WorldWideScience

Sample records for culturally responsive reading

  1. Technological Transformations of Reading Culture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Albrechtslund, Anne-Mette Bech

    The increasing use of social media along with the rapidly developing digitization of the book has led to a range of new circumstances for writing, publishing and reading books, resulting in transformations in reading culture and practices. The social aspect of reading is emphasized when readers...... relations in the network of writers, publishers, readers, and reviewers. Similarly, the increasing use of electronic reading devices plays a key role in the acceleration of a culture in which the audience engages with cultural works in new ways. The print book has an “easy materiality” (Marshall, 2010, p....... 17), but with the electronic book, the materiality of reading becomes more ambiguous and malleable as the book as technology is being radically reconstructed. The purpose of this paper is to explore these changes through an investigation into the technology relations (Ihde, 1990) in fiction reading...

  2. Promoting reading and good reading culture through the use of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper is the findings from existing literature on the mechanics of using book talks and story books to inculcate reading and the steps to develop good reading culture in children. This work is an ongoing action research work in selected private and public schools in Lagos Mainland. It has so far been established that the ...

  3. Promoting Reading Culture in Nigerian Children | Saka | Nigerian ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study was to determine the promotion of reading culture among Nigerian children with special emphasis on primary schools in all the five (5) Federal parastatals in Minna metropolis. The study was to determine why, where, problems and strategies for promoting reading culture of primary school children. Survey ...

  4. Developing a reading culture in Nigerian society: Issues and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Developing a reading culture in Nigerian society: Issues and Remedies. ... Development of reading culture is faced with the challenges of language interference, poor funding of education and poor economy. ... AJOL African Journals Online.

  5. Reading Culture in An African University: Problems And Prospects ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Reading Culture in An African University: Problems And Prospects. ... This paper examined if undergraduates of African universities have reading culture or not. To elicit the necessary information ... AJOL African Journals Online. HOW TO USE ...

  6. Black Deaf Individuals' Reading Skills: Influence of ASL, Culture, Family Characteristics, Reading Experience, and Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myers, Candace; Clark, M. Diane; Musyoka, Millicent M.; Anderson, Melissa L.; Gilbert, Gizelle L.; Agyen, Selina; Hauser, Peter C.

    2010-01-01

    Previous research on the reading abilities of Deaf individuals from various cultural groups suggests that Black Deaf and Hispanic Deaf individuals lag behind their White Deaf peers. The present study compared the reading skills of Black Deaf and White Deaf individuals, investigating the influence of American Sign Language (ASL), culture, family…

  7. Why should I read? - A cross-cultural investigation into adolescents' reading socialisation and reading attitude

    Science.gov (United States)

    Broeder, Peter; Stokmans, Mia

    2013-06-01

    While reading behaviour of adolescents is a frequent object of research, most studies in this field are restricted to a single country. This study investigates reading as a leisure-time activity across social groups from three regions differing in reading tradition as well as in the facilities available for reading. The authors analyse the reading behaviour of a total of 2,173 adolescents in the Netherlands, in Beijing (China), and in Cape Town (South Africa). Taking Icek Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour as a starting point, the authors adjusted it to model the three most important determinants of reading behaviour, namely (1) reading attitude; (2) subjective norms (implicit and explicit social pressure to read); and (3) perceived behavioural control, which includes reading proficiency and appropriateness of the available books (book supply). While they found the adjusted model to fit the Dutch and Beijing situation quite well, it appeared to be inappropriate for the Cape Town situation. Despite considerable cultural and situational differences between the Netherlands and Beijing, the results show a similar pattern for these two environments. The most important determinants turn out to be: the hedonic reading attitude, the implicit norm of family and friends, the attractiveness of the available choice of books, and the perceived reading proficiency.

  8. The Problem of Reading and Reading Culture Improvement of Students-Bachelors of Elementary Education in Modern High Institution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamalova, Lera A.; Koletvinova, Natal'ya D.

    2016-01-01

    This article is aimed to study the problems of reading and improve reading culture of students-bachelors of elementary education in modern high institutions and development of the most effective methods and techniques for improving of reading culture of students in the study of Humanities disciplines. The leading method to the study of this…

  9. Black deaf individuals' reading skills: influence of ASL, culture, family characteristics, reading experience, and education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myers, Candace; Clark, M Diane; Musyoka, Millicent M; Anderson, Melissa L; Gilbert, Gizelle L; Agyen, Selina; Hauser, Peter C

    2010-01-01

    Previous research on the reading abilities of Deaf individuals from various cultural groups suggests that Black Deaf and Hispanic Deaf individuals lag behind their White Deaf peers. The present study compared the reading skills of Black Deaf and White Deaf individuals, investigating the influence of American Sign Language (ASL), culture, family characteristics, reading experience, and education. (The descriptor Black is used throughout the present article, as Black Deaf individuals prefer this term to African American. For purposes of parallel construction, the term White is used instead of European American.) It was found that Black Deaf study participants scored lower on measures of both reading and ASL. These findings provide implications for possible interventions at the primary, secondary, and college levels of education.

  10. MisReading LIS Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiegand, Wayne

    1997-01-01

    Discusses the need to place a greater emphasis on the subject of reading in library and information science (LIS) education and research. Topics include literacy studies, print culture history, reader-response theory, ethnography of reading, genre fiction and cultural studies, information versus reading, and access to information versus content of…

  11. Written culture: reading pratices and printed book

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lidia Eugenia Cavalcante

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available The history of the written culture and the reading practices is the subject argued in this article. It aims at to understand the trajectory of the printed book in its materiality, as well as the processes delineated from the undisputed cultural presence and politics of this support for the modern society. Search to evidence the reading practices, the phenomena and the mutations that fortify such support per centuries, approaching the “book crisis”, its causes and effects. Therefore, it deals with the particularitities of the written culture, that if they had accomplished in the Siècle des Lumières and if they had consecrated in “acting” of the spirit of the authors and the readers of that time, whose propagation influenced the western person. It analyzes the sociological and historical conditions of the place of the modern reader between Science, Philosophy and Romance, continuously transformed for the renewal of the thought and the culture.

  12. Reading Minds and Telling Tales in a Cultural Borderland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mattingly, Cheryl

    2008-03-01

    In this article I consider "narrative mind reading," the practical capability of inferring the motives that precipitate and underlie the actions of others. Following Jerome Bruner, I argue that this everyday capacity depends on our ability to place action within unfolding narrative contexts. While Bruner has focused on narrative mind reading as a within-culture affair, I look to border situations that cross race and class lines where there is a strong presumption among participants that they do not, in fact, share a cultural framework. Instead, interactions often reinforce actors' perceptions of mutual misunderstanding and cultural difference. Drawing on a longitudinal study of African American families who have children with severe illnesses, I examine narrative mind reading and misreading in one mother's interactions with the clinicians who treat her child. I further explore how narrative misreadings are supported through chart notes and "familiar stranger" stories. The focus on miscommunication grounds a theory of the reproduction of cultural difference in interactive dynamics and brings Bruner's emphasis on narrative into dialogue with contemporary anthropology of cultural borderlands.

  13. GENDER GENEALOGY OF READING AS CULTURAL PRACTICE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    N. Yu. Kryvda

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. The article is devoted to the cultural aspect of texts using in European culture. The paper found out methodological basis of correctly interpreting the term "practice" in the philosophical and sociological discourses. In the first case the concept reveals human nature; appealing to the field of ethics and intersubjective interactions. In sociological approach the term practice is contrasted to institutional life. It seems to be an organic; vital relevance of actions for contrast to the mechanically regulated community life. Methodology. The paper considered the typology of human intellectual conditions according to Kant’s divided into pure and practical reason. The last one directs action-willed individual efforts so as to meet the universal relevance and ethical coherence. Gottlieb Fichte interpreted practice reason as the way to combine intellectual intentions and material conditions of human being. G. W. F. Hegel enriched the concept with terms of "objectification" and "alienation” of labour. Karl Marx formulated the main features of activity approach to the human nature exploring. In sociological discourse the term practice is opposed to mechanically done actions (according to institutional normativity. Given the philosophical and sociological methodological contexts the reading is studied as activity that aimed emotional and volitional contact with sense. Originality. The paper analysed the genealogy of reading practices. There were selected two types of text perception – rapid "masculine" and prudent "women's" reading. Women salon environment of the XVIII-th century capitalistic Europe was the main condition for the forming of literary-aware public. The authors analysed the process of reading of the text-as-satisfaction and text-as-pleasure (R. Barthes. The work presents the overview of classical studies of sociocultural field: Thorstein Veblen; Vladimir Toporov; Rolan Barthes and contemporary researchers such as T. Markova

  14. Culturally Responsive Teaching. Second Edition. Multicultural Education Series

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gay, Geneva

    2010-01-01

    The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with…

  15. Socio-cultural variation in reading comprehension development among fifth graders in Peru

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morales Silva, S.L.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Leeuwe, J.F.J. van

    2011-01-01

    In this study, the socio-cultural variation in reading comprehension development was examined in 331 fifth graders from schools in Lima, Peru. Reading comprehension was measured using an adaptation of the PIRLS Reading Literacy test. The fifth graders' reading comprehension results, measured over

  16. The Importance of Background Culture Knowledge in Reading

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    王蓁

    2012-01-01

    As achieving cross-culture communication is the final aim of learning English,it turns out to be inefficient to attach more importance on the ability of listening,speaking,reading,writing and knowledge system.Background culture knowledge is supposed to be an important way to reach the aim of language teaching,and help readers understand articles.Considering the effects of background culture knowledge and its importance,this article will do a research on it and try to help both readers and teachers aware of the importance of background culture knowledge and take note of it.

  17. Socio-Cultural Variation in Reading Comprehension Development among Fifth Graders in Peru

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silva, Silvia Morales; Verhoeven, Ludo; van Leeuwe, Jan

    2011-01-01

    In this study, the socio-cultural variation in reading comprehension development was examined in 331 fifth graders from schools in Lima, Peru. Reading comprehension was measured using an adaptation of the PIRLS Reading Literacy test. The fifth graders' reading comprehension results, measured over the course of fifth grade, were related to the…

  18. Reading Culture: Best Practice Needed for the Survival of Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okecha, Rita Ebele

    2012-01-01

    This paper examined the importance of reading culture, the role of parents, teachers and government in ensuring that reading culture is imbibed early in life. A sample of eighty (80) students from Ambrose Alli University in their clusters was used for the study. The questionnaire was used to obtain the data which were analysed using frequencies,…

  19. Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing "Moby-Dick" in the English Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jenkins, Henry, Ed.; Kelley, Wyn, Ed.

    2013-01-01

    Building on the groundbreaking research of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media & Learning initiative, this book crosses the divide between digital literacies and traditional print culture to engage a generation of students who can read with a book in one hand and a mouse in the other. "Reading in a Participatory Culture" tells the story of an…

  20. Towards overcoming poor readership and building reading culture ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Towards overcoming poor readership and building reading culture of in schools. ... of this paper is to find strategies that can overcome poor readership in schools. ... Keywords: English First Additional Language, Writing Skills, Spelling Errors, ...

  1. Up or down? Reading direction influences vertical counting direction in the horizontal plane ? a cross-cultural comparison

    OpenAIRE

    G?bel, Silke M.

    2015-01-01

    Most adults and children in cultures where reading text progresses from left to right also count objects from the left to the right side of space. The reverse is found in cultures with a right-to-left reading direction. The current set of experiments investigated whether vertical counting in the horizontal plane is also influenced by reading direction. Participants were either from a left-to-right reading culture (UK) or from a mixed (left-to-right and top-to-bottom) reading culture (Hong Kon...

  2. Socio-cultural predictors of reading literacy in fourth graders in Lima, Peru

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morales Silva, S.L.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Leeuwe, J.F.J. van

    2008-01-01

    This study investigates socio-cultural cognitive literacy predictors for reading literacy (RL), tested in 314 fourth graders from two different levels of social economic status in Lima, Peru. The following variables were tested as predictors: word decoding, vocabulary, motivation to read, reading

  3. Dutch institutional reading culture in the early nineteenth century: an exploration and a comparison

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Honings, R.; Lubbers, A.

