The Impact of Shared Book Reading on Children and Families : A Study of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Tamworth, Australia

This longitudinal cohort-study investigated the impact of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (the Imagination Library) in Tamworth, Australia. The Imagination Library delivers age-appropriate books to children from the time of their birth until their fifth birthday. Caregivers of Tamworth children completed surveys about their experience with the program after receiving one book (“baseline;” N = 343) and then at six months (N = 116) and three years (N = 89). Their responses indicated that children in the Imagination Library were read to more frequently, for longer durations, and had more books in their homes than the average Australian child, as represented by large independent databases. Tamworth caregivers who read to their child at least once a day at baseline were nearly five times more likely to read daily after six months and three years than those who did not read daily at baseline (OR 4.9 (95% CI 1.8,13.7)). Further, children who were read to daily at three years showed more emerging literacy skills than those who were not read to daily. These outcomes suggest that shared book reading generally, and the Imagination Library specifically, encourages sustained reading practices that are associated with developing emerging literacy skills

Describing models in context – A step towards enhanced transparency of scientific processes underpinning policy making

The transparency and reproducibility of scientific evidence underpinning policy is crucial to build and retain trust. This paper describes an application that takes a significant step towards enhanced transparency of scientific models used for policy making: The Modelling Inventory Database and Access Services (MIDAS) developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) describes models in use by the JRC in their scientific context by linking them to other models, to related data, to supported policies and to domain experts. To effectively share the resulting knowledge across different domains and with policy makers within the institution MIDAS represents the resulting complex network of relations and entities through visual aids based on visual analytics and data narratives. This paper describes not just the application in order to contribute to emerging dialogue on best practice for model documentation, it describes the process and main challenges we met with, and the approach taken to overcome the

First observation of the cosmic ray shadow of the Moon and the Sun with KM3NeT/ORCA

This article reports the first observation of the Moon and the Sun shadows in the sky distribution of cosmic-ray induced muons measured by the KM3NeT/ORCA detector. The analysed data-taking period spans from February 2020 to November 2021, when the detector had 6 Detection Units deployed at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, each composed of 18 Digital Optical Modules. The shadows induced by the Moon and the Sun were detected at their nominal position with a statistical significance of 4.2 σ and 6.2 σ , and an angular resolution of σres= 0. 49 ∘ and σres= 0. 66 ∘ , respectively, consistent with the prediction of 0. 53 ∘ from simulations. This early result confirms the effectiveness of the detector calibration, in time, position and orientation and the accuracy of the event direction reconstruction. This also demonstrates the performance and the competitiveness of the detector in terms of pointing accuracy and angular resolution

Orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss

Thesis by publication."Department of Cognitive Science, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia" -- title pageBibliography: pages 54-69.Chapter 1. Vocabulary acquisition, orthographic facilitation and its implications for children with hearing loss : a literature review -- Chapter 2. Orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss -- Chapter 3. References -- Appendices.Oral vocabulary acquisition involves the formation of a link between the phonology and semantics of a newly encountered word. There exists a large body of literature that describes the processes involved in vocabulary acquisition and the factors that influence acquisition in children with typical and atypical development (e.g., Chapman, 2000; de Jong,Seveke, & Veen, 2002; Dillon, 2011; He & Arunacham, 2017; Hollich et al., 2000; Kucker, McMurray, & Samuelson, 2015; Nazzi & Bertoncini, 2003; Waxman & Lidz, 2007; Yu &Ballard, 2007). It is widely acknowledged that vocabulary is crucial for the development of language, communication, reading, and literacy (Biemiller, 2009; Lee, 2011; Ouellette, 2006).Therefore, it follows that if children are not able to acquire vocabulary appropriately, it would impact their overall development and academic success. Vocabulary acquisition is a challenge for children with hearing loss, including those who use appropriate hearing devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants (Sarchet, Marschark, Borgna, Convertino, Sapere, & Dirmyer, 2014). Surprisingly, there is very little research that directly examines the instruction techniques of factors that can support vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss (Luckner & Cooke, 2010).One factor that is being increasingly researched as a mechanism to support oral vocabulary learning is orthography. There exists evidence for the orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in children with typical development (e.g., Ricketts, Bishop, & Nation,2009), and in special populations (Lucas & Norbury, 2014; Mengoni, Nash, & Hulme, 2013; Ricketts, Dockrell, Patel, Charman & Lindsay, 2015). This thesis aimed to review the literature on vocabulary acquisition in children with hearing loss and to examine whether they may benefit from the presence of orthography during oral word learning. This thesis is organised in a 'thesis by publication' format, with two parts, that each represent a journal article.Part One: Vocabulary acquisition, orthographic facilitation, and its implications for children with hearing loss : a literature review. This section reviews literature vocabulary acquisition in children with typical hearing and children with hearing loss, the rationale and existing evidence for orthographic facilitation in different groups of children.Part Two: Orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in children with hearing loss. This section presents an empirical study to examine the possible facilitatory role of orthography for acquisition of novel picture-word mappings in school-aged children with hearing loss who use spoken language as their main mode of communication. The outcomes of the study are discussed in light of the available literature and possible directions for future research in this area are suggested.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (ix, 74 pages) colour illustration

Orthographic facilitation of oral vocabulary acquisition in primary school children

Children’s oral vocabulary acquisition is an important aspect of language development that plays a crucial role in reading and literacy development and subsequent academic success. Therefore, it is important to identify and implement evidence-based effective strategies of vocabulary instruction for primary school children. Orthographic facilitation refers to the benefit afforded to word learning by incidentally presenting spellings when new words are introduced. This study aimed to replicate the orthographic facilitation effect in primary school (Grades 1–6) children and further assess whether children in different grades benefitted differently from the presence of orthography during spoken word learning. To do this, 91 children from Grades 1 to 6 were taught novel picture–word pairs with or without spellings. Word learning was assessed during and after training using behavioural and eye-tracking data from picture-naming and picture–word-matching (PWM) tasks. Irrespective of grade, all children experienced a significant orthographic facilitation effect during training. The post-training results were more task dependent with all grades showing a significant orthographic facilitation effect on the picture-naming task, and only Grades 1 to 4 showing a facilitation effect on the PWM task. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Spelling instruction in English-speaking primary schools: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The present study aims to conduct a systematic review of the available evidence on the impact of school-based teaching on spelling skills of English-speaking primary school students

Describing models in context – a step towards enhanced transparency of scientific processes underpinning policy making

The transparency and reproducibility of scientific evidence underpinning policy is crucial to build and retain trust. This paper describes an application that takes a significant step towards enhanced transparency of scientific models used for policy making: The Modelling Inventory Database and Access Services (MIDAS) developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) that describes models in use in JRC in their scientific context by linking them to other models, to related data, to supported policies and to domain experts. To effectively share the resulting knowledge across different domains and to policy makers within the institution MIDAS represents the resulting complex network of relations and entities through visual aids based on visual analytics and data narratives. This paper describes not just the application itself. Instead it describes the process and main challenges we met with, and the approach taken to overcome them.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat