded. Findings suggest that effective use ofa combination ofnarrative and expository text may contribute to a reduction in early opportunity and knowledge gaps, and that both types of text should be considered in content area curricular and instructional decision making