An investigation on peer feedback for EFL students ages 10 to 14 /

The purpose of this study was to leam more about how EFL (English as Foreign Language) students interacted during peer feedback conferences. Thirty EFL students from Mexico aged 10 to 14 years old participated in this study. The following four main questions were addressed: 1 . What criteria did the students use to evaluate their peers' writing? 2. What revisions were made in relation to peer feedback comments? 3. What was the students' behaviour like during peer feedback conferences? 4. What were the students' perceived attitudes concerning peer feedback conferences? Each of the 30 students wrote a first and a second draft and then took part in a peer feedback conference. All students were interviewed and asked to rate a story and provide a peer feedback comment for the author during interview. The study found that the EFL students were able to provide comments to their peers' writing, but only after their third conference were they actually able to provide higher level comments. The majority of students said that they liked peer feedback sessions. The results also indicated that the students needed more practice with their revisions because they did not make a lot of revisions to make their writing clearer with fewer mistakes. This study concludes that there still needs to be further research. First of all, it would be useful to conduct a similar study with EFL students but one that is conducted over a longer period of time in order to determine if the students continued to develop their peer feedback comments and revision strategies.

Can poor readers visually recognize words they are unable to read? /

The ability to learn new reading vocabulary was assessed in 30 grade 3 poor readers reading approximately one to two years below grade level; the results of the assessment were compared to the performance abilities of 33 normal readers in grade 3 as obtained from an earlier study that employed the same approach and stimuli. The purpose of the study was to examine the strategies employed by poor readers in the acquisition of new reading vocabulary. Students were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (Mixed Phonics Explicit), or to a control group (Phonics Implicit). Subjects in the Mixed Phonics Explicit groups received explicit letter/sound correspondence training. Subjects in the Phonics Implicit group were asked to re-read the presented pseudo-words, receiving corrective feedback when necessary. The stimuli on which the subjects were trained involved a list of six pseudo-words presented in sentences as surnames. The training involved a teaching and test format on each trial for a total of six trials or until criterion had been reached. The results suggested that both normal and poor readers engage in visual learning and verbal coding when acquiring new reading vocabulary. However, poor readers appear to engage in less verbal coding than normal readers. Between group comparisons showed no difference between poor and normal readers in trials and errors to criterion in the visual recognition memory measure. However, normal readers performed significantly better in reading their visual recognition choices.

The performance and strategies of adolescents in learning to read artificial words /

The present study explored processing strategies used by individuals when they begin to read c;l script. Stimuli were artificial words created from symbols and based on an alphabetic system. The words were.presented to Grade Nine and Ten students, with variations included in the difficulty of orthography and word familiarity, and then scores were recorded on the mean number of trials for defined learning variables. Qualitative findings revealed that subjects 1 earned parts of the visual a'nd auditory features of words prior to hooking up the visual stimulus to the word's name. Performance measures-which appear to affect the rate of learning were as follows: auditory short-term memory, auditory delayed short-term memory, visual delayed short- term memory, and word attack or decod~ng skills. Qualitative data emerging in verbal reports by the subjects revealed that strategies they pefceived to use were, graphic, phonetic decoding and word .reading.

Parent and Peer Factors Relating to Adolescent Antisocial Behaviour: Investigating the Moderating Role of Temperament

The purpose of this study was to examine whether certain temperament characteristics (fearfulness, surgency, frustration, and effortful control) moderate the association between authoritative parenting dimensions (psychological autonomy granting, acceptance-involvement, and monitoring knowledge) or friends' antisocial behaviour, and self-reported antisocial behaviour among adolescents. Questionnaires on adolescent temperament and authoritative parenting were completed by 484 mothers and their adolescent children (54.8% female). In addition, the adolescents responded to measures regarding friends' antisocial behavior and their own antisocial behaviour. Adolescent participants ranged between 13 and 17 years of age (M = 14.96 years, SD = 1.39) and lived in a region of southern Ontario. As predicted, the results indicated that effortful control moderated the association between parental monitoring knowledge and adolescent antisocial behaviour. Also, as predicted, effortful control moderated the relation between friends' antisocial behaviour and adolescents' self-reports of antisocial behaviour although the relation was sex-specific to girls. Unexpected results included a significant monitoring knowledge by frustration by sex interaction, and a significant friends' antisocial behaviour by age interaction. In general, the findings were consistent with the expectation that the relation of parenting and peer factors to antisocial behaviour would depend on adolescents' temperamental predispositions. However, effortful control, which contributes to individual differences in self-regulation abilities, served this moderating role to a greater extent than the measures of temperamental reactivity, including fearfulness, surgency and frustration-proneness. Implications of these results are discussed with reference to parenting or classroom-based interventions that may be especially helpful for adolescents with poor self-regulation abilities.

Report of the committee appointed to inquire what amendments are necessary to the Act granting bounties in land and extra pay to certain Canadian volunteers: January 11, 1817, read, and, together with the bill herewith reported, ordered to be printed. (1817)

Includes (p. 3-4) a letter from the Acting Secretary of War to the chairman of the committee dated Department of War, December 26th, 1816.

Report of a select committee to whom were referred the petition of Samuel Thompson and John Dailey: January 14, 1817, read, and ordered to lie upon the table (1817)

Concerning the request of the petitioners, former residents of Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake) in Upper Canada, for relief for the loss of their property when they were compelled to flee Canada after having aided the United States Army in the War of 1812.

Peer Victimization and the Need to Belong within the Context of Recess

Within the school setting, recess is often reported as a frequent context for bullying (Vaillancourt et al. 2010), but is currently understudied. The present study utilized a mixed-methods approach in order to examine the frequency of peer victimization at recess and explore how the current context of recess relates to children’s sense of belonging. Participants included 464 students between grades 4 to 8 from nine Southern Ontario elementary schools. Self-report measures on peer victimization and belongingness were completed, along with open-ended questions regarding the recess context. Results demonstrated the frequencies of peer victimization at recess, the relationship between victimization and belonging, contextual factors that promote and impede belongingness at recess, and solutions to support children who feel left out.These findings provide further insight for educators and administrators in order to better support children who experience victimization within the recess context.