    2012-01-01

    In recent decades there has been an increase of literary-historical research into Dutch (institutional) reading culture. In this article the focus lies on institutional reading culture in the Netherlands during the years 1815-30. Although a great deal of research has been conducted into regional

  4. Turkey Reading Culture Map.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahmi Akkılık

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Derived from the project with the same name, the work was published into a book by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Directorate General of Libraries and Publications, the project coordinator. Goal of the project is defined as follows: "specifying the solutions to problems faced directly or indirectly in accessing information, making suggestions to related corporations and persons, determining the perception of libraries in the society, raising the quality of services provided at public libraries and children's libraries affiliated with the Ministry, diversifying these libraries and designating the road map for the future." Carried out with the "method of face-to-face surveys" with 6.212 people in 26 cities, the research revealed the society's habits of reading and library usage.

  5. The influence of reading motives on the responses after reading blogs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Li-Shia; Chou, Yu-Jen; Lin, Che-Hung

    2008-06-01

    As the number of blogs increases dramatically, these online forums have become important media people use to share feelings and information. Previous research of blogs focuses on writers (i.e., bloggers), but the influence of blogs also requires investigations from readers' perspectives. This study therefore explores motives for reading blogs and discusses their effects on the responses after reading blogs. According to a factor analysis of 204 respondents in Taiwan, motives for reading blogs consist of affective exchange, information search, entertainment, and getting on the bandwagon. A regression analysis suggests the effects of these motives on three major responses--opinion acceptance, interaction intentions, and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions--reflect the influence of blogs. Specifically, readers who focus on affective exchanges believe blog messages, interact with bloggers, and spread messages to others. Information search and entertainment motives positively affect opinion acceptance; blog readers who focus on information and those who read for fun both view blogs as trustworthy sources. Getting on the bandwagon also positively influences interaction and WOM intentions; these readers interact with bloggers and transmit messages to others.

  6. Up or down? Reading direction influences vertical counting direction in the horizontal plane - a cross-cultural comparison.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Göbel, Silke M

    2015-01-01

    Most adults and children in cultures where reading text progresses from left to right also count objects from the left to the right side of space. The reverse is found in cultures with a right-to-left reading direction. The current set of experiments investigated whether vertical counting in the horizontal plane is also influenced by reading direction. Participants were either from a left-to-right reading culture (UK) or from a mixed (left-to-right and top-to-bottom) reading culture (Hong Kong). In Experiment 1, native English-speaking children and adults and native Cantonese-speaking children and adults performed three object counting tasks. Objects were presented flat on a table in a horizontal, vertical, and square display. Independent of culture, the horizontal array was mostly counted from left to right. While the majority of English-speaking children counted the vertical display from bottom to top, the majority of the Cantonese-speaking children as well as both Cantonese- and English-speaking adults counted the vertical display from top to bottom. This pattern was replicated in the counting pattern for squares: all groups except the English-speaking children started counting with the top left coin. In Experiment 2, Cantonese-speaking adults counted a square array of objects after they read a text presented to them either in left-to-right or in top-to-bottom reading direction. Most Cantonese-speaking adults started counting the array by moving horizontally from left to right. However, significantly more Cantonese-speaking adults started counting with a top-to-bottom movement after reading the text presented in a top-to-bottom reading direction than in a left-to-right reading direction. Our results show clearly that vertical counting in the horizontal plane is influenced by longstanding as well as more recent experience of reading direction.

  7. Integrating Explicit Learning about the Culture of Science into the Pre-Service Teacher Curriculum through Readings and Reflections

    Science.gov (United States)

    Egger, A. E.

    2014-12-01

    Teachers provide foundational science experiences that spark interest in some students to pursue science and serve as an endpoint for others. For both groups, getting a glimpse into the culture of science is important to their futures as citizens, but this glimpse is not something all teachers are equipped to offer. Explicit instruction in the culture of science is generally not part of college-level science courses; to reach future teachers, it should be incorporated into the curriculum for pre-service teachers. I have incorporated readings from Visionlearning's peer-reviewed, freely available, web-based Process of Science series (http://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Process-of-Science/49) into my class for pre-service middle-level and secondary science teachers. The readings describe the development of the culture and process of science using deeply embedded examples of scientists and their work. Students reflected on each reading by describing what they learned and something they will use in their future teaching. Responses were graded for thoughtfulness and completeness and later compiled. In general, students with more science courses had a better initial understanding of the culture of science and found the readings engaging stories that explained in more depth what they already knew. However, all students reported learning some fundamental aspects of the culture and nature of science. Most commonly, they learned scientific language, often words with both colloquial and scientific definitions: theory, hypothesis, law, uncertainty, error, confidence. Other learning gains were reported in defining the difference between scientific controversy and social controversy over science, interactions between historical events and the scientific enterprise, how much scientists work in groups and interact at meetings, and the role that funding plays in guiding research. On their own, students struggled to describe explicit ways to incorporate these concepts into their

  8. Effects of Culture and Gender on Judgments of Intent and Responsibility.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jason E Plaks

    Full Text Available Do different cultures hold different views of intentionality? In four studies, participants read scenarios in which the actor's distal intent (a focus on a broader goal and proximal intent (a focus on the mechanics of the act were manipulated. In Studies 1-2, when distal intent was more prominent in the actor's mind, North Americans rated the actor more responsible than did Chinese and South Asian participants. When proximal intent was more prominent, Chinese and South Asian participants, if anything, rated the actor more responsible. In Studies 3-4, when distal intent was more prominent, male Americans rated the actor more responsible than did female Americans. When proximal intent was more prominent, females rated the actor more responsible. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the literatures on moral reasoning and cultural psychology.

  9. Effects of Culture and Gender on Judgments of Intent and Responsibility

    Science.gov (United States)

    Plaks, Jason E.; Fortune, Jennifer L.; Liang, Lindie H.; Robinson, Jeffrey S.

    2016-01-01

    Do different cultures hold different views of intentionality? In four studies, participants read scenarios in which the actor’s distal intent (a focus on a broader goal) and proximal intent (a focus on the mechanics of the act) were manipulated. In Studies 1–2, when distal intent was more prominent in the actor’s mind, North Americans rated the actor more responsible than did Chinese and South Asian participants. When proximal intent was more prominent, Chinese and South Asian participants, if anything, rated the actor more responsible. In Studies 3–4, when distal intent was more prominent, male Americans rated the actor more responsible than did female Americans. When proximal intent was more prominent, females rated the actor more responsible. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the literatures on moral reasoning and cultural psychology. PMID:27123858

  10. Socio-cultural context, child development and beginning reading in Peru

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cecilia Thorne

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available This article focuses on the fact that many children in Peru are not able to read fluently when they finish elementary school. To analyze this shortcoming it presents an overview of the Peruvian context, the education system, the multilingual and the socio-cultural background and identifies the difficult conditions in which Peruvian children grow and its consequences in child development and beginning reading. The paper discusses different aspectsof developmental psychology and puts the accent on Bronfenbrenner's theory and the developmental approach to education. It offers, also, a review of several studies on reading in Peru. Finally it emphasizes the advantages of incorporating the ecological theory and the developmental approach to education

  11. Writing the Male Abuser in Cultural Responses to Domestic Violence in Spain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godsland, Shelley

    2012-01-01

    The article analyzes the portrayal of the male perpetrator of heterosexual domestic violence in a selection of contemporary Spanish texts (novel, drama, and autobiography) that form part of a clearly discernible cultural response to the issue of intimate partner violence in Spain today. It reads the figure of the abuser in conjunction with a range…

  12. Second-Grade Urban Learners: Preliminary Findings for a Computer-Assisted, Culturally Relevant, Repeated Reading Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bennett, Jessica G.; Gardner, Ralph, III; Cartledge, Gwendolyn; Ramnath, Rajiv; Council, Morris R., III

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the effects of a multicomponent, supplemental intervention on the reading fluency of second-grade African-American urban students who showed reading and special education risk. The packaged intervention combined repeated readings and culturally relevant stories, delivered through a novel computer software program to enhance…

  13. Poor Reading Culture: A Barrier to Students' Patronage of Libraries ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    FIRST LADY

    show that computer and other media, harsh economic reality, societal demand for materialism, inadequate library materials among others are causes of poor reading culture of students in secondary schools. .... foundation of elementary education. ... play in the social, economic and technological development of any country.

  14. The Reading Culture And The Nigerian Child: The Role Of The ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The educational policy of Nigeria focuses sharply on child development and takes serious cognisance of the role of libraries in schools ... Keywords: the child, reading culture, school library, child development. AJOL African Journals Online.

  15. Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blackburn, Mollie V.

    2010-01-01

    This article reviews Driver's monograph, "Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media," reporting on queer girls' active engagement with television characters, films, lesbian magazines, online communities, and music. She explores the consequences of their engagements with these media on their lives and their…

  16. Poor Reading Culture: A Barrier to Students' Patronage of Libraries ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The paper examined poor reading culture: A barrier to students' patronage of Selected Secondary School Libraries in Ado Ekiti Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The design for the study is descriptive survey which utilizes questionnaire to collect data. Oral interview was also conducted. Tables and simple percentages ...

  17. Survey Guidelines and its Reading Criteria for Monitoring and Transmitting Cultural Heritage Values

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Masi, A.

    2015-08-01

    The paper describes reading criteria for an analysis and interpretation of material systems in relation to a built space, survey guidelines and its reading criteria for Cultural Heritage (CH) values'monitoring and transmission. In addition, integrated systems of digital technologies and 2D/3D digitization of CH are introduced for an effective and accurate reading of Venice and Milan's monuments. Specifically, the guidelines for an architectural survey allow to organize and document historic monuments information, and to identify the significant cultural/physical elements of our past in order for them to be preserved and protected for future generations. In addition, in this paper the studied projects introduce a combination of virtual technologies and historical reality with experimenting innovative solutions for CH. From the methodological point of view, this study has made use of the identification of levels of study (LS) differentiated, each of which is capable of identifying categories.

  18. Prefrontal mediation of the reading network predicts intervention response in dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aboud, Katherine S; Barquero, Laura A; Cutting, Laurie E

    2018-04-01

    A primary challenge facing the development of interventions for dyslexia is identifying effective predictors of intervention response. While behavioral literature has identified core cognitive characteristics of response, the distinction of reading versus executive cognitive contributions to response profiles remains unclear, due in part to the difficulty of segregating these constructs using behavioral outputs. In the current study we used functional neuroimaging to piece apart the mechanisms of how/whether executive and reading network relationships are predictive of intervention response. We found that readers who are responsive to intervention have more typical pre-intervention functional interactions between executive and reading systems compared to nonresponsive readers. These findings suggest that intervention response in dyslexia is influenced not only by domain-specific reading regions, but also by contributions from intervening domain-general networks. Our results make a significant gain in identifying predictive bio-markers of outcomes in dyslexia, and have important implications for the development of personalized clinical interventions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Survey Guidelines and its Reading Criteria for Monitoring and Transmitting Cultural Heritage Values

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. De Masi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The paper describes reading criteria for an analysis and interpretation of material systems in relation to a built space, survey guidelines and its reading criteria for Cultural Heritage (CH values’monitoring and transmission. In addition, integrated systems of digital technologies and 2D/3D digitization of CH are introduced for an effective and accurate reading of Venice and Milan’s monuments. Specifically, the guidelines for an architectural survey allow to organize and document historic monuments information, and to identify the significant cultural/physical elements of our past in order for them to be preserved and protected for future generations. In addition, in this paper the studied projects introduce a combination of virtual technologies and historical reality with experimenting innovative solutions for CH. From the methodological point of view, this study has made use of the identification of levels of study (LS differentiated, each of which is capable of identifying categories.

  20. The Use of Reading Texts to Teach Cultural Elements in EFL Classes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Esen GENÇ

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In today’s global world, the rising role of communication leads to seek for new techniques for developing language teaching process. Currently, one of the most important factors in language teaching is considering language as a whole. It is not only a set of rules, instead it is developing and changing, as well as the culture of the community. The cultural side of language is a significant part of language teaching but generally ignored. The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of using reading texts in the book titled ‘Select Readings’ to teach cultural elements in EFL classes for 1st grade students at university. For the study carried out during the academic year of 2011-2012, 30 students studying at 1st grade have been chosen randomly. In order to test the development of cultural knowledge between the pre-test and post-test applications of the students, who participated in the study, a cultural knowledge testing is used that has been designed by the researcher. The research has been conducted with pre-test post-test model without a control group method; for the analysis of the findings SPSS 15.0 software program has been used. When the results of the test which has been designed by the researcher and conducted before and after the activities analyzed, the finding gathered is as follows; There is a significant effect of teaching cultural elements in reading texts, in context, to the cultural knowledge of the university students.

