Reading comprehension: nature, assessment and teaching.

The goal of reading is understanding. In order to understand print, a child must be able to decode the words on the page and to extract meaning. A large body of research focuses on how children learn to decode text and how best to foster children’s decoding skills. In contrast, we know much less about the process of reading comprehension in children. In this booklet we first consider what is required in order to ‘read for meaning’. We then move on to discuss children who have difficulties with reading comprehension. Our aim is to enable teachers to assess individual differences in reading and to foster the comprehension strategies that characterize fluent reading

Practicing the Four Seasons of Ethnography Methodology while Searching for Identity in Mexico

This narrative is an account of my field experiences and challenges practicing González’s (2000) Four Seasons of Ethnography methodology in Mexico City. I describe the complexities and tensions inherent in managing two scientific paradigms: Western scientific logic vs. a more organic ontology. The experiential knowledge produced in this text is useful to ethnographers who face questions of identity and ethics in the field. To evoke a sense of experience, I represent the ethnography for the reader in the way it unfolded for me—sometimes painful, other times insightful, oftentimes both. This dual text exposes my struggles as emergent ethnographer grappling with issues of voice, identity, and representation while describing scenes from life in Mexico drawn from observations and narrative interviews. At the forefront of this text are the methodological choices and ontological experiences of the Four Seasons of Ethnography methodology, while observations and conversations in Mexico City form the backdrop

"Distracters" do not always distract : Visual working memory for angry faces is enhanced by incidental emotional words.

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Less Than I Wanted To Know: Why Do Ben-Shahar and Schneider Attack Only \u27Mandated\u27 Disclosure?

This essay responds to a new book by Omri Ben Shahar and Carl E. Schneider, entitled MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW: THE FAILURE OF MANDATED DISCLOSURE (Princeton, 2014). The book is an elaborate disclosure of why disclosure fails. It is hard to disagree with the fact that widespread deficits in consumer reading, understanding and decisionmaking undermine the efficacy of disclosures, and the book provides plenty of data to show this. But the authors do not much confront the fact that many mandates for disclosures are a response to what happens when firms are free to design their own fine print. The same consumer decisionmaking deficits the authors here elaborate exist when the disclosure (allegedly contractual) is created by private firms; and firms take advantage of those deficits. If mandated disclosure is abandoned, as the authors recommend, do the authors think recipients of bad boilerplate should just be on their own? The authors did not consider that question as part of their project in this book

An analysis of elementary education majors' and music majors' experiences with Comprehensive Musicianship principles in high school general music courses

The purpose of this study was to determine the percentage of elementary education majors and music majors at a mid-Atlantic university who experienced principles of the Comprehensive Musicianship approach during their high school general music experiences. Principles of the Comprehensive Musicianship approach came from Heavner's (1995) theoretical Comprehensive Musicianship curriculum model, and include concepts, content, activities, instructional literature, and evaluation techniques. Two hundred seventy three elementary education majors and music majors were invited to complete a questionnaire about their high school general music experiences, and 43 usable responses were obtained. Percentages of participants who experienced each of the Comprehensive Musicianship principles were calculated, and results indicated that Comprehensive Musicianship principles were not experienced equally. These findings reveal the need for greater attention to the equality of Comprehensive Musicianship principles in high school general music courses

The Hartley site (FaNp-19) and the use of sandhill environments in the late precontact period

The Hartley site (FaNp-19) is a Late Precontact Period multicomponent habitation and bison kill and processing site located on the periphery of a sand dune environment surrounded by grasslands. The Hartley site, located within the Saskatoon city limits, was originally identified by Ken Cronk and members of the Saskatoon Archaeological Society in the 1950’s. Subsequent excavations by Millenium Consulting Ltd., the University of Saskatchewan, Western Heritage Services Inc., and Stantec Consulting Ltd. have all added to the database of knowledge pertaining to this site. Radiometric dates and the recovery of artifacts characteristic of the Avonlea Horizon, the Old Women’s Phase, and the Mortlach Phase have demonstrated that this region was a popular place for occupation and bison procurement during the Late Precontact Period. A detailed analysis of the faunal remains recovered from the area known as the Wooded Hollow has demonstrated that this assemblage differs significantly from the remains recovered from the previously researched Brushy Depression. It appears that bison were being heavily harvested and that the use of secondary faunal sources was extremely limited. Determination of seasonality is based on cluster and discriminant function analysis of carpal, tarsal, longbone and phalange data. The resulting herd structure of almost equal numbers of males and females suggests an occupation during the rut, or the fall months. Some immature elements and non-bison remains suggest occupation may have occurred in the spring. It is therefore possible that this region was utilized over a period of time for the purposes of procuring animals from the spring to the fall months. The complete lack of foetal bone in this region suggests that, unlike in the Brushy Depression, the Wooded Hollow was not occupied during the winter months. Taphonomic factors were considered in performing a complete faunal analysis of this thesis. Non-human agents and associated processes suggest that the assemblage was buried quickly after the site was vacated. The extremely fragmented nature of the assemblage, however, suggests that humans had a greater effect on the assemblage than the non-human agents. Based on breakage patterns it is determined that these remains were being processed for the purposes of both marrow and grease extraction. Application of a site determination model also suggests that it is likely that both kill and processing activities occurred in this area. Location of the Hartley site within a dune environment is linked to the activities that occurred at this site. A review of ethnographic accounts of bison pounding and surrounding activities has revealed that availability of ecological resources such as wood and necessary topographic features characteristic of dune environments were essential to the success of bison procurement. Although it has been suggested that settlement of these regions is also linked to the variety and stability of resources in ‘ecotones’, or areas of resource overlap, between grassland and sandhill environments, a review of several faunal assemblages from various similar Northern Plains assemblages reveals that bison was by far the dominant species exploited. Variety in terms of faunal resources may not have been a factor at all. It is therefore suggested in this thesis that settlement on the periphery of sandhill environments is linked to the presence of bison in the surrounding grassland region, as well as to the stability of the resources in wetland areas supported by high water tables in the dune environments. Also known as ‘ecological islands’ these regions may have been more stable in terms of essential resources such as wood and other botanical resources, in addition to providing areas of shelter during the colder winter months. It is concluded that settlement and large scale bison procurement activities in several sandhill environments on the Northern Plains is tightly linked to availability of bison, the availability of wood, a conducive topographic setting, and the stability of resources in these ‘ecological islands’

Haydn's contribution to the evolution and establishment of sonata allegro form

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit