This article considers some of the findings
of a research project comparing discourse analysis and multimodal
analysis as research methods. It describes some of the insights
into the multimodality of children's communication as revealed
by that study and questions whether descriptions based primarily
on discourse analysis give as thick a description as possible.
Given the current interest in "Speaking, Listening,
Learning" in Key Stage 1 and 2, the paper posits that
the communicative functions of gesture, posture and other
forms of multimodal meaning making will have implications
for teachers of English seeking to extend opportunities
for learning through speaking and listening.
Abstract reproduced with permission of NATE
One hundred and eighty British secondary school
pupils aged 11-12 and their six trainee teachers in five
schools participated in an action research project, designed
to improve the quality of children's group talk in English
lessons, particularly their engagement in higher-oder thinking
through 'exploratory' talk. The programme, supported by
the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), now Training and Development
Agency, was devised by a team of mentors and an Initial
Teacher Educator from Sussex University. It aimed to develop
the trainees' skills both in in planning challenging tasks
for, and sustaining effective group talk using 'ground rules'
and varied teacher discourse strategies. The data include
qualitative comparative analysis of discourse audiotaped
before and after the intervention, taken from 66 pupils.
Findings indicate a clear improvement in the quality of
talk, in terms of pupils' collaborative engagement in higher-order
thinking. Further evidence from observations and interviews
with all participants suggests confirmation of the programme's
effectiveness in improving trainees' and pupils' skills
in, and understanding of how to use group talk to reason
Abstract reproduced with permission of Blackwell
Publishing: www.blackwell-synergy.com
This paper reports a study that followed the
development of reading skills in 72 children from the age
of 8.5 to 13 years. Each child was administered tests of
reading, oral language, phonological skills and nonverbal
ability at time 1 and their performance on tests of reading
comprehension, word recognition, nonword decoding and exception
word reading was assessed at time 2. In addition to phonological
skills, three measures of non-phonological oral language
tapping vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension
were unique concurrent predictors of both reading comprehension
and word recognition at time 1. Importantly, all three measures
of oral language skill also contributed unique variance
to individual differences in reading comprehension, word
recognition and exception word reading four and a half years
later, even when the autoregressive effects of early reading
skill were controlled. Moreover, the extent to which a child's
word recognition departed from the level predicted from
their decoding ability correlated with their oral language
skills. These findings suggest that children's oral language
proficiency, as well ad their phonological skills, influences
the course of reading development.
Abstract reproduced with permission of Blackwell
Publishing: www.blackwell-synergy.com
This article describes a small-scale study
which emanated from the concern of the head teachers and
staff of two primary schools serving deprived, multicultural
areas of an inner city. The concern of the staff related
to the level of their pupils' spoken language skills through
the schools and the perceived impact that this has on pupils
learning more widely. The article explores the nature and
importance of oral language development in the early years
and describes an intervention designed to enhance the spoken
language skills of the reception children. The pre-intervention
scores of the children at school entry indicated that the
language skills of the children were less well developed
than those of the general population. The findings suggest
that the intervention had a positive effect on the speaking
and listening skills of the reception children and that
the teachers' involvement in the research contributed to
their professional development.
Abstract reproduced with permission of the
Taylor and Francis Group: www.tandf.co.uk
Three sets of meta-analyses examined gender
effects on children's language use. Each set of analyses
considered an aspect of speech that is considered to be
gender typed: talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive
speech. Statistically significant average effect sizes were
obtained with all three language constructs. On average,
girls were slightly more talkative and used more affiliative
speech than did boys, whereas boys used more assertive speech
than did girls. However, the average effect sizes were either
negligible (talkativeness, d = 0.11; assertive speech, d
= 0.11) or small (affiliative speech, d = 0.26). Larger
effect sizes were indicated for some lanugage constructs
depending on either the operational definition of the language
measure, the method of recording, the child's age level,
the interaction partner (adult or peer), group size, gender
composition, observational setting or type of activity.
The results are interpreted in relation to social-developmental
and social-consturctionist approaches to gender; these views
are presented as complementary - rather than competing -
meta-theoretical viewpoints.
This study investigated relationships between
preschoolers' oral discourse and their later skill at reading
and writing. Thirty-two children participated in narrative
and expository oral language tasks at age 5 years and reading
comprehension and writing assessments at age 8 years. Children's
ability to mark the significance of narrated events through
the use of evaluation at age 5 predicted reading comprehension
skills at age 8. Children's ability to represent informational
content in expository talk at age 5 also predicted reading
comprehension at age 8. Control of discourse macrostructures
in both narrative and expository talk at age 5 was associated
with written narrative skills at age 8. These findings point
to a complex and differentiated role of oral language in
supporting early literacy.