  1. Patients' Positive and Negative Responses to Reading Mental Health Clinical Notes Online.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Denneson, Lauren M; Chen, Jason I; Pisciotta, Maura; Tuepker, Anais; Dobscha, Steven K

    2018-05-01

    This study describes responses to OpenNotes, clinical notes available online, among patients receiving mental health care and explores whether responses vary by patient demographic or clinical characteristics. Survey data from 178 veterans receiving mental health treatment at a large Veterans Affairs medical center included patient-reported health self-efficacy, health knowledge, alliance with clinicians, and negative emotional responses after reading OpenNotes. Health care data were extracted from the patient care database. Reading OpenNotes helped many participants feel in control of their health care (49%) and have more trust in clinicians (45%), although a few (8%) frequently felt upset after reading their notes. In multivariate models, posttraumatic stress disorder was associated with increased patient-clinician alliance (p=.046) but also with negative emotional responses (p<.01). Patients receiving mental health care frequently reported benefits from reading OpenNotes, yet some experienced negative responses.

  2. Parents' reading-related knowledge and children's reading acquisition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ladd, Megan; Martin-Chang, Sandra; Levesque, Kyle

    2011-12-01

    Teacher reading-related knowledge (phonological awareness and phonics knowledge) predicts student reading, however little is known about the reading-related knowledge of parents. Participants comprised 70 dyads (children from kindergarten and grade 1 and their parents). Parents were administered a questionnaire tapping into reading-related knowledge, print exposure, storybook reading, and general cultural knowledge. Children were tested on measures of letter-word knowledge, sound awareness, receptive vocabulary, oral expression, and mathematical skill. Parent reading-related knowledge showed significant positive links with child letter-word knowledge and sound awareness, but showed no correlations with child measures of mathematical skill or vocabulary. Furthermore, parent reading-related knowledge was not associated with parents' own print exposure or cultural knowledge, indicating that knowledge about English word structure may be separate from other cognitive skills. Implications are discussed in terms of improving parent reading-related knowledge to promote child literacy.

  3. National Language Policy and Its Impacts on Second Language Reading Culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azmi, Mohd Nazri Latiff

    2013-01-01

    This research concentrates on Malaysian language policy and its impacts on the development of English language (regarded as a second language in Malaysia) specifically on reading culture. The main objectives of this research are to investigate the weaknesses and strengths of the policy and also to come out with recommendations to improve the…

  4. The Influence of the Internet Surfing on the Reading Culture of Secondary School Teachers: A Case Study of Newspaper Readership in Kigumo Sub County, Kenya

    OpenAIRE

    Margaret Njoki Ngugi; Hellen k. Mberia

    2014-01-01

    Reading in the 21st century networked society is no longer confined to the print reading. The scope of the reading has extended to the Internet sources that changed the traditional reading culture of the readers. The present study was conducted to identify the impact of the Internet surfing on the reading culture of secondary school teachers in Kigumo Sub County. The objectives of the study were to find out the influence of the internet on the reading culture of secondary school teachers in K...

  5. Cultural Awareness and Reading. Proceedings of the Annual Reading Conference (12th, Terre Haute, Indiana, June 17-18, 1982).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibbs, Vanita M., Comp.; Pabst, Robert L., Comp.

    Reflecting the expertise of the speakers and providing a rich resource of information within the conference theme, the articles in these proceedings explore the relationship between cultural awareness and reading. The proceedings begin with a copy of the conference program and opening remarks by the conference cochair. Following an opening address…

  6. Up or down? Reading direction influences vertical counting direction in the horizontal plane – a cross-cultural comparison

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silke Melanie Goebel

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Most adults and children in cultures where reading text progresses from left to right also count objects from the left to the right side of space. The reverse is found in cultures with a right-to-left reading direction. The current set of experiments investigated whether vertical counting in the horizontal plane is also influenced by reading direction. In experiment 1, native English-speaking children and adults and native Cantonese-speaking children and adults performed three object counting tasks. Objects were presented flat on a table in a horizontal, vertical and square display. Independent of culture, the horizontal array was mostly counted from left to right. While the majority of English-speaking children counted the vertical display from bottom to top, the majority of the Cantonese-speaking children as well as both Cantonese- and English-speaking adults counted the vertical display from top to bottom. This pattern was replicated in the counting pattern for squares: all groups except the English-speaking children started counting with the top left coin. In experiment 2, Cantonese-speaking adults counted a square array of objects after they read a text presented to them either in left to right or in top to bottom reading direction. Most Cantonese-speaking adults starting counting the array by moving horizontally from left to right. However, significantly more Cantonese-speaking adults started counting with a top-to-bottom movement after reading the text presented in a top-to-bottom reading direction than in a left-to-right reading direction. Our results show clearly that vertical counting in the horizontal plane is influenced by longstanding as well as more recent experience of reading direction.

  7. A Nordic comparison of national objectives for reading instruction and teachers' responses about actual reading practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rønberg, Louise; Mejding, Jan

    2014-01-01

    and functional goals in Finland. It appears that the Finnish descriptions are more aligned with current empirical research on reading comprehension. Swedish and Norwegian teachers have the most varied used of both literary and informational text types during a week, whereas Finnish teachers give informational...... texts a higher priority than literary texts – and the opposite is apparent for Danish teachers. The Finnish and Norwegian teachers prioritise activities that enhance students’ oral reading fluency, which is important for reading comprehension development, to a greater extent than teachers in Denmark......This article presents a comparison of the Nordic countries’ official objectives for reading and analyses of 1005 Nordic teachers’ responses regarding their reading instruction. The specificity and transparency vary greatly in the objectives, from broad outlines in Norway to more specific...

  8. A Response to Armstrong and Read, Poirine and Bertram

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jerome L. McElroy

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This is a brief response to Armstrong and Read, Poirine, and Bertram, synthesizing their welcome thoughtful remarks in response to my paper, and briefly outlining the way forward that research in this area of island studies could take.

  9. Cultural Literacy Based Critical Reading Teaching Material with Active Reader Strategy for Junior High School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Damaianti, Vismaia S.; Damaianti, Lira Fessia; Mulyati, Yeti

    2017-01-01

    This article describes the findings of a study aimed at producing a set of cultural literacy-oriented critical reading teaching material. This material is developed as a countermeasure to the increasingly thin sensitivity of society, especially the students toward noble values of religion, custom, and culture. With this material student get a…

  10. Reading and response as facilitation to the teaching and learning of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Reading and response as facilitation to the teaching and learning of ... and strategies that can be used in the classroom towards teaching student's reading skills. ... The population comprises all forth year English teaching methods class.

  11. Crossing Cultures with Multi-Voiced Journals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Styslinger, Mary E.; Whisenant, Alison

    2004-01-01

    In this article, the authors discuss the benefits of using multi-voiced journals as a teaching strategy in reading instruction. Multi-voiced journals, an adaptation of dual-voiced journals, encourage responses to reading in varied, cultured voices of characters. It is similar to reading journals in that they prod students to connect to the lives…

  12. Jesus the 'Teacher-Saviour' or 'Saviour-Teacher': reading the gospel ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    While every interpretation is culturally particular and context-specifi c, the critical assessment of the hermeneutical principles and social consequences of real examples from different cultures may facilitate fresh readings of the scripture with more creative imagination, theological integrity and ethical responsibility. This essay ...

  13. Culturally Responsive Leadership for Community Empowerment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, Lauri

    2014-01-01

    Culturally responsive leadership, derived from the concept of culturally responsive pedagogy, incorporates those leadership philosophies, practices, and policies that create inclusive schooling environments for students and families from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. In this essay I extend the tenets of culturally responsive…

  14. Culturally Responsive Reading Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kourea, Lefki; Gibson, Lenwood; Werunga, Robai

    2018-01-01

    As student populations are becoming more diverse in ability and ethnicity across American classrooms, teachers are faced with instructional challenges in meeting their students' learning needs. Challenges are heightened for general and special education teachers who teach students with learning disabilities (LD) and have a culturally and…

  15. Celebrating diversity: the significance of cultural differences on reading comprehension processes of the young adult EFL learner in a matriculation preparation programme in Israel

    OpenAIRE

    Hellerstein-Yehezkel, Devora

    2013-01-01

    Reading comprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL) is a key to success in academic studies in Israel. As Israel is a cultural melting pot, adult students come from widely diverse educational backgrounds, often determined by their cultural environment. They arrive at the university or college classroom with vastly different approaches to learning and reading, in general, and to reading in EFL, in particular. The challenge for the EFL teacher is to help students draw from their cultur...

  16. The Same but Different: Making Meaning from Modified Texts with Cross-Cultural Themes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leung, Cynthia B.; Bennett, Susan V.; Gunn, AnnMarie Alberton

    2017-01-01

    Reader response theory provides the framework for the present study that explored literary elements and cultural responses of fifth-grade students to two modified versions of a cross-cultural text, "Homesick: My Own Story" by Jean Fritz. One group of students read the first chapter of the book and another group read a modified basal…

  17. Teachers' Knowledge Base for Implementing Response-to-Intervention Models in Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spear-Swerling, Louise; Cheesman, Elaine

    2012-01-01

    This study examined the knowledge base of 142 elementary-level educators for implementing response-to-intervention (RTI) models in reading. A questionnaire assessed participants' professional background for teaching reading, as well as their familiarity with specific assessments, research-based instructional models, and interventions potentially…

  18. Reimagining Reading: Creating a Classroom Culture That Embraces Independent Choice Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dickerson, Katie

    2015-01-01

    Many of us are plagued by negative memories of sustained silent reading. In some of these memories, we are the students, attempting to read a book that didn't hold our interest or trying to read over the din of our disengaged classmates. In other memories, we are the teachers, suffering through a ten-minute classroom management nightmare, deciding…

  19. Letter-By-Letter Reading: Natural Recovery and Response to Treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pélagie M. Beeson

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available The present investigation provides a longitudinal study of an individual (RB with acquired alexia following left posterior cerebral artery stroke. At initial testing, RB exhibited acquired alexia characterized by letter-by-letter (LBL reading, mild anomic aphasia, and acquired agraphia. Repeated measures of reading accuracy and rate were collected for single words and text over the course of one year, along with probes of naming and spelling abilities. Improvements associated with natural recovery (i.e., without treatment were documented up to the fourth month post onset, when text reading appeared to be relatively stable. Multiple oral reading (MOR treatment was initiated at 22 weeks post-stroke, and additional improvements in reading rate and accuracy for text were documented that were greater than those expected on the basis of spontaneous recovery alone. Over the course of one year, reading reaction times for single words improved, and the word-length effect that is the hallmark of LBL reading diminished. RB's response to treatment supports the therapeutic value of MOR treatment to in LBL readers. His residual impairment of reading and spelling one-year post stroke raised the question as to whether further progress was impeded by degraded orthographic knowledge.

  20. Idea Sharing: The Use of Read-Share-Act to Promote Extensive Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charumanee, Nisakorn

    2014-01-01

    Nisakorn Charumanee believes that a reading teacher has an active role in cultivating reading culture or reading habit and in activating students to "want" to read. One way to do this is to integrate extensive reading into the classroom (Day and Bamford, 1998; Bamford and Day, 2004) where extensive reading can be enhanced if the teacher…

  1. The Role of Reading in a Japanese Language Program: A Response to the MLA Ad Hoc Committee's Report (2007)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcus, Ginger

    2010-01-01

    Reading is defined as a socio-cultural act negotiated between text and reader, and the act of reading is considered to be a cognitive process that involves knowledge not only of symbols/letters, vocabulary and structure, but also of culture. In other words, in order to understand the intentions of the author and to formulate meaning, the second…

  2. Predictors of Response to Intervention of Word Reading Fluency in Dutch

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scheltinga, Femke; van der Leij, Aryan; Struiksma, Chris

    2010-01-01

    The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of rapid digit naming, phonological memory, letter sound naming, and orthographic knowledge to the prediction of responsiveness to a school-based, individual intervention of word reading fluency problems of 122 Dutch second and third graders whose reading scores were below the 10th…

  3. Metacognitive Reading Strategies, Motivation, and Reading Comprehension Performance of Saudi EFL Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meniado, Joel C.

