Book Review: Powerful Literacy in the Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice

A century on, as young children in Montessori classrooms around the world continue to engage with Sandpaper Letters, Metal Insets, Moveable Alphabets, and Reading Command cards, an accumulation of studies into how children learn to read from across a range ofdisciplines has generated an influential body of research evidence that has been dubbed the science of reading. The science of reading is currently being used to shape education policy and mandated curriculum documents, especially in the English-speaking world. For this reason, the comparative analysis of the Montessori approach and the science of reading presented in Powerful Literacy inthe Montessori Classroom: Aligning Reading Research and Practice will be welcomed by many Montessori educators

Montessori's mediation of meaning: a social semiotic perspective

The distinctive objects designed by Dr Maria Montessori as the centrepiece of her approach to pedagogy are the topic of this study. The Montessori approach to pedagogy, celebrating its centenary in 2007, continues to be used in classrooms throughout the world. Despite such widespread and enduring use, there has been little analysis of the Montessori objects to evaluate or understand their pedagogic impact. This study begins by outlining the provenance of the Montessori objects, reaching the conclusion that the tendency to interpret them from the perspective of the progressive education movement of the early twentieth century fails to provide insights into the developmental potential embodied in the objects. In order to appreciate that potential more fully, the study explores the design of the objects, specifically, the way in which the semiotic qualities embodied in their design orient children to the meanings of educational knowledge. A meta-analytic framework comprising three components is used to analyse the semiotic potential of the Montessori objects as educational artefacts. First, Vygotsky’s model of development is used to analyse the objects as external mediational means and to recognise the objects as complexes of signs materialising educational knowledge. In order to understand how the objects capture, in the form of concrete analogues, the linguistic meanings which construe educational knowledge, systemic functional linguistics, the second component of the framework, is used to achieve a rich and detailed social semiotic analysis of these relations, in particular, material and linguistic representations of abstract educational meanings. Finally, the pedagogic device, a central feature of Bernstein’s sociology of pedagogy, is used to analyse how the Montessori objects re-contextualise educational knowledge as developmental pedagogy. Particular attention is paid to the Montessori literacy pedagogy, in which the study of grammar plays a central role. The study reveals a central design principle which distinguishes the Montessori objects. This principle is the redundant representation of educational knowledge across multiple semiotic modes. Each representation holds constant the underlying meaning relations which construe quanta of educational knowledge, giving children the freedom to engage with this knowledge playfully, independently and successfully. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the design of the Montessori objects represents valuable educational potential which deserves continued investigation, as well as wider recognition and application. To initiate this process, the findings in this study may provide insights which can be used to develop tools for evaluating and enhancing the implementation of Montessori pedagogy in Montessori schools. The findings may also be used to adapt Montessori design principles for the benefit of educators working in non-Montessori contexts, in particular, those educators concerned with developing pedagogies which promote equitable access to educational knowledge

Enhancing expressions of attitudes: Achieving equity for international students in everyday communication

International students from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) often have problems expressing attitudes precisely and effectively in English. Not being able to express what they think and feel prevents international students from adjusting easily to the host culture and integrating socially with the locals, including local students. Current ELICOS programs often neglect attitudinal language. This article suggests one way of enhancing international students’ fluency and confidence in everyday communication through analysis of the language used in a narrative extract. Teaching and learning activities focus on scaffolding students’ proficiency in using evaluative language (Martin & White, 2005)

Listening to the library: Preadolescent student perceptions of the impact of downloadable audiobooks on their literacy development

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was for me to learn from students about their perceptions of changes in their literacy practices from listening to downloaded audiobooks in their free time. Participants were preadolescent students from one international school in South Korea. Data were collected from regular recorded interviews over a period of two school years. Much has been written about audiobooks in popular media, and especially in educational publications, but there is a surprising lack of significant research about using audiobooks in education, particularly for fluent readers and writers with no learning difficulties. This research aims to fill a gap in the educational research and recent technological advancements in downloadable audiobook technology make this a timely topic. Narrative inquiry is shown to be an ideal methodology to present student 'voice' research. Results are presented as fourteen themes with sub-themes in four thematic categories, namely, what students gain (or not) from listening to audiobooks, characteristics of listeners, agency and organisational structures. This research found that participants were selfmotivated to listen to audiobooks in their leisure time and that they did perceive a change in their literacy practices, particularly in generating story ideas, providing a model of verbal fluency and learning vocabulary in context. However, the research also revealed that there are significant organisational structures, such as technical challenges and the influence of adults, which either enable or constrain a student's agency to listen to audiobooks. Additionally, it became apparent that these preadolescent audiobook listeners display notable characteristics such as the proclivity to multitask while listening, a preference for story regardless of mode and the ability to critically analyse both the story and narration. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for educational knowledge and practice

Investigating the Literacy, Numeracy and ICT Demands of Primary Teacher Education

The pre-service programs delivered in Australian teacher education institutions are expected to graduate students who meet externally determined standards, including standards in literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology. These programs are also expected to educate future teachers in professional knowledge and practice, as well as prepare them to engage in professional learning continuously throughout their careers. This paper reports on the first phase of a project that investigated the literacy, numeracy and ICT demands of assessment tasks across the four years of the Bachelor of Education (Primary) program at a regional university

The Effects of a Morphological Intervention on Children's Spelling Performance and Understanding: Toward a Relational Approach

Spelling is a very complex process, yet mastering the intricacies and inconsistencies of English spelling is considered a basic skill children must learn from the earliest years at school. Throughout their education, however, many children struggle with spelling, a struggle that can continue into adulthood. In response to the apparently insurmountable challenge spelling poses to so many children, this study proposes a re-conceptualization of children's spelling development incorporating both a cognitive and a linguistic perspective. To this end, a multifaceted methodology was used in the study, first, to investigate children's reasoning about spelling, the cognitive view, and, second, to track the development of spelling performance, the linguistic view