Abstract reproduced with permission of Sage
Publications Ltd: www.sagepub.co.uk
This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental
study of whether there exists a causal relationship between
spoken language and the initial learning of reading/writing.
The subjects were two matched samples each of 24 preschool
pupils (boys and girls), controlling for certain relevant
external variables. It was found that there was no causal
relationship between the initial reading/writing performance
and the language variables that have traditionally been
regarded as relevant in facilitating the learning of reading/writing
(vocabulary, articulation, and auditory memory). Phonemic
awareness, however, was strongly causally related with the
writing of simple words.
Abstract reproduced with permission of the
Taylor and Francis Group: www.tandf.co.uk
The size of the noun vocabulary children learn
is influenced by what the children talk about with their
caregivers when they are toddlers. For quartiles based on
root noun vocabulary size, longitudinal data for 40 children
(13-36 months old) were analysed using the MacArthur Communicative
Development Inventory (CDI) to standardize the vocabulary
of topics examined and a 100-utterance sample each month
to equate the children for rate of talking. Analysis showed
similar trends across the quartiles in the topic categories
the children talked about, major increases in use of nouns
different from those on the CDI, and diversity (different
nouns per noun used) increasing as vocabulary increased.
Richness differed across the quartiles, and the richness
in nouns of the children's utterances was associated not
with diversity but with the richness in nouns of their parents'
utterances. An important aspect of the size of the noun
vocabulary children learn may be the extent to which the
children are matching not only the nouns but the richness
in nouns of the utterances their caregivers address to them.
Abstract reproduced with permission of Sage
Publications Ltd: www.sagepub.co.uk
In resolving peer conflicts among young children,
a sociocultural approach stresses the importance of creating
a Zone of Proximal Development through the teacher's use
of dialogic tools. This approach is questioned and modified
following a review of studies of toddlers' peer conflicts
and of language acquisition. In the early years, the non-symbolic,
social function of speech predominates. Only gradually do
toddlers learn to understand the decontextualized, symbolic
function of language that teachers tend to use when they
try to discuss feelings, intentions or causes of a peer
conflict. Teachers are easily deceived by toddlers' formulaic
phrases. Teachers are advised to respect young children's
(non-verbal) lagic-in-action and to use interactive strategies
that foster togetherness. Young children have to experience
dialogic tools as meaningful moves in conflict resolution
that can be integrated into the (non-verbal) strategies
they already have developed.
Abstract reproduced with permission of Sage
Publications Ltd: www.sagepub.co.uk
This US study explores the effects of an embodied
conversational agent, Sam, who tells stories collaboratively
with children, on children's literacy learning. This study
builds on research that shows that storytelling in the context
of peer collaboration provides a key environment for children
to learn the language skills important for literacy. Sam
looks like a peer for pre-school children, but tells stories
in a developmentally advanced way, modelling narrative skills
important for literacy. Results of this study show that
children who played with the virtual peer told stories that
more closely resembled the virtual peer's linguistically
advanced stories: using more quoted speech and temporal
and spatial expressions. In addition, children listened
to Sam's stories carefully, assisting her and suggesting
improvements. The potential benefits of having technology
play a social role in young children's literacy learning
is discussed.
Abstract prepared by the National Literacy
Trust.
The preschool years are critical to the development
of emergent literacy skills that will ensure a smooth transition
into formal reading. Phonological awareness, print awareness,
and oral language development are three areas associated
with emergent literacy that play a crucial role in the acquisition
of reading. This article presents an overview of these critical
components of emergent literacy. The overview includes a
brief review of recent research and provides strategies
for developing phonological awareness, print awareness,
and oral language in the preschool classroom.
This article describes strategies for using
storybooks to facilitate emergent literacy. First, we provide
critical background information about three areas of emergent
literacy: oral language (vocabulary and narrative development),
phonological awareness, and print awareness. Then we describe
how teachers can facilitate the development of these three
areas through purposeful, yet playful and developmentally
appropriate, storybook reading activities.
To clarify the relationship between oral language
and early reading development, the authors administered
to 39 children a broad range of oral language measures in
3 areas (metalinguistics, structural language, and narrative
discourse); measures of background variables (IQ, socioeconomic
status, ethnicity, gender, family literacy); and measures
of reading ability (word recognition, pseudoword reading,
passage comprehension) in kindergarten and in 1st and 2nd
grades. The authors used regression analyses to identify
parsimonious models that explained variance in early reading.
The main finding of the study was that semantic abilities
(i.e., oral definitions and word retrieval), not phonological
awareness, predicted 2nd-grade reading comprehension. As
expected, phonological awareness skill in kindergarten predicted
single-word reading at 1st and 2nd grades. The finding that
semantic skills predicted passage comprehension suggests
that the importance of different oral language skills to
early reading varies as a function of language domain, reading
skill, and measurement point.