    2016-01-01

    Metacognitive reading strategies and reading motivation play a significant role in enhancing reading comprehension. In an attempt to prove the foregoing claim in a context where there is no strong culture for reading, this study tries to find out if there is indeed a relationship between and among metacognitive reading strategies, reading…

  4. Reading culture from tobacco advertisements in Indonesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nichter, Mimi; Padmawati, S; Danardono, M; Ng, N; Prabandari, Y; Nichter, Mark

    2009-04-01

    Tobacco advertising in Indonesia is among the most aggressive and innovative in the world, and tobacco advertisements saturate the environment. Tobacco companies are politically and financially powerful in the country because they are one of the largest sources of government revenue. As a result, there are few restrictions on tobacco marketing and advertising. National surveys reveal that 62% of men and 1% to 3% of women are smokers. Over 90% of smokers smoke clove cigarettes (kretek). This paper examines the social and cultural reasons for smoking in Indonesia and discusses how the tobacco industry reads, reproduces and works with culture as a means of selling cigarettes. An analysis is provided of how kretek tobacco companies represent themselves as supporters of Indonesian national identity. This analysis is used to identify strategies to break the chains of positive association that currently support widespread smoking. Between November 2001 and March 2007, tobacco advertisements were collected from a variety of sources, including newspapers and magazines. Frequent photographic documentation was made of adverts on billboards and in magazines. Advertisements were segmented into thematic units to facilitate analysis. In all, 30 interviews were conducted with smokers to explore benefits and risks of smoking, perceptions of advertisements and brand preferences. Focus groups (n = 12) were conducted to explore and pretest counter advertisements. Key themes were identified in tobacco advertisements including control of emotions, smoking to enhance masculinity and smoking as a means to uphold traditional values while simultaneously emphasising modernity and globalisation. Some kretek advertisements are comprised of indirect commentaries inviting the viewer to reflect on the political situation and one's position in society. After identifying key cultural themes in cigarette advertisements, our research group is attempting to engage the tobacco industry on "cultural

  5. Effect of different reading interfaces and conditions on the accommodation response

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiao-Feng Wang

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available AIM:To compare the difference of accommodation response under the variety reading conditions including computer screen, mobile phone screen and printed texts. The investigation also included the accommodation response under these conditions with different distances, brightness, dynamic and static testing status. METHODS:Thirty volunteer subjects were included with normal vision function. The reading target on computer screen, mobile screen and paper were used, respectively. Grand Seiko WAM 5500 infrared automatic refractometer was applied to measure accommodation response. The influence of different reading conditions on accommodation was compared using variance analysis with SPSS17.0.RESULTS:Accommodation lag under the computer screen with high brightness was 0.52±0.24D, that under papers was 0.73±0.28D, that under mobile phone was 0.72±0.29D. Accommodation lag under the computer screen with high brightness was less than that under mobile phones and paper, the differences were statistically significant(PCONCLUSION:Accommodation lag under the computer screen with high brightness is relatively smaller than that under mobile phone or paper. There is no significant difference between those under phones and paper. With the brightness of computers in a certain range, there is no effect for accommodation response.

  6. Defining culturally responsive teaching: The case of mathematics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jenni L. Harding-DeKam

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Elementary classroom teachers in eight school districts across Colorado, United States, share the knowledge of their students’ home and community life, define culturally responsive mathematics based on the children they instruct, and give examples of how students learn math through culture in their classrooms. Findings from two interviews, classroom observations, and student artifacts reveal that teachers have an intimate cultural knowledge of the students in their classrooms, define culturally responsive mathematical practices consistent with research, use culturally responsive mathematics teaching for authentic learning, and express a need for additional professional development and curriculum support for culturally responsive mathematics instruction. Culturally responsive mathematics is important in elementary classrooms because it allows students to make personal connections to mathematics content.

  7. Beyond revenge?: Responsible Bible reading practices in a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    In this article, I argue that revenge fantasies such as those found in the Oracles Against the Nations (OAN) in Jeremiah 45–51 underscore the necessity for responsible Bible reading practices. I argue that to protect us from our own worst selves, the very human tendency to resort to revenge that inevitably leads to violence, ...

  8. Cybertext Redux: Using Digital Game-Based Learning to Teach L2 Vocabulary, Reading, and Culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neville, David O.; Shelton, Brett E.; McInnis, Brian

    2009-01-01

    The essay reports on a mixed-methods study using an interactive fiction (IF) game to teach German vocabulary, reading, and culture to university students. The study measured knowledge retention and transfer, and evaluated the attitudes of students toward the game. The results tentatively indicate that contextualized, immersive role play may have…

  9. Fostering the Love of Reading: The Affective Domain in Reading Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cramer, Eugene H., Ed.; Castle, Marrietta, Ed.

    Representing current thinking about a wide range of issues related to reading motivation, this book offers a look at how to create classroom cultures that foster in students the love of reading. The book is about teachers and the critical role they play in helping children develop into motivated, active, engaged readers who read both for pleasure…

  10. Culturally Responsive Leadership in School Libraries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Summers, Laura L.

    2010-01-01

    Students need culturally responsive teacher-librarians who focus on 21st century skills for all students. Basic principles for culturally responsive leadership in school libraries are articulated by multicultural educators who know that social equity is more important than ever, as the number of diverse and underserved students increase each year.…

  11. Should we learn culture in chemistry classroom? Integration ethnochemistry in culturally responsive teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahmawati, Yuli; Ridwan, Achmad; Nurbaity

    2017-08-01

    The papers report the first year of two-year longitudinal study of ethnochemistry integration in culturally responsive teaching in chemistry classrooms. The teaching approach is focusing on exploring the culture and indigenous knowledge in Indonesia from chemistry perspectives. Ethnochemistry looks at the culture from chemistry perspectives integrated into culturally responsive teaching has developed students' cultural identity and students' engagement in chemistry learning. There are limited research and data in exploring Indonesia culture, which has around 300 ethics, from chemistry perspectives. Students come to the chemistry classrooms from a different background; however, their chemistry learning disconnected with their background which leads to students' disengagement in chemistry learning. Therefore this approach focused on students' engagement within their differences. This research was conducted with year 10 and 11 from four classrooms in two secondary schools through qualitative methodology with observation, interviews, and reflective journals as data collection. The results showed that the integration of ethnochemistry in culturally responsive teaching approach can be implemented by involving 5 principles which are content integration, facilitating knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development. The culturally responsive teaching has engaged students in their chemistry learning and developed their cultural identity and soft skills. Students found that the learning experiences has helped to develop their chemistry knowledge and understand the culture from chemistry perspectives. The students developed the ability to work together, responsibility, curiosity, social awareness, creativity, empathy communication, and self-confidence which categorized into collaboration skills, student engagement, social and cultural awareness, and high order thinking skills. The ethnochemistry has helped them to develop the critical self

  12. A cross-cultural comparison of verbal learning and memory functions in reading disabled American and Norwegian adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asbjørnsen, Arve E; Obrzut, John E; Oyler, James D

    2014-04-01

    The present study reports the results of a cross-cultural analysis of the role of phonetic and semantic cues in verbal learning and memory. A newly developed memory test procedure, the Bergen-Tucson Verbal Learning Test (BTVLT), expands earlier test procedures as phonetic cues are applied in addition to semantic cues in a cued recall procedure. Samples of reading disabled and typically developed adolescents from the US and from Norway were recruited as voluntary participants. The results indicate that the stimulus materials chosen for the memory test are working well in both American and in Norwegian samples, yielding acquisition results comparable to similar list learning procedures, and also yielding high internal consistency across learning trials. The procedure also reliably differentiates between reading disabled samples in both languages, and also yields cross-cultural differences that seem to reflect differences in transparency and differences in the orthography of the included languages. The BTVLT with its focus on phonetic coding is a promising supplement to established tests of verbal memory for assessment of reading and language impaired individuals. © 2014 The Authors Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. Characterizing preservice Teacherʼs responses to literacy: Read alouds a way to experience the joy for reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Judith Castellanos

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available This article reports on a small-scale project which central purpose was to incorporate read-alouds in a pre-intermediate English as a foreign language class of preservice teachers during three weeks. Students responded orally and in a written way on their journals to these readings showing understanding of the texts, relating their personal experiences and / or making connections to them. The project involved students of the undergraduate program in English teaching at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá. In all, 19 students were involved in the project. Data collection sources for this project include studentsʼ journals, after the fact notes on studentsʼ oral interactions and a group interview. Among the findings observed in this inquiry project include the intertextual connections (Short, 1993 students make across the texts read in class with their personal experiences. Most studentsʼ oral responses were characterized by code-switching; in general most students code switched depending on the difficulty of the answer. Students benefited from the reading-alouds in terms of opportunities to interact among themselves, practice their oral and written skills, and enjoy the pleasures of reading, thus building ground to a positive experience that may be emulated in their future teaching exercise. Finally, I discuss some implications of read-alouds with preservice teachers and teacher education programs in Colombia.

  14. Toward a More Culturally Responsive General Music Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abril, Carlos R.

    2013-01-01

    This article seeks to characterize culturally responsive teaching; consider how it differs from other pedagogical approaches in music education informed by culture, such as multicultural music education; and offer ideas for making the general music classroom more culturally responsive.

  15. Interpretive Responses in Reading History and Biology: An Exploratory Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fareed, Ahmed A.

    1971-01-01

    Explores the interpretive processes of 12 sixth-grade pupils, using the recorded interview technique. Concludes that readers use the processes of reproduction, inquiry, emotional reaction, rational judgment, appreciation, association, and illumination, and that the nature of the reading material influences the types of interpretive responses. (VJ)

  16. Using Culturally Responsive Stories in Mathematics: Responses from the Target Audience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corp, Amy

    2017-01-01

    This study examined how Black students responded to the utilization of culturally responsive stories in their mathematics class. All students in the two classes participated in mathematics lessons that began with an African American story (culturally responsive to this population), followed by mathematical discussion and concluded with solving…

  17. The Relationship between FL Reading Strategies and FL Reading Proficiency: A Study on Turkish EFL Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gönen, Ipek Kuru

    2015-01-01

    Reading in FL possesses certain challenges for FL readers such as difficulty in inferring underlying messages in texts and dealing with unfamiliar cultural load. All these challenges may be associated with FL learners' reading proficiency and their use of FL reading strategies especially while reading academic materials. This study aims at…

  18. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy for Teachers of Color

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gist, Conra D.

    2017-01-01

    This study utilizes the conceptual framework of culturally responsive pedagogy and theoretical suppositions about the culturally responsive teacher educator to examine the learning experiences of teacher candidates of color. Findings from the case study of a teacher educator's and teacher candidates' of color teaching and learning experiences in a…

  19. Reading Every Single Day: A Journey to Authentic Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudson, Alida K.; Williams, Joan A.

    2015-01-01

    This article details one teacher's implementation of reading workshop in her second grade classroom. She provided a framework for authentic reading using the five components of reading workshop: time, choice, response, community, and structure. She found that reading workshop is a highly effective practice for not only increasing students'…

  20. Response Strategies and Response Styles in Cross-Cultural Surveys

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morren, M.H.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Vermunt, J.K.

