Vocabulary is important for some, but not all reading skills

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level reading skills. This study investigated vocabulary and literacy in 81 children aged 8 to 10 years. In regression analyses, vocabulary accounted for unique variance in exception word reading and reading comprehension, but not text reading accuracy, decoding, or regular word reading. Consistent with these data, children with poor reading comprehension exhibited oral vocabulary weaknesses and read fewer exception words correctly. These findings demonstrate that oral vocabulary is associated with some, but not all, reading skills. Results are discussed in terms of current models of reading development.

Reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage Chinese language textbooks

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as well as in Chinese diasporan communities. Furthermore, it looks at the construction of cultural knowledge in Chinese language textbooks in relation to the mainstream ideology to which immigrant children are exposed in and out of mainstream school classrooms. It looks at how the power relationship between legitimate cultural knowledge in majority and minority contexts is established and to what extent it affects language minority students' literacy practices in mainstream school and heritage language school contexts. Data sources are the Chinese textbooks used from kindergarten to Grade 5 in a Chinese heritage language school.

Children’s eye movements during reading

Children’s eye movements during reading. In this chapter, we evaluate the literature on children’s eye movements during reading to date. We describe the basic, developmental changes that occur in eye movement behaviour during reading, discuss age-related changes in the extent and time course of information extraction during fixations in reading, and compare the effects of visual and linguistic manipulations in the text on children’s eye movement behaviour in relation to skilled adult readers. We argue that future research will benefit from examining how eye movement behaviour during reading develops in relation to language and literacy skills, and use of computational modelling with children’s eye movement data may improve our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the progression from beginning to skilled reader.

Disambiguating with Bourdieu: unravelling policy from practice in the teaching of children with English as an additional language

This article explores the use of Bourdieusian analysis for examining how policy and practice interact in the teaching of English and therefore in the development of children’s language and literacy; in particular how Bourdieusian analysis uncovers the ways in which teachers’ practice has been influenced unconsciously by centralised shaping of the curriculum for English in England while the pupil demographic in schools has become more linguistically diverse. Data were collected from interviews with both newly qualified and very experienced primary school (pupil ages 5 – 11) teachers, whose pedagogical norms for the teaching of English were challenged by the arrival of non-English speakers in their classrooms. The discussion highlights how the use of Bourdieusian constructs of field, habitus and capital can disambiguate teachers’ practical classroom decisions from the influences of policy expectations.

Shaping literacy in the secondary school: policy, practice and agency in the age of the national literacy strategy

This article examines the definitions of literacy in operation in secondary schools, and the relationship between official literacy policy and the practices of the agents responsible for implementing this policy. We trace the history of national policy back to the Language Across the Curriculum movement of the 1970s as it provides an illustrative point of comparison with the first five years of the National Literacy Strategy. Drawing on empirical data which illuminate the views, perceptions and practices of key agents on a number of levels, we critically review the concept of 'school literacy' promoted in government policy, defining it as 'school-centric literacy' and question its ability to facilitate participation in the practices associated with the media and technological literacies which are increasingly a feature of school life. There is evidence of some unplanned effects of the current national policy but also that levels of agency, for literacy teachers in particular, may be rapidly diminishing.

Preliterate phonological awareness and early literacy skills in Turkish

The role of preschool phonological awareness in early reading and spelling skills was investigated in the transparent orthography of Turkish. Fifty-six preschool children (mean age=5.6 years) were followed into Grade 2 (mean age=7.6 years). While preschool phonological awareness failed to make any reliable contribution to future reading skills, it was the strongest longitudinal correlate of spelling skills measured at the end of Grades 1 and 2. Overall findings suggested that phonological awareness may be differentially related to reading and spelling, and that spelling is a more sensitive index of phonological processing skills. In this study, verbal short-term memory emerged as the most powerful and consistent longitudinal correlate of reading speed. This finding raised important questions about the component processes of reading speed, and the role of memory and morphosyntactic skills in an agglutinative and transparent orthography such as Turkish.

Spiritual literacy and tacit knowledge

This article represents a critique of the 'spiritual literacy' approach to spiritual education developed by Andrew Wright (e.g. 2000a), with particular reference to the inclusion of Michael Polanyi's theory of 'tacit knowledge'. Wright's assessment of the current state of religious education is summarised and his proposed method is outlined. Polanyi's ideas are then described and assessed for their compatibility with the 'spiritual literacy' approach.

Theorizing Literacy, Politics and Social Process: revisiting Maktab literacy in Rian in search of a paradigm

Literacy as a social practice is integrally linked with social, economic and political institutions and processes. As such, it has a material base which is fundamentally constituted in power relations. Literacy is therefore interwoven with the text and context of everyday living in which multi-levelled meanings are organically produced at both individual and societal level. This paper argues that if language thus mediates social reality, then it follows that literacy defined as a social practice cannot really be addressed as a reified, neutral activity but that it should take account of the social, cultural and political processes in which literacy practices are embedded. Drawing on the work of key writers within the field, the paper foregrounds the primary role of the state in defining the forms and levels of literacy required and made available at particular moments within society. In a case-study of the social construction of literacy meanings in pre-revolutionary Iran, it explores the view that the discourse about societal literacy levels has historically constituted a key terrain in which the struggle for control over meaning has taken place. This struggle, it is argued, sets the interests of the state to maintain ideological and political control over the production of knowledge within the culture and society over and against the needs identified by the individual for personal development, empowerment and liberation. In an overall sense, the paper examines existing theoretical perspectives on societal literacy programmes in terms of the scope that they provide for analyses that encompass the multi-levelled power relations that shape and influence dominant discourses on the relative value of literacy for both the individual and society