The Literacy Groups Project: Investigating the Use of Reading Recovery Techniques with Small Groups of Grade 2 Students

The two-year Literacy Groups Project provides evidence that grade 2 students can be helped to attain average grade-cohort reading levels by the use of a small-group pull-out program if certain criteria are met. Students were tested using running records at the beginning and end of the study to provide data for quantitative comparison. Additional context was provided by videotaping lessons and interviewing teachers. Major changes took place from the first disappointing year of the project to the second more successful year. First, students were assigned to groups according to a narrow range of Reading Recovery reading levels rather than being randomly placed. Second, the material was found to support fully even highly trained and experienced teachers newly engaged in adapting Reading Recovery techniques to effect accelerated learning in a small-group setting, rather than expecting teachers to follow general program guidelines. In this case, while they were supported in their beliefs about how best to help struggling readers, resource teachers were provided with a commercial reading program, with lesson ideas and multiple copies of leveled student reading materials.Le projet sur deux ans de « Literacy Groups Project » (une initiative d'alphabétisation) démontre qu'un programme impliquant un nombre peu élève d'élèves retires du groupe peut aider certains à atteindre un niveau de compétence en lecture qui représente la moyenne de la cohorte, en autant que certains critères soient respectes. Des données pour une comparaison quantitative ont été obtenues par réévaluation des élèves au début et à la fin de I 'étude. Des enregistrements de leçons et des entrevues avec les enseignantes ont fourni d'autres données. Entre la première année du projet, plutôt décevante, et la deuxième année plus réussie, des changements importants ont eu lieu. D'abord, plutôt que des distribuer les élèves en groupes au hasard, on les a divise en groupes homogènes selon leur capacité de lecture selon les niveaux de Reading Recovery. Deuxièmement, le programme s’est avère très utile mime pour les enseignants tres qualifies et expérimentes qui adaptaient les techniques de Reading Recovery pour accélérer l'apprentissage de la lecture dans de petits groupes. Cette marge de manœuvre libérait les enseignants de l'obligation de suivre les lignes directrices du programme. Ainsi, on appuyait les enseignants dans leurs croyances quant a la meilleure façon d'aider les élèves qui éprouvent de la difficulté à apprendre à lire, tout en leur fournissant un programme de lecture commercial avec des suggestions de leçons et plusieurs copies de matériel pédagogique de divers niveaux pour faire lire les élèves

Exploring the Borderlands between Media and Health: Conceptualizing ‘Critical Media Health Literacy’

In Canada, as elsewhere, there is considerable concern about adolescents’ health. Much of the blame is thought to lie in the social context for today’s adolescents and their interaction with and dependence on various media. Yet, it is not clear whether and how adolescents learn to engage critically with media messages about health. Emerging from the authors’ previous work in conceptualizing and measuring adolescent health literacy, this article presents the results of a conceptual analysis process using the terms health literacy, critical health literacy, media literacy, critical media literacy, media activism, and critical viewing among others—to arrive at the unique construct of critical media health literacy (CMHL)

Empowering Indigenous Learners through the Creation of Graphic Novels

In this paper, we examine how Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents identify media influences as health/wellness related. We conducted research over a six-week period in two alternative high school settings: a culture-based Indigenous education program at one school and an arts-based program at another school, both in the same small, Western Canadian city. We taught students from both programs the principles of critical media health literacy. Small groups of students from the Indigenous program wrote narratives. Then small groups of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in an arts-based education program converted these stories into graphic novel/comic book format. Findings indicated a broad range of health/wellness topics discussed, media stereotypes challenged, and varying levels of comprehension about media’s impact on health. These levels ranged from misunderstanding or confusion through developing general understanding and, at the highest level, specific understanding

Puppets on a String? How Young Adolescents Explore Gender and Health in Advertising

This article presents qualitative research on young adolescents’ abilities in communicating and evaluating health messages in advertising especially how they understand and create gendered identities. A group of grade 6-8 students learned about media techniques and movie making. In groups divided by gender, they created iMovie advertisements for health activities in their school. They represented themselves in these advertisements by creating stick puppets. Observations during lessons, examination of movies and puppets, and interviews with students and their teacher revealed that young adolescents were neither completely manipulated by media nor were they completely in charge of their responses to media’s messages about gender. Offering students an opportunity to de-brief media experiences also helped them to develop critical media health literacy

Representations of Chinese gendered and racialised bodies in contemporary media sites

Social media are influential sociocultural forces that construct and transmit information about gender, health and bodies to young people in the digital age. In health and physical activity, Chinese people are often represented and positioned differently to other (minority) ethnic groups. For example, Black young people are often understood as having low academic motivations and aspirations but as ‘natural’ athletes; in contrast, Chinese young people, seen as the ‘model minority’ who excel in STEM subjects, are fragile, reserved and disinterested in physical movements. These public forms of representation may sit in opposition to the young people’s embodied identity. When these misrepresentations are internalised, issues such as micro-aggression and racism may have an impact on Chinese young people’s health and wellbeing. This paper aims to examine how Chinese bodies are gendered and racialised in contemporary social media sites (e.g. Google News, LiveJournal, Medium, Wordpress). Drawing on critical discourse analysis and Foucault’s concepts of normalisation and discursive practice, the paper will problematise the often taken-for-granted gendered and racialised stereotypes related to Chinese physicality and health on social media sites. Implications for developing future research and teaching resources in critical media health literacy for young people on issues related to gender and equity will be provided. The results affect how we understand, represent, and discuss Chinese (young) people on social media sites, thereby how Chinese young people engage, construct, and perform their embodied identities in Western, English speaking societies

Connectionist network models of attention in human learning

Bibliography: p. 144-149