    2012-01-01

    This article addresses the following research questions: Do respondents participating in cross-cultural surveys differ in their response style when responding to attitude statements? If so, are characteristics of the response process associated with their ethnicity and generation of immigration? To

  1. Reading through Films

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Madhavi Gayathri Raman

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper captures the design of a comprehensive curriculum incorporating the four skills based exclusively on the use of parallel audio-visual and written texts. We discuss the use of authentic materials to teach English to Indian undergraduates aged 18 to 20 years. Specifically, we talk about the use of parallel reading (screen-play and audio-visual texts (Shawshank Redemption, and Life is Beautiful, A Few Good Men and Lion King drawn from popular culture in the classroom as an effective teaching medium. Students were gradually introduced to films based on novels with extracts from the original texts (Schindler’s List, Beautiful Mind for extended reading and writing practice. We found that students began to pay more attention to aspects such as pronunciation, intonational variations, discourse markers and vocabulary items (phrasal verbs, synonyms, homophones, and puns. Keywords: Reading, films, popular culture, ESL classroom, language skills

  2. Promoting Culturally Responsive Standards-Based Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saifer, Steffen; Barton, Rhonda

    2007-01-01

    Culturally responsive standards-based (CRSB) teaching can help bring diverse school communities together and make learning meaningful. Unlike multicultural education--which is an important way to incorporate the world's cultural and ethnic diversity into lessons--CRSB teaching draws on the experiences, understanding, views, concepts, and ways of…

  3. Culturally Responsive Physics Teaching: Content or Conveyance?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stewart, Taquan Seth

    2011-12-01

    This study, in response to the achievement gap in science and the lack of significant numbers of ethnic minorities in science fields, examined the effects of a Cultural Responsiveness Workshop and intervention on teacher practice, teacher discourse, and student perceptions and connectedness to physics. The sample was comprised of three high school physics teachers---2 teaching five 12th grade sections and one teaching five 9th grade sections of physics---in two separate urban schools in the same section of South Los Angeles. My research design was qualitative and examined eight culturally responsive indicators that, when applied, may increase student engagement and level of connectedness in urban high school physics classrooms: (1) proximity to students, (2) the ways in which they encouraged students, (3) positive reinforcement techniques, (4) modifications for individual learning types, (5) use of children's strengths, (6) scaffolding, (7) displaying an understanding of diverse cultures, and (8) displaying a personal regard for students of diverse cultures. When the study was completed and data was collected, I identified trends in the change in teacher discourse, behaviors, instructional practice, and perceptions of student engagement. My findings, discovered through classroom observations and focus groups, indicated a positive shift in each. Accompanying these shifts were positive shifts in level of student engagement and level of connectedness. There were also the unexpected findings of the need for teachers to receive feedback in a safe collaborative space and the use of culturally responsive teaching as a tool for behavioral management. My study found that there is a definite relationship between the use of the culturally responsive indicators observed, student engagement and student level of connectedness to physics when implemented in urban high school science classrooms.

  4. Headteachers' Readings of and Responses to Disadvantaged Contexts: Evidence from English Primary Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lupton, Ruth; Thrupp, Martin

    2013-01-01

    Existing research demonstrates the impact of context on school organisation and management, curriculum and pedagogy and on student peer relations. New developments in English education policy will devolve more responsibility for dealing with these issues to headteachers. Headteachers' readings of their contexts and the responses that they make are…

  5. Teacher-Librarian Collaboration in Developing Favourable Reading ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The research was guided by three (3) questions which assisted in eliciting information that can be used to encourage the useof school media centres to develop a reading culture in Nigerian schools. Before a reading culture can be inculcated in children, books have to be made available. Suggestions were made on how ...

  6. "You Don't Read a Science Book, You Study It": An Exploration of Cultural Concepts of Reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Jim; Gunderson, Lee

    2001-01-01

    Discusses how the differing views held by teachers and immigrant parents and their children affect early reading instruction, secondary content reading, and reading involving technology. Demonstrates that immigrant students and their parents hold different beliefs about reading and schooling than those held by many teachers. Concludes it is…

  7. The Role of Book Familiarity and Book Type on Mothers' Reading Strategies and Toddlers' Responsiveness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fletcher, Kathryn L.; Finch, W. Holmes

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of the current study was to examine how maternal reading strategies and book type would impact on toddlers' responsiveness as they became familiar with three books. Eleven mothers and their 2- to 3-year-olds were recorded reading the same set of three different books (i.e. word book, narrative book and no narrative book) on four…

  8. Reading the Word and Reading the World: Introducing Extensive Literature Reading Programs in Awassa College of Teacher Education and Its Partner Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charles, Paul Michael

    2011-01-01

    Extensive literature reading is a controversial area within EFL, both in terms of its effectiveness, and potential contribution to linguistic and cultural imperialism. This article considers the role of extensive literature reading in L2 acquisition from both innatist and critical perspectives. Set in the context of a development project at Awassa…

  9. Reading embodied consciousness in "Emma".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harbus, Antonina

    2011-01-01

    The language of Emma (1815) reflects Jane Austen's developing view of embodied consciousness and her particular interest in this novel in the physical manifestations of emotions, such as blushes and nervous responses. The discursive exploration of the inner life in Emma is the product of a cultural context that features emerging brain science and Austen's own conceptualization of the psychophysical nature of emotions. This article analyzes the language of mind and emotion in Emma, to contend that Austen grapples with the implications of the idea of embodied consciousness in a narrative that contrasts mind reading with interpreting the body.

  10. From empowerment to response-ability: rethinking socio-spatial, environmental justice, and nature-culture binaries in the context of STEM education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kayumova, Shakhnoza; McGuire, Chad J.; Cardello, Suzanne

    2018-04-01

    In this conceptual paper, we draw upon the insights of Feminist Science Studies, in particular Karen Barad's concept of agential realism, as a critical analytical tool to re-think nature and culture binaries in dominant science knowledge-making practices and explanatory accounts, and their possible implications for science education in the context of socio-spatial and environmental injustices. Barad's framework proposes a relational and more expansive approach to justice, which takes into account consequential effects of nature-culture practices on humans, non-humans, and more than human vitalities. In efforts to understand potentialities of Barad's theory of agential realism, we situate our argument in the "story" of local children who encounter a bottle of cyanide in a former manufacturing building. The story takes place in a post-industrial urban city located in the U.S., caught up in an inverse relationship between the technological and scientific advances observed "globally" and the deteriorating environmental and living conditions experienced "locally" as the result of erstwhile industrial activity. Based on agential realist readings of the story and taking into consideration children's developing subjectivities, we argue that equity-oriented scholarship in science education might not be able to achieve justice devoid of understanding of the relatedness to plurality of life forms. We invite our readers to consider (re)configuring socio-spatial and environmental issues as an ethical response-ability that is constituted through relationships of care, recognition, openness, and responsiveness to vitalities of humans and nonhumans equally, one which cannot be conceptualized from a priori and distant calculations, but rather continuous entangled relations.

  11. Individual and culture-level components of survey response styles: A multi-level analysis using cultural models of selfhood.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Peter B; Vignoles, Vivian L; Becker, Maja; Owe, Ellinor; Easterbrook, Matthew J; Brown, Rupert; Bourguignon, David; Garðarsdóttir, Ragna B; Kreuzbauer, Robert; Cendales Ayala, Boris; Yuki, Masaki; Zhang, Jianxin; Lv, Shaobo; Chobthamkit, Phatthanakit; Jaafar, Jas Laile; Fischer, Ronald; Milfont, Taciano L; Gavreliuc, Alin; Baguma, Peter; Bond, Michael Harris; Martin, Mariana; Gausel, Nicolay; Schwartz, Seth J; Des Rosiers, Sabrina E; Tatarko, Alexander; González, Roberto; Didier, Nicolas; Carrasco, Diego; Lay, Siugmin; Nizharadze, George; Torres, Ana; Camino, Leoncio; Abuhamdeh, Sami; Macapagal, Ma Elizabeth J; Koller, Silvia H; Herman, Ginette; Courtois, Marie; Fritsche, Immo; Espinosa, Agustín; Villamar, Juan A; Regalia, Camillo; Manzi, Claudia; Brambilla, Maria; Zinkeng, Martina; Jalal, Baland; Kusdil, Ersin; Amponsah, Benjamin; Çağlar, Selinay; Mekonnen, Kassahun Habtamu; Möller, Bettina; Zhang, Xiao; Schweiger Gallo, Inge; Prieto Gil, Paula; Lorente Clemares, Raquel; Campara, Gabriella; Aldhafri, Said; Fülöp, Márta; Pyszczynski, Tom; Kesebir, Pelin; Harb, Charles

    2016-12-01

    Variations in acquiescence and extremity pose substantial threats to the validity of cross-cultural research that relies on survey methods. Individual and cultural correlates of response styles when using 2 contrasting types of response mode were investigated, drawing on data from 55 cultural groups across 33 nations. Using 7 dimensions of self-other relatedness that have often been confounded within the broader distinction between independence and interdependence, our analysis yields more specific understandings of both individual- and culture-level variations in response style. When using a Likert-scale response format, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as similar to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour harmony, similarity with others and receptiveness to influence. However, when using Schwartz's (2007) portrait-comparison response procedure, acquiescence is strongest among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant but also connected to others, and where cultural models of selfhood favour self-reliance and self-consistency. Extreme responding varies less between the two types of response modes, and is most prevalent among individuals seeing themselves as self-reliant, and in cultures favouring self-reliance. As both types of response mode elicit distinctive styles of response, it remains important to estimate and control for style effects to ensure valid comparisons. © 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.

  12. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes test: validation of a French version and exploration of cultural variations in a multi-ethnic city.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prevost, Marie; Carrier, Marie-Eve; Chowne, Gabrielle; Zelkowitz, Phyllis; Joseph, Lawrence; Gold, Ian

    2014-01-01

    The first aim of our study was to validate the French version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, a theory of mind test. The second aim was to test whether cultural differences modulate performance on this test. A total of 109 participants completed the original English version and 97 participants completed the French version. Another group of 30 participants completed the French version twice, one week apart. We report a similar overall distribution of scores in both versions and no differences in the mean scores between them. However, 2 items in the French version did not collect a majority of responses, which differed from the results of the English version. Test-retest showed good stability of the French version. As expected, participants who do not speak French or English at home, and those born in Asia, performed worse than North American participants, and those who speak English or French at home. We report a French version with acceptable validity and good stability. The cultural differences observed support the idea that Asian culture does not use theory of mind to explain people's behaviours as much as North American people do.

  13. Reflections of Cultural Memory in the Island of Disputes: Reading Durrell’s Bitter Lemons of Cyprus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yildiray Cevik

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The clean reading of Durrell’s Aegean travelogues favors the elaboration of memories of travels, a proper circumstance of getting involved in the cultural milieu of the island of Cyprus. Lawrence Durrell’s travel book Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957, which is based on his three-year stay on the island, a sojourn which coincided with the enosis crisis along with value, personal and cultural conflicts shows how representations of cultural and political conflicts are inextricably linked to representation of modern oriental thought. He sees the clashes of tension in living styles of bi-polar society, characters and British politics even though he claims to keep away from British politics. Island’s cultural ideology of ‘melting pot’ has been replaced by bi-culturalism in the recent decades.  The novel is an embodiment of cultural identities in cleavages surviving for recognition which also demonstrates a need for the construction of an egalitarian bi-communal society. The novel is told of in various perspectives of ethnicities that are used as tools for cultural integration, preservation of identity and culture by the images of prominent figures from respective ethnicities. These perspectives formed mainly under Durrell’s orientalist viewpoint fill the novel through the cultural memory construed writer’s sovereign Western consciousness out of whose unchallenged centrality on Oriental perspective emerged. Durrell filters his experiences through cultural memory after the return to England. Thus, in this paper cultural memory as Durrell reflects on a tri-partite basis will be analyzed in terms of conflicts, stereotypes, identity crisis, clashes and hopes for negotiations.

  14. Integrating Response to Intervention (RTI) with Neuropsychology: A Scientific Approach to Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feifer, Steven G.

    2008-01-01

    This article integrates the fundamental components of both "Response to Intervention" (RTI) and cognitive neuropsychology when identifying reading disorders in children. Both proponents of RTI and cognitive neuropsychology agree the "discrepancy model" is not a reliable or valid method to identify learning disorders in school. In addition, both…

  15. Culturally Responsive: Art Education in a Global Era

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lai, Alice

    2012-01-01

    Facing the era of globalization, culturally responsive art teachers must recognize that students' home culture, including local artistic expression, is inevitably influenced by global forces. They should strive to engage with students systems and issues of globalization and its impact on their community culture and art. In this article, the author…

  16. Re-thinking Reading in the Context of a New Wave of Electronic Reading Devices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kratky, Andreas

    We are currently witnessing a new wave of digital reading devices that will probably significantly change the way we read and publish. This is not the first digital revolution of aspects of cultural production and perception. This paper compares the previous digital revolutions of the music, film and publishing industries and attempts a prognosis of coming changes in the way we will work with digital texts. As a conclusion a new notion of interface design for the emerging reading ecology is proposed.

