Family Literacy: The Missing Link to School-Wide Literacy Efforts

Everyone has a literacy component to their lives. Family literacy refers to the ways people learn and use literacy in their home and everyday lives. Many times there is a disconnect between family and school literacies. Schools do not have systematic ways of tapping into the wealth of knowledge families possess and linking that knowledge to school literacy efforts. This article provides a brief review of family literacy issues and perspectives. Sample family literacy programs are summarized and suggestions are given for strengthening the link between family and school through food, photos, family publications, journals, literacy events, and using parents as resources in the classroom

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND PRIMARY EDUCATION TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS, IN USING DIGITAL GAMES AS LEARNING TOOLS. OBSTACLES AND FACTORS THAT LEAD TO THEIR EFFECTIVE USE

Over the last decade, in addition to their entertainment dimension, digital games, have been used as teaching and learning tools. International literature has shown several studies that evaluate the effectiveness of digital games in the educational process. Many researchers argue that digital games can be of assistance to student’s learning and solving problems, as well as develop social and cognitive skills (Gee 2003, Prensky 2007, Oblinger & Oblinger 2005, Watson et al. 2011). This research aimed to computer science teachers and primary education teacher’s perceptions, regarding the use of digital games, as a teaching and learning tool, the factors that make their use effective, not to mention the barriers to their use. One hundred twenty teachers participated (70 computer science teachers and 50 teachers), by completing a questionnaire of fifteen questions, on a Likert scale and two open-ended questions. Results demonstrated that both teachers and computer educators agree that the use of digital games is a "good" practice, which enhances and enriches the learning process, provides motivation, and is an effective learning tool. Their design should be addressed to students’ personal needs and be based on learning principles. However, it has been observed that computer educators are the ones who use digital games in their teaching, more often as opposed to teachers. The main obstacles that prevent teachers from using technology in their classrooms are the lack of infrastructure, motivation, training, as well as the time available. The elements that seem to be taken into consideration by a teacher, in order to capitalize on digital games in the educational process, are personal needs and students’ particularities, as well as preparation, feedback and the setting of limits by the teachers. Research findings could be utilized in both digital play use in education and in its development, as a learning tool.  Article visualizations

Understanding and treating depressive rumination

Introduction Depressive rumination is a type of repetitive thought with deleterious effect on mental health. Depressive rumination is associated with deficits in the control of working memory and has been shown to be a robust predictor of onset and severity of a depressive episode. Consequently, a number of therapeutic approaches for depression endeavour to remediate depressive rumination either directly or by proxy in an effort to alleviate depressed mood and to prevent relapse. Maintenance of depressed mood has been argued to be the result of a deficit in the ability to regulate depressiogenic cognitive structures. This review investigates which of these structures are targeted by current psychotherapeutic interventions. Method A computerised search using key words was conducted on a number of academic databases to identify peer-reviewed articles documenting the efficacy of treatments of depressive rumination. Additional references were obtained through the references section of relevant articles and chapters. The resulting articles were arranged thematically under their respective intervention within two broad groups: interventions aimed at restructuring cognitive content and behavioural interventions. Results Results identified evidence for both cognitive interventions, such as cognitive therapy, metacognitive therapy and mindfulness therapy, and for behavioural interventions, such as distraction, aversion behavioural activation and graded exposure. Discussion Current therapeutic treatments of depressive rumination appear to privilege interventions targeting the reappraisal of cognitive content and the disruption of activation of mood congruent cognitions, whilst omitting to directly remediate the structural deficit in cognitive inhibition of depressiogenic thoughts. Treatments such as cognitive remediation therapy can target such structural cognitive deficits. The article proposes that future research needs to investigate the effectiveness of such interventions for the treatment of depressive rumination and depression

Secondary Teachers’ Knowledge, Beliefs, and Self-Efficacy to Teach Reading in the Content Areas: Voices Following Professional Development

This study explored 24 content area teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and self-efficacy about teaching reading in the content areas at the end of a state-wide professional development experience. The findings suggest that the participating teachers held positive beliefs, gained valuable knowledge, and were confident about teaching reading in their content areas

Understanding the Role of Science-Specific Literacy Strategies in Supporting Science Teaching and Student Learning: A Case Study of Preservice Elementary Teachers in a Science Methods Course That Integrated a Disciplinary Literacy Framework

The shift to student engagement in scientific and engineering practices to learn science provides opportunities for science learning and language learning to occur in tandem. These opportunities also pose new challenges for elementary pre-service teachers (PSTs) since literacy methods courses have been presented separately from science methods courses. We integrated a disciplinary literacy framework in a science methods course to help elementary PSTs understand the synergistic connections between literacy and science teaching. The purpose of this study was to examine elementary PSTs’ understanding of the use of science-specific literacy strategies to support science teaching and learning through three points of observation. Findings from three data sources indicated that PSTs showed a developing understanding of the role of disciplinary literacy in supporting student engagement in science practices and learning disciplinary core ideas. Implications for future uses of a disciplinary literacy framework for teaching and learning science and elementary PSTs’ science preparation are presented