Curriculum Dilemma: The Early Reader Mom, I never READ in school

My child read before he started kindergarten. Now he only reads at home at night, because they don\u27t do much reading in school, just letters and sounds. It is very discouraging for him and me. These are the words of a frustrated parent. Could it be that teachers are ignoring the literacy knowledge children bring to school

Response of Vegetation to Livestock Grazing at the Texas Experimental Ranch.

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Meaning-making from wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks: what educational research expects and what readers have to say

Wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks are intriguing in terms of how readers make meaning from them. This article offers a conceptualization of existing studies in the field of education that use wordless picturebooks with young readers. While some of these studies contribute to understanding meaning-making, the pragmatic use of wordless picturebooks often does not take account of their particular nature and of the heightened role of the reader, leading to a mismatch between what the picturebook expects from the implied reader and the researchers’ expectations of what ‘real’ readers must do with these books. By highlighting observations from children’s literature scholarship and reader-response studies, this article aims to encourage a more interdisciplinary understanding of meaning-making. It also seeks to persuade educational researchers and mediators to consider investigative approaches that are not based on verbalization but are more in tune with the invitations that wordless picturebooks extend to young readers

Marking Stress ExPLICitly in Written English Fosters Rhythm in the Reader’s Inner Voice

Spoken English has a stress-alternating rhythm that is not marked in its orthography. In two experiments, the authors evaluated whether stylistic alterations to print that marked stress pulses fostered the rendering of rhythm (experiment 1) and stress (experiment 2) during silent reading. In experiment 1, silent readers rated the helpfulness of the stylistic alterations appearing in the last line of poems. In experiment 2, silent readers rated the helpfulness of the stylistic alterations appearing in heteronyms embedded in prose. As predicted by linguistic theories, when the stylistic alterations mapped onto the rhythmic pulses of the poems, and the lexically stressed syllables of the heteronyms, silent readers rated these alterations as more helpful compared with the incongruous conditions. In experiment 2, readers’ inner voices were more tuned to the prosodic nuances of the first syllable than the second in the bisyllabic heteronyms. This prosodic tuning for the first syllable in a word was likely afforded by the strong tendency for stress to appear word-initially. In addition, the stylistically marked stress was viewed as more helpful in the early half of the sentence, when readers likely recruited more bottom-up processes. In both experiments, prior exposure to poetry was related to a refined prosodic awareness. In experiment 2, exposure to poetry predicted participants’ prosody sensitivity, after controlling for the other predictors of academic achievement. The authors’ ongoing studies are evaluating whether marking stress explicitly in written English might aid struggling readers and late speakers of English

Adapting building information modeling (BIM) for affordable & sustainable housing

textThe purpose of this thesis is to determine if Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an effective means for encouraging stakeholder collaboration throughout the building design/construction process and improving upon affordable and sustainable strategies for infill housing development. The research methodology includes literature reviews, interviews, case studies, simulations, and experimentations. Literature reviews include documentation regarding BIM, housing affordability and policy, sustainable design strategies, and integrated design practice. I conducted interviews with local stakeholders who had participated in local affordable/sustainable housing projects. The primary case study was the Alley Flat Initiative (2003-2010) which I had the opportunity to be involved with in various capacities as a participant observer. Simulations were performed using a BIM software tool to ‘redesign’ the first Alley Flat Initiative prototype and compare design workflows. Finally, experimentation was done involving the instruction of BIM software and exploring its use within an academic design studio environment. The findings indicate four significant conclusions. First, the research suggests that inflated soft project costs (overhead, administration, and services) can be reduced if local city governments were to adopt BIM in conjunction with housing review and permitting processes. In addition, the city could use BIM data to quantify building impacts on energy and resources over time. Second, sustainability innovation can be easier to integrate within a BIM workflow due to the high-capacity of the software to exchange information with third-part analysis tools. One particular barrier that must be overcome, however, are financial barriers due to software and staff training costs associated with BIM technology. Third, BIM requires ‘front-loading’ projects with more information earlier in the design process, which encourages greater transparency and more direct collaboration between stakeholders. A fully leveraged BIM workflow may not be feasible beyond local small-scale architects and builders due to the relatively steep learning curve and higher software costs, but a hybrid approach might be possible depending on how residential construction practices and BIM software development evolves in the near future. And fourth, BIM can make project information centralized, accessible, and long-lasting – serving as a communication and learning tool across disciplines and between expert and non-expert participants. The product of this research includes recommendations for all stakeholder groups engaged in leveraging BIM for affordable and sustainable housing development. Additional related topics of inquiry which fell outside the scope of this research are also included for future investigation.Architectur

Examining Discrimination, HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Beliefs, and Condom Use Among a Diverse Sample of Young Adults