  17. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Reflections on Mentoring by Educational Leadership Candidates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Genao, Soribel

    2016-01-01

    Authentic field experience is an important component in educational leadership programs. This article revisits the literature examining the cultural gap that exists in public education, while taking a closer look at what it means to be a culturally responsive leader and teacher. The need to integrate culturally responsive practices to connect and…

  18. Reading Deeply for Disciplinary Awareness and Political Judgment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Staudinger, Alison

    2017-01-01

    What happens when students become better readers? Cultivating deep reading habits in students to help them navigate disciplinary cultures respects student autonomy. Scholarly literature predicts that three linked practices improve student reading: practice with feedback, explicit in-class work on reading strategies, and disciplinary norm…

  19. Dealing with Difference: Building Culturally Responsive Classrooms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nina Burridge

    2009-11-01

    Full Text Available Australia continues to develop as a multicultural society with levels of immigration increasing significantly over recent years as a result of government policies. More recently, the new period of financial turmoil, continuing threats from terrorism and environmental concerns, have all exacerbated the challenges of dealing with difference in our society. In response, schools continue to face the challenges of the impact of a range of different cultures, languages and religions among their student and school communities. How effectively schools deal with difference and how well they are supported in their endeavours to build culturally response classrooms is a perennial issue for both teachers and educators. A major challenge for teachers is to at a minimum, understand cultural differences as they manifest in their particular school settings and to draw on approaches that support student learning in culturally appropriate ways so to assist them to better realise their full potential. In this paper we will consider cultural diversity in the context of recent school policies, highlight a number of frameworks for addressing cultural diversity in the classroom, in particular the approaches by Kalantzis and Cope’s (1999 and Hickling-Hudson (2003. We also draw on the findings from a recent qualitative study of representations of cultural diversity in a number of Sydney metropolitan schools to discuss the need for more greater resource and policy support for progressive teaching approaches that support the development of a more tolerant and inclusive multicultural society. Key words: cultural diversity, schools, teacher education, classroom practice, social inclusion

  20. A Study of Boys' Reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Telford, Lesley

    1999-01-01

    Examined how reading attitudes of Year 6 boys in British primary schools were influenced by gender issues, peers, and peer group culture. Found that confidence and experience shown in private reading was at odds with boys' public attitudes in discussion with peers. Suggests that siblings and adults might provide more positive role models for…

  1. Towards a Culturally Situated Reader Response Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, Wanda; Browne, Susan

    2012-01-01

    This article describes a theory of how culture enables literary interpretations of texts. We begin with a brief overview of the reader response field. From there, we introduce the theory and provide illustrative participant data examples. These data examples illustrate the four cultural positions middle grade students in our research assumed when…

  2. Beyond revenge?: Responsible Bible reading practices in a Traumatized Land

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juliana M. Claassens

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available In this article, I argue that revenge fantasies such as those found in the Oracles Against the Nations (OAN in Jeremiah 45–51 underscore the necessity for responsible Bible reading practices. I argue that to protect us from our own worst selves, the very human tendency to resort to revenge that inevitably leads to violence, one needs to read these biblical texts in terms of contemporary hermeneutical approaches that may play some role to bring an end to violence. A first such approach that serves as an important tool to help us understand these revenge fantasies as found in the OAN is the relatively new field of inquiry of trauma hermeneutics that is particularly helpful in order to mitigate the violent aspects of these revenge fantasies. Moreover, I propose that recent approaches such as feminist and postcolonial biblical interpretation are also vital for nurturing ethical, just communities that actively pursue justice.

  3. Management Culture as Part of Organizational Culture in the Context of Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jolita Vveinhardt

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The article is theoretically based on management culture as part of the formal organizational culture, separately reviewing some of its elements. Expert evaluation organization, process and results of the instrument shaped by the authors and meant for qualitative research are briefly presented. The structure of the instrument is detailed by presenting its component parts and explanations. The research was carried out by interviewing the top managers of two big manufacturing company groups consisting of six enterprises. The article presents passages of an interview with the top managers of the six companies, revealing management culture as part of the formal organizational culture expression aiming to implement corporate social responsibility. It should be emphasized that the companies of both groups are preparing to become socially responsible and this results in the timeliness and importance of the research. Structured interviewing method was applied for the research, and the substantive content of the interview included strategy, organizational structure, rules and regulations, technologies, processes, information systems, control and incentive issues. The results of the research show that in both groups of the manufacturing companies management culture and corporate social responsibility, analysing them in terms of formal organizational culture, are perceived in very narrow aspects and their development is not part of the organizations’ strategic goals. The results of the study suggest that the ideas of corporate social responsibility cannot be implemented in a consistent way unless they are integrated into the formal part of organisational culture which plays an instrumental role.

  4. Child-centered reading intervention: See, talk, dictate, read, write!

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhammet BAŞTUĞ

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Poor reading achievement of children in elementary schools has been one of the major concerns in education. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a child-centered reading intervention in eliminating the reading problems of a student with poor reading achievement. The research was conducted with a student having difficulty in reading. A reading intervention was designed that targeted multiple areas of reading and aimed to improve reading skills through the use of multiple strategies. This intervention is child-centered and includes visual aids, talking, dictating, reading and writing stages. The study was performed in 35 sessions consisting of stages of a single sentence (5 sessions, two sentences (5 sessions, three sentences (20 sessions and the text stage (5 sessions. The intervention sessions were audio-taped. These recordings and the written responses to the reading comprehension questions provided the data for analysis. The findings on the reading intervention revealed positive outcomes. The student exhibited certain improvements at the levels of reading, reading rate and reading comprehension. These results were discussed in the literature and the findings suggest that child-centered reading strategies such as talking, dictating and writing should be the main focus of instruction for students with low reading literacy achievement to enable these students to meet the demands of the curriculum.

  5. Empathy without borders? Cross-cultural heart and mind-reading in first-year medical students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dehning, Sandra; Gasperi, Sarah; Tesfaye, Markos; Girma, Eshetu; Meyer, Sebastian; Krahl, Wolfgang; Riedel, Michael; Möller, Hans-Jürgen; Müller, Norbert; Siebeck, Matthias

    2013-07-01

    This cross-cultural study was designed to examine cultural differences in empathy levels of first-year medical students. A total of 257 students from the academic year 2010/11, 131 at Jimma University, Ethiopia, and 126 at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, completed the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES), the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME-R) test, and a questionnaire on sociodemographic and cultural characteristics. Furthermore, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the students' personal views on the definition of empathy and possible influencing factors. Group comparisons and correlation analyses of empathy scores were performed for the entire cohort and for the Jimma and Munich students separately. We used a regression tree analysis to identify factors influencing the BEES. The male students in Jimma (39.1 ± 22.3) scored significantly higher in the BEES than those male students from Munich (27.2 ± 22.6; p = 0.0002). There was no significant difference between the female groups. We found a moderate, positive correlation between the BEES and RME-R test, i.e. between emotional and cognitive empathy, within each university. Nevertheless, the RME-R test, which shows only Caucasian eyes, appears not to be suitable for use in other cultures. The main findings of our study were the influence of culture, religion, specialization choice, and gender on emotional empathy (assessed with the BEES) and cognitive empathy (assessed with the RME-R test) in first-year medical students. Further research is required into the nature of empathy in worldwide medical curricula.

  6. Preserving Local Culture through Digital Comics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tri Mulyati

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Digital environment offers teachers and students with a plethora of information and resources for learning. Nowadays, students who are mostly digital natives are used to utilizing technology in their daily life. This condition should make teachers as technology leaders responsible to provide a good learning environment where the students are involved in their own learning and that best suits to them in in a particular context. Therefore, this study aimed at developing local culture based digital comics for narrative reading comprehension and inserting local culture of Banyuwangi in English language teaching. This study followed the research and development design adapting the pattern developed by Borg and Gall. Based on the result of need analysis administered to students in class VIII of SMPN 1 Kalipuro, Banyuwangi, the product were developed by inserting local culture content into narrative texts in the form of digital comics. The digital comics had two titles: The Dance Competition and The Legend of Banyuwangi. The product was validated by the experts and tried out to the students. The result showed that the local culture based digital comics were applicable to be used in the teaching and learning narrative text reading comprehension.

  7. Reading Edward Said in Myanmar

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Lars

    2014-01-01

    Twenty years after its publication, Culture and Imperialism continues to be seen as part of the defining moment of postcolonial readings of our contemporary world. The anniversary marks an opportunity to revisit the landscape of culture and imperialism as envisaged by Edward Said, but also to dis...

  8. Use of social media for reading culture development among ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Many activities of academic life require the ability to read and write. Reading helps to develop the mind and personality of a person; it also enriches ones' intellectual abilities. But, with the current popularity of social media, it is slowly and steadily taking over the mind of young people who are expected to cultivate good ...

  9. Cultural responses to climate change during the late Holocene.

    Science.gov (United States)

    deMenocal, P B

    2001-04-27

    Modern complex societies exhibit marked resilience to interannual-to- decadal droughts, but cultural responses to multidecadal-to-multicentury droughts can only be addressed by integrating detailed archaeological and paleoclimatic records. Four case studies drawn from New and Old World civilizations document societal responses to prolonged drought, including population dislocations, urban abandonment, and state collapse. Further study of past cultural adaptations to persistent climate change may provide valuable perspective on possible responses of modern societies to future climate change.

  10. Thermo-responsive cell culture carrier: Effects on macrophage functionality and detachment efficiency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rennert, Knut; Nitschke, Mirko; Wallert, Maria; Keune, Natalie; Raasch, Martin; Lorkowski, Stefan; Mosig, Alexander S

    2017-01-01

    Harvesting cultivated macrophages for tissue engineering purposes by enzymatic digestion of cell adhesion molecules can potentially result in unintended activation, altered function, or behavior of these cells. Thermo-responsive polymer is a promising tool that allows for gentle macrophage detachment without artificial activation prior to subculture within engineered tissue constructs. We therefore characterized different species of thermo-responsive polymers for their suitability as cell substrate and to mediate gentle macrophage detachment by temperature shift. Primary human monocyte- and THP-1-derived macrophages were cultured on thermo-responsive polymers and characterized for phagocytosis and cytokine secretion in response to lipopolysaccharide stimulation. We found that both cell types differentially respond in dependence of culture and stimulation on thermo-responsive polymers. In contrast to THP-1 macrophages, primary monocyte-derived macrophages showed no signs of impaired viability, artificial activation, or altered functionality due to culture on thermo-responsive polymers compared to conventional cell culture. Our study demonstrates that along with commercially available UpCell carriers, two other thermo-responsive polymers based on poly(vinyl methyl ether) blends are attractive candidates for differentiation and gentle detachment of primary monocyte-derived macrophages. In summary, we observed similar functionality and viability of primary monocyte-derived macrophages cultured on thermo-responsive polymers compared to standard cell culture surfaces. While this first generation of custom-made thermo-responsive polymers does not yet outperform standard culture approaches, our results are very promising and provide the basis for exploiting the unique advantages offered by custom-made thermo-responsive polymers to further improve macrophage culture and recovery in the future, including the covalent binding of signaling molecules and the reduction of

  11. Not all reading is alike: Task modulation of magnetic evoked response to visual word

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pavlova A. A.

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Background. Previous studies have shown that brain response to a written word depends on the task: whether the word is a target in a version of lexical decision task or should be read silently. Although this effect has been interpreted as an evidence for an interaction between word recognition processes and task demands, it also may be caused by greater attention allocation to the target word. Objective. We aimed to examine the task effect on brain response evoked by non- target written words. Design. Using MEG and magnetic source imaging, we compared spatial-temporal pattern of brain response elicited by a noun cue when it was read silently either without additional task (SR or with a requirement to produce an associated verb (VG. Results.The task demands penetrated into early (200-300 ms and late (500-800 ms stages of a word processing by enhancing brain response under VG versus SR condition. The cortical sources of the early response were localized to bilateral inferior occipitotemporal and anterior temporal cortex suggesting that more demanding VG task required elaborated lexical-semantic analysis. The late effect was observed in the associative auditory areas in middle and superior temporal gyri and in motor representation of articulators. Our results suggest that a remote goal plays a pivotal role in enhanced recruitment of cortical structures underlying orthographic, semantic and sensorimotor dimensions of written word perception from the early processing stages. Surprisingly, we found that to fulfil a more challenging goal the brain progressively engaged resources of the right hemisphere throughout all stages of silent reading. Conclusion. Our study demonstrates that a deeper processing of linguistic input amplifies activation of brain areas involved in integration of speech perception and production. This is consistent with theories that emphasize the role of sensorimotor integration in speech understanding.

