39 research outputs found
Developing the practice of educational psychologists through theory and research
Recent research in literacy acquisition has generated detailed programs for teaching phonological awareness. The current paper will address three issues that follow from this research. Firstly, much of the past research has been conducted under conditions that are divorced from the classroom. As a result, it is not known whether the suggested teaching strategies will lead to an increase in childrenâs attainments when integrated into a broad reading curriculum implemented by teachers in mainstream classrooms. Secondly, these phonological interventions have been designed either to prevent the occurrence of reading difficulties or to meet the needs of failing readers. Therefore, it is not known whether the same methods would advantage all children. Thirdly, teaching children to read takes a minimum of two to three academic years. We herefore need to develop a reading curriculum that can provide the progression and differentiation to meet a wide range of needs over several academic years. We report two studies that have addressed these issues through monitoring the impact of a reading curriculum, implemented by teachers, which integrated childrenâs acquisition of phonological skills with broader aspects of teaching reading over three academic years. The attainments of children at all levels of ability in the experimental group were raised relative to controls, and importantly, these gains were maintained after the intervention was withdrawn. These results demonstrate that phonological awareness training can be successfully integrated into real classroom contexts and that the same methods raised the attainments of normally developing children, as well as those at risk of reading failure
Delivering phonological and phonics training within whole-class teaching
Background: Early, intensive phonological awareness and phonics training is widely held to be beneficial for children with poor phonological awareness. However, most studies have delivered this training separately from children's normal whole-class reading lessons. Aims: We examined whether integrating this training into whole class, mixed-ability reading lessons could impact on children with poor phonological awareness, whilst also benefiting normally developing readers. Sample: Teachers delivered the training within a broad reading programme to whole classes of children from Reception to the end of Year 1 (N=251). A comparison group of children received standard teaching methods (N=213). Method: Children's literacy was assessed at the beginning of Reception, and then at the end of each year until 1 year post-intervention. Results: The strategy significantly impacted on reading performance for normally developing readers and those with poor phonological awareness, vastly reducing the incidence of reading difficulties from 20% in comparison schools to 5% in intervention schools. Conclusions: Phonological and phonics training is highly effective for children with poor phonological awareness, even when incorporated into whole-class teaching
Training mispronunciation correction and word meanings improves childrenâs ability to learn to read words
Previous research has suggested that learning to read irregular words depends upon knowledge of a wordâs meaning and the ability to correct imperfect decoding attempts by reference to the known pronunciations of a word. In an experimental training study, 84 children ages 5â7 years were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. Children in the intervention group participated in a 4-week programme in which they were taught to correct mispronunciations of spoken words as well as being taught the meanings of those words. Children in the control group received no additional teaching. The intervention group made significant gains in their ability to correct mispronunciations and to read and define the taught words; these gains also generalised to a comparable set of untaught control words. Children can be taught to correct errors in the pronunciation of irregular words, and this may produce generalised effects on learning to read
Needs or rights? A challenge to the discourse of special education
It is nearly 30 years since Mary Warnock's Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People introduced the phrase âspecial educational needsâ into the UK education system. In this article, Katherine Runswick-Cole, Research Associate at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Nick Hodge, Principal Lecturer in Research Development at Sheffield Hallam University, argue for the abandonment of the âspecial needsâ discourse, claiming that it has, in fact, led to exclusionary practices within education. Building on the work of early years educators in Reggio Emilia schools in Northern Italy, the authors advocate for the adoption of the phrase âeducational rightsâ and suggest that the positive impact of such a linguistic turn would be significant for the lives of young people currently described as having âspecial educational needsâ and for children's rights
Separating the influences of prereading skills on early word and nonword reading
The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginning readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills, and visual attention were measured in 392 prereaders 4 and 5 years of age. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skillsâreading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all prereading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all of these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginning readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words
Problematising parentâprofessional partnerships in education
The value of, and need for, parentâprofessional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to âspecial educational needsâ. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parentâprofessional relationships might be achieved
Problematising parentâprofessional partnerships in education
The value of, and need for, parentâprofessional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to âspecial educational needsâ. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parentâprofessional relationships might be achieved