This is a small-scale piece of research undertaken
in two mixed-age infant classrooms in an inner city multicultural
primary school with a mixed socio-economic background. The
dataset which consisted of 38 recorded stories from 32 children,
was collected during a 4-month period. It forms part of
a larger study that is still in progress. The research evidence
highlights the lack of vivacity in many of the personal
stories recounted by the children and possible reasons for
this. Analysis of the stories shows some common patterns
and reflects on the time given to children, in an increasingly
demanding curriculum, for personal storytelling. It concludes
that the ability to recount personal history is important
for oracy development.
Abstract reproduced with permission of the
Taylor and Francis Group: www.tandf.co.uk
.
With the development of community-focused methods of reducing
inequalities between children, such as Sure
Start in the UK, pre-school language intervention has
come increasingly to the fore. Successful intervention methods
may well be incorporated into mainstream service delivery,
especially in areas of disadvantage. The question of whether
such interventions will work and of their impact on children's
language development has focused attention on measures of
language.
This paper distinguishes
two reasons for measuring language development: surveying
language (in the community), and screening language (in
individual children). It goes on to suggest a set of criteria
for selecting instruments for these applications. The review
includes a wide range of language assessment instruments
for pre-school children and examines those most likely to
be suitable. It suggests a role for paraprofessionals (staff
who may be trained in some aspects of child development
but not to a professional level) in survey and screening,
and argues that this may be advantageous in terms of reaching
families and thereby achieving high levels of coverage of
a population group.
Finally, there
is a discussion of the implications of such measures in
community-focused pre-school interventions.
Download this report as a pdf from www.shef.ac.uk/surestart/reports/Foxhill/pdf/child_survey_screen.pdf
.
This paper reviews the history of oracy in
the UK over the past decade as it has been articulated in
significant national curricular developments, including
the National Oracy Project, the National Curriculum for
English and the National Literacy Strategy. Starting with
Barnes' (1988) evaluation of the political tensions surrounding
oracy, I identify conflicting models of oracy embedded in
these educational programmes, noting the gradual erosion
of the cross-curricular function of oracy in favour of a
centralised oracy, controlled by the teacher and related,
in complex but subordinate ways, to literacy. I trace these
tensions in the classroom discourse of 7-year-old children,
speculating about the implications for learners of the competing
versions of oracy. Finally, I argue for a reinstatement
of oracy as a whole curriculum project and for the recognition
of the distinctive role played by small group interaction
in realising the kind of whole class 'interactive teaching'
nominated most recently in the National Literacy Strategy.
Abstract reproduced with permission of the
Taylor and Francis Group: www.tandf.co.uk
This study examined relationships between
oral language and literacy in a two-year, multivariate design.
Through empirical cluster analysis of a sample of 88 kindergarten
children, four oral language subtypes were identified based
on measures of semantics, syntax, metalinguistics, and oral
narration. Validation efforts included (a) concurrent and
predictive analyses of subtype differences on reading, spelling,
and listening comprehension measures based on a priori hypotheses
and (b) a comparison of the teacher classification of the
children with the empirical classification. The subtypes
represented high average, low average, high narrative, and
low overall patterns of oral language skill. The high average
subtype received the most consistent evidence for validation.
The pattern of validation results indicates that the relationship
between oral language and literacy is not uniform and suggests
a modification of the assumption that oral language skills
have a direct role in reading acquisition.
Background: Research in children's
oral language and early literacy learning currently stresses
the facilitative role of social context. Social context
in this literature is typically treated on a macro-level,
e.g. mother-child interaction or peer interaction. We present
a more differentiated model of peer influences on children's
learning one oral language register, 'literate language'.
Literature language, which predicts school-based literacy,
is defined as talk about language and literacy.
Aims: We suggest that children's temperament and
their close relationships, in the form of friendships, play
important roles in literate language learning. We present
separate models fro friends and nonfriends and posit that
literate language is learned more effectively between friends
because of the emotional tenor of this relationship. When
they are with friends children, even those that might be
considered 'difficult', disagree, resolve disagreements,
then express emotions indicative of social understanding.
Reflection upon emotion states, in turn, leads to literate
language.
Sample: The sample comprised 33 males and 23 females
attending American kindergarten classes, with a mean age
of 65 months.
Methods: Dyads of same gender and race were observed
12 times across the school year during which time samples
of oral language were taken. Measures of children reading
and writing were also collected.
Results: The data support our model, and the friendship
model accounting for more of the variance in literate language
(r2= .69) than did the nonfriend model (r2 = .43).
Conclusions: Children with friends engage in the
sort of conceptual conflict and resolutions which maximise
use of literate language. This context seems particularly
important for 'difficult' children. Future research should
continue to examine the interface between individual and
group levels variables.
Abstract reproduced with permission of the
British Psychological Society: www.bps.org.uk
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