Literacy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Psychologists offered advice, based on their own theories, on aspects of the testing, training and development of language.

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.

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.