Literacy

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Journal articles about Literacy

The latest ten articles from our journals on this subject.

Achieving success: The role of metacognition in secondary literacy learning

Trevor McDonald, Christina Thornley, Francisco Ciriza, Katalin Behumi and Rosemary Staley

set 2011: no. 2

It has been suggested that focusing on the metacognitive skills secondary students need to make informed decisions about literacy challenges they encounter is a central element in raising literacy achievement. However, it is also recognised that struggling students are often not metacognitively skilful and are reluctant to use skills once taught them. This article uses findings from years 3 and 4 of a 5-year project in the south-west of the United States to discuss the approaches used to support students in raising their literacy achievements through a focus on metacognition.

An initiative to counter the “summer reading drop”: An iterative process

Paul Wright and Cathy Wright

set 2011: no. 2

This article describes one primary school’s approach to countering the “summer drop” in reading achievement. By the deliberate sharing of strategies to support reading at home during the holidays through a “summer reading contract”, Clayton Park School has successfully reduced the drop in reading achievement over the summer, including for the lowest performing students across all ethnicities.

Assessment of key competencies, literacy and numeracy: Can these be combined?

Yvonne Smith, Keryn Davis and Sue Molloy

Early Childhood Folio Vol. 15 No. 2 (2011)

In this article, Yvonne, a junior school teacher, describes how she decided to explore how key competencies could be integrated into the daily programme, and assessed, without creating extra workload for teachers. The article outlines how, with support from research co-ordinators Keryn and Sue, Yvonne developed a way in which she could document the learning of key competencies and the learning of the subject-related learning areas at the same time.

Editorial

Geraldine McDonald

set 2011: no. 3

Language and its development is a topic of perennial interest, and particularly so in relation to schooling. After all, it is supposed to be what distinguishes us from animals. Universal and compulsory education systems were established towards the end of the 19th century. At that time psychologists were in the process of establishing themselves as scientists, and psychology became the area of academic study which was called on to explain the processes of education.

Infusing peer assessment into classroom programmes: Descriptions of practice

Helen Dixon

set 2011: no. 2

Peer assessment is now considered a necessary and vital strategy to be embedded within an assessment for learning framework. Grounded in teachers’ practice, this article pays particular attention to the learning environments created by two teachers as they incorporated peer assessment into their primary school classroom programmes. It illustrates the kinds of experiences, interactions and opportunities needed to ensure peer assessment is infused into the learning environment prior to, during and after the production of work.

Principled practice: Secondary teachers collaborate to bring a language focus to their content teaching

Susan Gray

set 2011: no. 3

This article explores how two pairs of secondary content teachers drew on their knowledge of language and second-language acquisition to plan and implement a language-focused lesson sequence in their subject areas. The mathematics and social studies teachers were surprised at the extent to which this language-focused approach engaged their students and developed their cognitive academic language ability in the respective topics.

The challenges of graph interpretation in science

Rosemary Hipkins

set 2011: no. 3

This article draws on several reviews that have documented known challenges for students when learning to use graphs in science contexts. It then illustrates these challenges with examples drawn from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s recently developed test series, Science: Thinking with Evidence.

The expressive realities of 5- and 6-year-olds in low socioeconomic schools

Jannie van Hees

set 2011: no. 3

Many 5- and 6-year-old students in low socioeconomic schools have difficulty expressing ideas fluently and coherently in English, which impacts on their ability to participate fully in the classroom and to make the transition to literacy. The classroom has the greatest potential, outside of home and family, to provide the quality and quantity of interaction and expression these children need to expand their English language resources to support their ongoing learning.

Using metacognition to explore spelling strategies

Helen Pentecost and John Dickie

set 2011: no. 3

After three years of schooling, some primary students are behind expected levels for spelling achievement. This study investigated students’ own explanations of their developing understandings about spelling in the context of classroom writing. Participants were two groups of Year 4 students, one achieving below and one achieving at the expected level in spelling and writing. While the average achievers successfully combined strategies, those below average tended to use one strategy at a time, and seldom made links to prior knowledge.

Using multimodal texts to build engagement and achievement in literacy

Sue McDowall

set 2011: no. 2

That students find working on multimodal texts engaging isn’t surprising—but what would be surprising is if that spilled over into increased engagement and achievement with traditional print texts. This is exactly what the author of this article found in an exploratory e-learning research project. Here she discusses this finding and explores some of the possible reasons behind it.

Books and CDs about Literacy

Changing Trajectories of Teaching and Learning

$39.95

This monograph is designed to highlight areas of research strength found at The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education. The chosen theme of this volume, “Changing trajectories of teaching and learning”, encompasses the Faculty’s strong research presence in ongoing teacher learning and in raising student achievement, particularly in lower decile schools and in the area of literacy. It also encompasses the Faculty’s role in enhancing teaching and learning through researching quality teacher education and social work education.