Racial/ethnic discrimination and HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs may contribute to disparities in use and satisfaction with healthcare services and engaging in safer sex practices. Previous studies that examined racial/ethnic discrimination and HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs focused primarily on African Americans with few studies focusing on Latinos. This study used longitudinal data from in-person structured interviews with 450 Latino, Black, and White young adults from East Los Angeles, California. The sample was equally represented by race/ethnicity (Latino 33%, Black 34%, and White 33%). We collected data on perceptions of discrimination in a daily context (EOD), in interactions with healthcare providers (HDS), HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs (HCB), condom use at baseline and four months post-baseline, condom use self-efficacy, sexual decision-making, perceived risk for HIV/STIs, and demographic characteristics. The first aim was to examine if and how race is associated with Experiences of Discrimination (EOD), Perceived Healthcare Discrimination (HDS), and HIV/AIDS-Conspiracy Beliefs (HCB) and if and how gender moderates this relationship while controlling for number of children, age, education and working outside of the home. The second aim was to investigate if and how EOD, HDS, and HCB were associated with condom use overall and by race, gender, and race by gender. For Aim 1, logistic and linear regressions were used to examine the association between discrimination and endorsing HCB by race and by gender. Multivariable models, adjusting for all demographic covariates, investigated if race/ethnicity and gender were associated with EOD, HDS, and HCB and if the association between race/ethnicity and EOD, HDS, and HCB varied by gender. For Aim 2, bivariate relationships between condom use at Time 2 and all covariates were examined using simple logistic regression. Multivariable models, adjusting for all covariates investigated if EOD, HDS, and HCB were associated with condom use at Time 2. We found that Blacks and Latinos reported more experiences of everyday and healthcare discrimination in almost all forms and endorsed more HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs compared to Whites. Additionally, Black and Latino men reported stronger feelings of everyday discrimination than their female counterparts. Also, more reports of experiences of healthcare discrimination and endorsement of HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs were found for Blacks, Latinos, and participants with children compared to their counterparts. However, everyday discrimination, healthcare discrimination, and endorsement of HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs did not predict future condom use among a sample of Blacks, Latinos, and Whites. We did find, however, that among women, exposure to everyday discrimination did predict future condom use and that past condom use predicted future condom use for all racial and both gender groups. This study contributes to a growing understanding of how different racial/ethnic groups experience discrimination across various settings and everyday activities and their endorsement of HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs. Notably, we included Latinos who have, outside of immigration issues, been underrepresented from the broader discrimination literature. The field of Public Health must address the problems of racism and discrimination like any other toxic pathogen. In so doing, Public Health becomes proactive in its efforts to mitigate the effects of racial discriminations on population health

Herbage response following control of honey mesquite within single tree lysimeters

Justification for controlling honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr. var. glandulosa) on rangelands has been traditionally related to enhanced livestock production from increased herbage production. More recently, however, it has been hypothesized that control would also increase off-site water yield. The objective of this 3-year study was to quantify the effects of control of individual honey mesquite trees inside nonweighable lysimeters on herbage standing crop, leaf area, and aboveground production. Utilizing frequent harvest techniques, estimated aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in intact tree lysimeters averaged 235 g/m2. Estimated ANPP in the treated lysimeters averaged 349 g/m2. The increased ANPP, following removal of the trees, resulted in significantly greater amounts of herbaceous leaf area and standing crop. The increase in ANPP was relatively uniform regardless of distance from the trunk of removed trees and was the result of increased production by those herbage species present at time of control rather than a shift in species composition. The dominant species in both treatments was Texas wintergrass (Stipa leucothrica Trin. & Rupr.). Sideoats grams [Bouteloua curtipendula (Michx.) Torr.] was a subdominant. The results, in combination with concurrent water yield studies, suggest control of honey mesquite will not enhance water yields dramatically in this region in the absence of livestock grazing.This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries.The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform August 202

Irrigation impact on harvest efficiency in grazed Old World bluestem

In 1992 and 1993, pastures of WW-Spar Old World bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum L.) were maintained at 2 levels of soil water, rainfall and rainfall plus 25 mm/week of supplementary irrigation. At both moisture levels the grass was maintained at 2 levels of standing crop, averaging 1,548 and 2,154 kg ha(-1), using continuous variable stocking. Measurements were made to determine how different levels of soil moisture interacted with grazing intensity to change leaf area index, leaf-stem and live-dead ratios, tiller density, and the proportion of gross leaf production that was grazed (harvest efficiency). The proportions of live to dead, and leaf and stem biomass, remained constant under the different levels of soil water content. Soil water content alone had no effect on leaf area index, tiller density and the proportion of live or dead, leaf and stem. Winter tiller survival was significantly higher in the pastures with higher soil water content. Increasing soil water content and increasing grazing intensity interacted to reduce the proportion of dead leaf, increase production of new tillers, and increase the proportion of leaf grazed by decreasing leaf that died and was not grazed. This study indicates that if continuously grazed Old World bluestem was maintained at a standing crop of 1,500 kg ha(-1), harvest efficiency would be higher in wet years or under irrigation than if standing crop was higher.The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform August 202