  12. Golden Mountain Reading Series. Level 2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sung, Robert

    This reading series was developed as a means to educate Chinese-American elementary school children in Chinese reading, writing, and culture. The text covers the following topics: Chinese literature, Chinese and American history, famous people, general knowledge, Chinese letter writing, the four seasons, and the major Chinese and American…

  13. Organizational culture during the accident response process

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shurberg, D.A.; Haber, S.B.

    1992-01-01

    A large volume of literature hypothesizes a direct relationship between organizational culture and organizational effectiveness. Culture data have been collected by the authors and others at nuclear power plants (NPPs) and other organizations that demand high reliability. In this paper, the literature and data are used to explore a critical dimension of the accident response process in an NPP: the transition from an anticipatory strategy to an ad hoc strategy. In particular, the effect of organizational culture on the implementation of each of these strategies is examined

  14. Addressing Cultural Responsiveness in Consultation: An Empirical Demonstration

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKenney, Elizabeth L. W.; Mann, Kacee A.; Brown, Danice L.; Jewell, Jeremy D.

    2017-01-01

    This study explored whether and to what extent consultation practices specifically focused on culturally responsive instruction provided additive benefit, after establishing strong classroom management. Three teachers leading culturally diverse classrooms participated in two phases of consultation. The first was a traditional, classroom-management…

  15. TV Viewing Compared to Book Reading and Toy Playing Reduces Responsive Maternal Communication with Toddlers and Preschoolers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nathanson, Amy I.; Rasmussen, Eric E.

    2011-01-01

    This study compared the amount and style of maternal communication with toddlers and preschoolers while mother-child pairs watched TV, read books, and played with toys. We found that mother-child communication was less frequent and less verbally responsive when dyads viewed TV compared with when they read books, and in many cases, when they played…

  16. Culture and Listeners' Gaze Responses to Stuttering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jianliang; Kalinowski, Joseph

    2012-01-01

    Background: It is frequently observed that listeners demonstrate gaze aversion to stuttering. This response may have profound social/communicative implications for both fluent and stuttering individuals. However, there is a lack of empirical examination of listeners' eye gaze responses to stuttering, and it is unclear whether cultural background…

  17. Culturally divergent responses to mortality salience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma-Kellams, Christine; Blascovich, Jim

    2011-08-01

    Two experiments compared the effects of death thoughts, or mortality salience, on European and Asian Americans. Research on terror management theory has demonstrated that in Western cultural groups, individuals typically employ self-protective strategies in the face of death-related thoughts. Given fundamental East-West differences in self-construal (i.e., the independent vs. interdependent self), we predicted that members of Eastern cultural groups would affirm other people, rather than defend and affirm the self, after encountering conditions of mortality salience. We primed European Americans and Asian Americans with either a death or a control prime and examined the effect of this manipulation on attitudes about a person who violates cultural norms (Study 1) and on attributions about the plight of an innocent victim (Study 2). Mortality salience promoted culturally divergent responses, leading European Americans to defend the self and Asian Americans to defend other people.

  18. Culturally Responsive Social Skill Instruction for Latino Male Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lo, Ya-yu; Correa, Vivian I.; Anderson, Adrienne L.

    2015-01-01

    Cross-cultural friendships and peer interactions are important skills for Latino students to become socially adjusted in U.S. schools. Culturally responsive social skill instruction allows educators to teach essential social skills while attending to the native culture and personal experiences of the students. The present study examined the…

  19. Universal brain systems for recognizing word shapes and handwriting gestures during reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nakamura, Kimihiro; Kuo, Wen-Jui; Pegado, Felipe; Cohen, Laurent; Tzeng, Ovid J L; Dehaene, Stanislas

    2012-12-11

    Do the neural circuits for reading vary across culture? Reading of visually complex writing systems such as Chinese has been proposed to rely on areas outside the classical left-hemisphere network for alphabetic reading. Here, however, we show that, once potential confounds in cross-cultural comparisons are controlled for by presenting handwritten stimuli to both Chinese and French readers, the underlying network for visual word recognition may be more universal than previously suspected. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a semantic task with words written in cursive font, we demonstrate that two universal circuits, a shape recognition system (reading by eye) and a gesture recognition system (reading by hand), are similarly activated and show identical patterns of activation and repetition priming in the two language groups. These activations cover most of the brain regions previously associated with culture-specific tuning. Our results point to an extended reading network that invariably comprises the occipitotemporal visual word-form system, which is sensitive to well-formed static letter strings, and a distinct left premotor region, Exner's area, which is sensitive to the forward or backward direction with which cursive letters are dynamically presented. These findings suggest that cultural effects in reading merely modulate a fixed set of invariant macroscopic brain circuits, depending on surface features of orthographies.

  20. Identification of Reading Problems in First Grade within a Response-to-Intervention Framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Speece, Deborah L.; Schatschneider, Christopher; Silverman, Rebecca; Case, Lisa Pericola; Cooper, David H.; Jacobs, Dawn M.

    2011-01-01

    Models of Response to Intervention (RTI) include parameters of assessment and instruction. This study focuses on assessment with the purpose of developing a screening battery that validly and efficiently identifies first-grade children at risk for reading problems. In an RTI model, these children would be candidates for early intervention. We…

  1. An Empirical Perspective on the Culture - Corporate Social Responsibility Relationship

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dumitru ZAIȚ

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Business competition and pressure of European directives put Romanian company in a position to find answers to issues related to long-term survival and development. In this context we believe it is necessary to analyze some of the most important components that should be taken into consideration at the strategic level: national and organizational culture. The results indicate that corporate social responsibility is supported by learning and change-oriented organizational culture, but also by a favorable cultural and national economic framework. Based on these theoretical considerations we intent to emphasize the relationships between national culture / corporate culture and corporate social responsibility (CSR, elaborating an empirical argument by analyzing the results provided by Global 100, an annual project initiated by Corporate Knights Inc. (Davos. Starting with 2005, it has the largest database in the world and an appropriate evaluation methodology that provides a ranking of the top 100 most responsible companies in the world.

  2. The Development of Novice Teachers' Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patish, Yelena

    2016-01-01

    While extensive research has been conducted on classroom management little research exists on culturally responsive classroom management. The primary purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how four novice teachers developed their culturally responsive management practice (CRCM) to better meet the needs of their students. My analysis was…

  3. How Language Supports Adaptive Teaching through a Responsive Learning Culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Peter; Dozier, Cheryl; Smit, Julie

    2016-01-01

    For students to learn optimally, teachers must design classrooms that are responsive to the full range of student development. The teacher must be adaptive, but so must each student and the learning culture itself. In other words, adaptive teaching means constructing a responsive learning culture that accommodates and even capitalizes on diversity…

  4. Cultures differ in the ability to enhance affective neural responses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varnum, Michael E W; Hampton, Ryan S

    2017-10-01

    The present study (N = 55) used an event-related potential paradigm to investigate whether cultures differ in the ability to upregulate affective responses. Using stimuli selected from the International Affective Picture System, we found that European-Americans (N = 29) enhanced central-parietal late positive potential (LPP) (400-800 ms post-stimulus) responses to affective stimuli when instructed to do so, whereas East Asians (N = 26) did not. We observed cultural differences in the ability to enhance central-parietal LPP responses for both positively and negativelyvalenced stimuli, and the ability to enhance these two types of responses was positively correlated for Americans but negatively for East Asians. These results are consistent with the notion that cultural variations in norms and values regarding affective expression and experiences shape how the brain regulates emotions.

  5. A Blueprint for Developing Culturally Proficient/Responsive School Administrators in Special Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bakken, Jeffrey P.; Smith, Beverly A.

    2011-01-01

    This article addresses the important topic of culturally proficient/responsive school administrators for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with learning disabilities (LD). Culturally proficient/responsive school administrators with knowledge and strong leadership skills in multicultural education are essential to impact school…

  6. Critical Pedagogy Principles in Teaching EFL Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This study attempts to reveal how the use of critical pedagogy principles in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL reading facilitates students to think critically. Additionally, it investigates and elaborates the benefits and challenges of using critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL reading. The three critical pedagogy principles used in this study were dialogic education, democratic classroom, and reading the world and the word. Critical thinking skills and dispositions expected to be performed by the participants were analysis and evaluation skills, open-mindedness, and making reasoned decision. This is a case study design which was conducted in the form of teaching program. The teaching program which consisted of eight meetings was given to 59 EFL sophomores in the Reading in Professional Context class at a private teacher education in Bandung. Data in the form of classroom talks and activities and students‟ responses as well as their critical thinking skills self-assessment were collected by using video recordings, observation notes, interview guideline, students‟ learning journals, and questionnaires. It is revealed that the teaching program has facilitated students to think critically by providing four categories of activity. They are (1 offering problematic topics and reading materials that are linked to the students‟ lives, (2 encouraging students to read between the lines, (3 distributing classroom power, and (4 creating space for students‟ voices to be heard. Meanwhile, there are two benefits of the teaching program, namely (1 language development and (2 new knowledge as well as experience acquisition. However, there are three major challenges in conducting the teaching program that are (1 the lack of classroom-friendly authentic controversial reading materials, (2 the passive culture, and (3 the unpredictable classroom.

  7. (Re-)reading medical trade catalogs: the uses of professional advertising in British medical practice, 1870-1914.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Claire L

    2012-01-01

    This article explores how medical practitioners read, used, and experienced medical trade catalogs in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Britain. Reader responses to the catalog, a book-like publication promoting medical tools, appliances, and pharmaceuticals, have been chronically understudied, as have professional reading practices within medicine more generally. Yet, evidence suggests that clinicians frequently used the catalog and did so in three main ways: to order medical products, to acquire new information about these products, and to display their own product endorsements and product designs. The seemingly widespread nature of these practices demonstrates an individual and collective professional desire to improve medical practice and highlights the importance of studying professional reading practices in the cultural history of medicine.

  8. Responsiveness and Attention during Picture-Book Reading in 18-Month-Old to 24-Month-Old Toddlers at Risk

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fletcher, Kathryn L.; Perez, Andreina; Hooper, Corrie; Claussen, Angelika H.

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of this research was to examine the spontaneous responsiveness and attention during picture-book reading in 18-month-old to 24-month-old children from at-risk backgrounds. Twenty-five, 18-month-old children in an early intervention program were randomly assigned to a read condition or play condition for six months. At each seventh…

  9. The Impact of Reading Intervention on Brain Responses Underlying Language in Children With Autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murdaugh, Donna L; Deshpande, Hrishikesh D; Kana, Rajesh K

    2016-01-01

    Deficits in language comprehension have been widely reported in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with behavioral and neuroimaging studies finding increased reliance on visuospatial processing to aid in language comprehension. However, no study to date, has taken advantage of this strength in visuospatial processing to improve language comprehension difficulties in ASD. This study used a translational neuroimaging approach to test the role of a visual imagery-based reading intervention in improving the brain circuitry underlying language processing in children with ASD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in a longitudinal study design, was used to investigate intervention-related change in sentence comprehension, brain activation, and functional connectivity in three groups of participants (age 8-13 years): an experimental group of ASD children (ASD-EXP), a wait-list control group of ASD children (ASD-WLC), and a group of typically developing control children. After intervention, the ASD-EXP group showed significant increase in activity in visual and language areas and right-hemisphere language area homologues, putamen, and thalamus, suggestive of compensatory routes to increase proficiency in reading comprehension. Additionally, ASD children who had the most improvement in reading comprehension after intervention showed greater functional connectivity between left-hemisphere language areas, the middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus while reading high imagery sentences. Thus, the findings of this study, which support the principles of dual coding theory [Paivio 2007], suggest the potential of a strength-based reading intervention in changing brain responses and facilitating better reading comprehension in ASD children. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  10. Cultural Consensus Theory: Aggregating Continuous Responses in a Finite Interval

    Science.gov (United States)

    Batchelder, William H.; Strashny, Alex; Romney, A. Kimball

    Cultural consensus theory (CCT) consists of cognitive models for aggregating responses of "informants" to test items about some domain of their shared cultural knowledge. This paper develops a CCT model for items requiring bounded numerical responses, e.g. probability estimates, confidence judgments, or similarity judgments. The model assumes that each item generates a latent random representation in each informant, with mean equal to the consensus answer and variance depending jointly on the informant and the location of the consensus answer. The manifest responses may reflect biases of the informants. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods were used to estimate the model, and simulation studies validated the approach. The model was applied to an existing cross-cultural dataset involving native Japanese and English speakers judging the similarity of emotion terms. The results sharpened earlier studies that showed that both cultures appear to have very similar cognitive representations of emotion terms.