Date published: 2 February 2012

Planting Seeds: Embedding critical literacy into your classroom programme

$44.95

Literacy once meant reading and writing words on paper. Today’s students need to be able to understand, use and critically analyse many different text types for different purposes in diverse contexts.

Date published: 1 February 2012

Teaching Reading Vocabulary

$44.00

Would you like your students to be excited when they read a new word and keen to work out its meaning straight away? This book will turn them into word detectives, ready to tackle any new word they come across. And when writing, would you like them to make sentences that have interesting and descriptive words like shamble, ravenous or meandering?

Date published: 29 July 2010

Motivating Literacy Learners in Today's World

$34.01

Motivating Literacy Learners in Today's World provides insights into a broad spectrum of children's literacy learning. Motivation is the key theme and the authors show how this can be achieved through reading for pleasure; in writing activities at a number of levels; and through oral language development.

Date published: 29 July 2010

Are our Standards Slipping? Debates over literacy and numeracy standards in New Zealand since 1945

$39.00

In a number of Western nations, concern over literacy and numeracy standards has put huge political pressure on education systems to improve the situation. Here in New Zealand, the government has recently introduced literacy and numeracy standards designed to improve basic skills in these key fields of achievement. What is perhaps less evident is that literacy and numeracy standards have featured prominently in the news over a long period of time—and that news has usually been bad.

Date published: 23 March 2010

Vocabulary Acquisition: A Literature Review

$20.24

What is vocabulary?
How is it acquired?
What does it mean to “know” a word?
What are the roles of incidental learning and explicit teaching?

These and many other questions are addressed in this literature review.

There are several suggestions for teaching vocabulary leading to independent use of vocabulary strategies. Four key strategies are described:

Date published: 13 June 2007

Spell Right! Endings (CD-ROM)

$46.00

A fun, highly visual, interactive CD for home or school use. Suitable for ages 8+. Based on the well-known Spell-Write. Students can:

Date published: 8 June 2007

Expanding Oral Language in the Classroom

$50.60

"Think-alouds", "word-wow moments", "thumbs up", "camera cameos", "think, prepare, share" are all part of the rich variety of strategies for expanding oral language in the classroom that Jannie van Hees describes. Her book is about why, and how, teachers can realistically create and construct conditions that provide opportunities for each student's oral language development. On one level, it is a practical journey towards optimised language engagement and contribution by each member of the classroom community.

Date published: 2 June 2007

Spell Right: The Essential Lists (CD-ROM)

$46.00

An interactive CD-ROM based on the well-known Spell-Write book.

(Runs on PC and Mac)

This CD-ROM is designed as part of the variety of activities that form the classroom spelling programme. It allows students to:

Date published: 8 June 2005

At the Cutting Edge: The Importance of Phonemic Awareness in Learning to Read and Spell

$32.20

This book is about something vitally important: learning to read and spell. To stand their ground in today’s world, children must be able to read and spell confidently and well.

How can we help them learn these skills more easily? This book gives that help. As well as discussing how children learn to read and write, it is packed with practical ideas for giving them the tools they need, whatever their level—how to ensure a better start for the child just beginning school, or give effective support for older students with reading difficulties.

Date published: 1 June 2005

Monitoring Progress in Spelling Using Developmental Information

$27.60

Monitoring Progress in Spelling Using Developmental Information provides a useful tool for professionals who monitor children's progress in written spelling. Parents who wish to understand how children's written spelling develops will also find it a helpful overview.

Date published: 8 June 2004

Spell-Write Teacher's Manual (Revised)

$23.00

This teacher's manual has been written as a guide for using Spell-Write (revised edition,1998).

Spell-Write (revised) is based on the important principle that spelling is primarily a skill of writing that is best mastered within the context of learning to write. An important goal for this manual is to help translate this principle into classroom practice.

It contains updated and expanded sections on:

Date published: 8 June 2003

Spell-Write—Revised Edition (1998): An aid to writing and spelling

$7.36

An essential aid to spelling for students aged around 8–11 years.

Spell-Write (revised), and the research undertaken prior to its development, continues to reflect the principle that spelling is primarily a skill of writing which is best mastered by students within the context of learning to write.

A teacher's manual has also been written as a guide for using Spell-Write (revised).

Date published: 8 June 1998

A Third Chance to Learn

$46.00

The aim of this research project was to develop new ways of teaching—a third chance to learn—which would enable children needing further help beyond the Reading Recovery programme to catch up with their peers.

In this, the programme was highly successful.

The research report describes the development and evaluation of specialised interventions for young children experiencing the greatest difficulty in learning to read.

Date published: 13 June 1997