The English Writing Requirements in the First Year of a Bachelor of Communications in Oman

This thesis reports the findings of a textography undertaken to inform the teaching of English writing in a tertiary college in Oman. Textography was selected as the methodological approach because it provides a framework for integrating discourse analysis and ethnographic techniques in order to examine how and why texts written by students in this setting make the meanings they do. The framework included a World Englishes approach, which examines how English is used differently to meet the different needs of users across the globe, categorised according to whether they are Inner Circle, Outer Circle or Expanding Circle users of English. The underpinning theory chosen for text analysis was systemic functional linguistics, as it provides the tools for theorising the relationships between texts and contexts. The texts examined were authentic samples of student assessment writing. These were contextualised with reference to teacher interviews, college and Oman Ministry of Education documents as well as researcher observations recorded in notes and pictures. The study demonstrated that textography was an approach particularly well-suited to the requirements of teacher researchers working in Gulf Cooperation Council countries such as Oman where English is used as a medium of instruction in tertiary institutions. A model was developed for use by teachers to manage analysis of the range of data they can collect in a textography. The findings bring into question the delivery of "contentless" English for academic purposes programs in English-medium instruction contexts and suggest that closer cooperation between English Departments and departments teaching other disciplines is required to align the types of texts students are taught in the English Program with those they will be required to engage with in their discipline studies. A further finding is that contrary to many reports in the literature, the students in this study appeared to be supported by their Arabic literacy skills and were able to transfer these effectively to English writing. Those teachers who had Arabic language skills also used them to good effect in their teaching with no apparent negative effect on the English language learning of their students. As a result, one of the recommendations expressed in this thesis is that translanguaging should be leveraged in English-medium instruction environments and that further research should be conducted into supporting the use of translanguaging by students and teachers. It is hoped that this insight will contribute to the research field of student academic writing genres in tertiary contexts where English is used as a medium of instruction

From dot points to disciplinarity: the theory and practice of disciplinary literacies in secondary schooling

This thesis explores the disciplinary literacies of Business Studies and Music, with a focus on the written component of the HSC examination in the final year of schooling in New South Wales. The syllabus contains dot points of topics to be covered in the course but these offer little guidance for teachers or students in how to compose an answer to an HSC examination question and they obscure relations between different aspects of disciplinary knowledge. To help teachers move beyond syllabus dot points, this thesis aims to illuminate the distinctive literacy demands of Business Studies and Music. This is achieved by using analytical frameworks from Systemic Functional Linguistics and Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis to explore the features of successful HSC writing in these two subjects. Analysis reveals that successful writing in Business Studies explains patterns of cause and effect with profit as the main motive. In contrast, successful HSC writing in Music describes musical events in terms of concepts of music and principles of musical composition. In the analysis, concepts of music are systematised as networks and taxonomies to reveal the relations within and between concepts. The analysis also includes a typology of images (graphic notation and non-traditional notation) used to represent music to enable an investigation of how image and written text are interrelated in successful HSC responses

University Students' Beliefs about English Learning and their Use of Learning Strategies: a Mixed-Method Study in Macao

This thesis is an exploration of two phenomena which become foregrounded when attention is focused on the process of learning an additional language, namely, (1) the beliefs language learners have about learning an additional language and (2) the strategies they use to learn the language, where strategic language learning has been recognised as contributing to successful outcomes. The thesis also explores relations between these two phenomena. Specifically, the study reported in this thesis used a mixed method approach to investigate the beliefs about language learning of tertiary students studying English in Macao, the language learning strategies these students use to learn English, and the relations between their language learning beliefs and the strategies they use. Students' beliefs about learning English and their strategies they use to learn the language were investigated quantitatively, through a questionnaire survey, and qualitatively, through follow-up interviews

Developing Students' Knowledge About Language in the Early Years: A Games-Based Pedagogical Approach

A games-based pedagogical approach to developing students' knowledge about language in the early years of primary schooling is the focus of this study. New perspectives about the potential for teaching and learning about grammar to support students' development as expert users of language have emerged in recent literature and these studies have offered insights into how educators might unlock this potential in their classrooms. Recognising the potential of knowledge about grammar to support language and literature development has been aligned with the use in the classroom of a more functionally-oriented pedagogical grammar, one derived from M.A.K Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. Recent curriculum changes in Anglophone countries, including Australia, have foregrounded explicit functionally-oriented grammar instruction. To enact this aspect of the curriculum effectively, teachers, particularly those working with very young students, need more knowledge about grammar and more pedagogical 'know-how'. To contribute to building this 'know-how', the study presented in this thesis explores the use of games-based pedagogy to teach young students about grammar. Specifically, the affordances of dialogic pedagogy, metalinguistic understanding and multimodality were applied to the design of grammar games to teach Year 1 students about clause structure and the functional parts of the clause. In this single embedded case study, the students were video-recorded as they played the games. This enabled an analysis of the students' use of multiple semiotic resources, including gestural and dialogic interaction, colour and movement, to reveal the complex interplay between interactive mediating tools and interactions in games purposefully designed to support these young students learning about grammar. The study findings suggest that the type of student dialogic interaction that supports learning can emerge when students are engaged in games-based learning activities. Moreover, this kind of student dialogic interaction, scaffolded by multiple semiotic resources, can support young students' gradual development of knowledge about language and their developing metalinguistic understanding. A refined framework for how the young students in this study appeared to develop their metalinguistic understanding is proposed. The thesis suggests that further research into the possibilities afforded by a games-based approach to developing students' knowledge about language is warranted