  11. An Introspective Study of Arabic- and Mandarin-Speakers' Reading Comprehension Strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbott, Marilyn

    2010-01-01

    Little L2 reading strategy research has explored the effect of linguistic and cross-cultural differences on strategic reading habits. This study attempted to fill this void by examining the reading strategies that Arabic- and Mandarin-speaking immigrants employed when reading and answering Canadian Language Benchmarks Assessment reading…

  12. International Voices: Reading in Kazakhstan and Oceania

    Science.gov (United States)

    Topping, Keith; Golopyatova, Nina; Goodwin, Maureen; Peirce, Robin

    2007-01-01

    This column focuses on the innovative strategies some teachers from Kazakhstan and Oceania are using to overcome the challenges they face. In Kazakhstan, schools organize reading days to encourage and inspire children to read. In the predominantly oral culture of the Cook Islands, Niue Island, and Rarotonga, teachers and administrators model…

  13. Reading Culture and Internet Browsing: A Shift of Paradigm among ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Four hypotheses were tested to confirm the average number of hours the participants devout to browsing on one hand and to reading on the other, identify gender difference in respondents' perception of the time they spend and what they use the time for and if their browsing indeed have any impact on their reading habit.

  14. STUDENTS’ READING PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aiza Johari

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The challenges of reading are indeed apparent in most teaching and learning processes in ESL classrooms. As a result, this study is conducted to resolve the issues of students who seem to find reading to be unbearable. Many of them have limited ability to read well and hence, possess insufficient reading habits to become competent readers, particularly out-of-school context. Besides, poor home literacy environments also contribute to their shortcomings in reading. The main objectives of this study are to identify the students’ reasons for reading as well as to find out their home reading environments (reading backgrounds and habits; reading attitudes and motivation; reading exposure and supports. To identify these, questionnaires were distributed to 120 secondary school students (Form 4: 16 years old from one of the urban schools in Sarawak, Malaysia. The findings indicate that the students read to gain information and knowledge though many chose reading as a hobby as their last choice in explaining their motives of reading. Besides, they preferred non-academic reading materials, mainly lighter forms reading materials such as comics, story books and magazines. Though the students acknowledged the importance of reading in their daily lives, their average reading habits, attitude, motivation, exposure and support within the home domain had suggested otherwise. They mainly read for instrumental purposes while reading for pleasure seemed not to be given priority. Besides, the respondents acknowledge that their parents and themselves did not read much at home. As an implication, it is vital for students to improve their reading perceptions, abilities and practices to achieve personal, societal and national progress. On a final note, parents’ early and continuous efforts to be involved in their children’s literacy events in an out-of-school context are believed to be vital to inculcate positive reading environments, habits and culture

  15. Systematic errors in the readings of track etch neutron dosemeters caused by the energy dependence of response

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tanner, R.J.; Thomas, D.J.; Bartlett, D.T.; Horwood, N.

    1999-01-01

    A study has been performed to assess the extent to which variations in the energy dependence of response of neutron personal dosemeters can cause systematic errors in readings obtained in workplace fields. This involved a detailed determination of the response functions of personal dosemeters used in the UK. These response functions were folded with workplace spectra to ascertain the under- or over-response in workplace fields

  16. Systematic errors in the readings of track etch neutron dosemeters caused by the energy dependence of response

    CERN Document Server

    Tanner, R J; Bartlett, D T; Horwood, N

    1999-01-01

    A study has been performed to assess the extent to which variations in the energy dependence of response of neutron personal dosemeters can cause systematic errors in readings obtained in workplace fields. This involved a detailed determination of the response functions of personal dosemeters used in the UK. These response functions were folded with workplace spectra to ascertain the under- or over-response in workplace fields.

  17. Reducing Risk through a Supplementary Reading Intervention: A Case Study of First- and Second-Grade Urban Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Council, Morris R., III; Cartledge, Gwendolyn; Green, DeLayna; Barber, Mariah; Gardner, Ralph, III

    2016-01-01

    This descriptive study examined whether a computer-based, repeated reading intervention (i.e., Reading Relevant and Culturally Engaging Stories) is associated with improved reading and social behavior for three primary-aged urban black girls who each showed both academic and behavioral risk. The Reading Relevant and Culturally Engaging Stories…

  18. Promoting the Reading Culture Towards Human Capital and Global Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olasehinde, M. O.; Akanmode, O. A.; Alaiyemola, A. T.; Babatunde, O. T.

    2015-01-01

    It is commonly agreed that a country cannot be fully developed without large-scale investment in her educational scheme since the breakthrough of a country is directly proportional to her educational level. Since the acquisition of effective reading skills has a positive effect on all school subjects, then reading is sine-qua-non for human capital…

  19. Early Identification of Reading Comprehension Difficulties

    Science.gov (United States)

    Catts, Hugh W.; Nielsen, Diane Corcoran; Bridges, Mindy Sittner; Liu, Yi-Syuan

    2016-01-01

    Most research on early identification of reading disabilities has focused on word reading problems and little attention has been given to reading comprehension difficulties. In this study, we investigated whether measures of language ability and/or response to language intervention in kindergarten uniquely predicted reading comprehension…

  20. Reading as Situated Language: A Sociocognitive Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gee, James Paul

    2001-01-01

    Situates reading within a broad perspective that integrates work on cognition, language, social interaction, society, and culture. Argues that reading and writing cannot be separated from speaking, listening, and interacting, on the one hand, or using language to think about and act on the world, on the other. Introduces "social languages" as a…

  1. Inculcating reading habits among Nigerian secondary schools ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper looks at reading habit as process of imbibing a culture of educating, informing and enlightening people. Inculcating reading habit is very essential for the academic achievement of children and this is made possible with the help of trained and qualified teachers who help in guiding children in developing the right ...

  2. Diallel analysis of anther culture response in wheat ( Triticum ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The four wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes differing in their ability to produce embryogenic callus from anther culture were reciprocally crossed and inheritance of anther culture response [callus induction frequency (CIF, %), embryogenic callus induction frequency (ECIF, %), regeneration capacity of callus (RCC, %) ...

  3. Colorado Student Assessment Program: 2001 Released Passages, Items, and Prompts. Grade 4 Reading and Writing, Grade 4 Lectura y Escritura, Grade 5 Mathematics and Reading, Grade 6 Reading, Grade 7 Reading and Writing, Grade 8 Mathematics, Reading and Science, Grade 9 Reading, and Grade 10 Mathematics and Reading and Writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Colorado State Dept. of Education, Denver.

    This document contains released reading comprehension passages, test items, and writing prompts from the Colorado Student Assessment Program for 2001. The sample questions and prompts are included without answers or examples of student responses. Test materials are included for: (1) Grade 4 Reading and Writing; (2) Grade 4 Lectura y Escritura…

  4. Sharing a Reading Technique with Families

    Science.gov (United States)

    Irish, Christy K.; Parsons, Seth A.

    2016-01-01

    Sharing reading techniques with families is an important responsibility of teachers. Dialogic reading is one way to improve young students' expressive vocabulary skills, which are important for later reading success. Dialogic reading also supports students' understanding of story structure and content. This well researched technique has not been…

  5. Reading behaviour from adolescence to early adulthood: A panel study of the impact of family and education on reading fiction books

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nagel, I.; Verboord, M.

    2012-01-01

    In this article we study how the frequency of book-reading - a form of legitimate culture - develops in the period from adolescence to young adulthood and how it is influenced by parents' education, parental reading socialization climate, school and their interactions. In disentangling parental and

  6. The Development of a Model of Culturally Responsive Science and Mathematics Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernandez, Cecilia M.; Morales, Amanda R.; Shroyer, M. Gail

    2013-01-01

    This qualitative theoretical study was conducted in response to the current need for an inclusive and comprehensive model to guide the preparation and assessment of teacher candidates for culturally responsive teaching. The process of developing a model of culturally responsive teaching involved three steps: a comprehensive review of the…

  7. Developing Culturally Responsive Teaching through Professional Noticing within Teacher Educator Modelling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Averill, Robin; Anderson, Dayle; Drake, Michael

    2015-01-01

    Much evidence exists that culturally responsive and equitable teaching practices are challenging to develop. Evidence exists that in-the-moment coaching of "rehearsals" of practice can help foster mathematics teaching strategies, but how such coaching can assist the development of culturally responsive practice is less clear. Drawn from…

  8. Unrecognized Cultural Conventions for Assessing Word Reading That Affect Research and Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fletcher-Flinn, Claire M.; Thompson, G. Brian; Yamada, Megumi; Naka, Makiko

    2014-01-01

    In research on the acquisition of reading, there have been cross-orthographic comparisons made between some alphabetic scripts and a few syllabic scripts. In the present study of Japanese Grade 1 children learning to read hiragana, a syllabic script, there was a comparison of assessments of oral word reading accuracy levels recorded by scorers…

  9. The Inculcation of Loving Reading Quran Values at the Reading Quran Institution, Home, and Community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wirdanengsih Wirdanengsih

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study was intended to describe the value of loving reading Al-Quran that was implemented by three education centers; Reading Quran Insitution Awaliyah, Family and Community Education for children between 9-12 years old in Nagari Balai Gurah. Also, this research was to discover how is the implementation of loving reading Al-Quran values and who are involved in it.  The result indicated that the implementation of the values of loving reading Al-Quran basically used surveillance approaches and guidance from the tutors, parents, and community in Reading Al-Quran. The socialization pattern that was used in implementing the value of love reading Al-Quran at Reading Quran Institution and family tended to use flexible patterns between authoritative and permissive patterns. Parties who involved in implementing the value of loving reading Al-Quran were the Awaliyah Institution, teacher and management, and family consisting of fathers, mothers, siblings, and grandparents. The uniqueness came from the roles of cultural social values in the community stating children who did not learn and love Al-Quran will be an embarrassment to the family. Moreover, the ceremony of Khatam Quran became the strong factor for children in implementing loving reading Al-Quran, due to this ceremony there was a process of social acknowledgement to the children who love reading Al-Quran.

  10. Golden Mountain Reading Series. Teacher's Guide, Level 2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sung, Robert

    This reading series was developed as a means to educate Chinese-American elementary school students in Chinese reading, writing, and culture. The following topics are covered: Chinese literature, Chinese and American history, famous people, general knowledge, Chinese ideography, the four seasons, and the major Chinese and American festivals and…

  11. Responsive Guided Reading in Grades K-5: Simplifying Small-Group Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berne, Jennifer; Degener, Sophie C.

    2010-01-01

    Guided reading is a staple of elementary literacy instruction, yet planning and conducting reading groups can be time consuming and challenging. This hands-on book presents an innovative approach to guided reading that is manageable even for teachers who are new to small-group, differentiated reading instruction. Numerous classroom examples…

  12. Reading in developmental prosopagnosia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Starrfelt, Randi; Klargaard, Solja K; Petersen, Anders

    2018-01-01

    exposure durations (targeting the word superiority effect), and d) text reading. RESULTS: Participants with developmental prosopagnosia performed strikingly similar to controls across the four reading tasks. Formal analysis revealed a significant dissociation between word and face recognition......, that is, impaired reading in developmental prosopagnosia. METHOD: We tested 10 adults with developmental prosopagnosia and 20 matched controls. All participants completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the Cambridge Face Perception test and a Face recognition questionnaire used to quantify everyday face...... recognition experience. Reading was measured in four experimental tasks, testing different levels of letter, word, and text reading: (a) single word reading with words of varying length,(b) vocal response times in single letter and short word naming, (c) recognition of single letters and short words at brief...

  13. A Comparison of Reading Response Methods to Increase Student Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cheryl J. Davis

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available It is common in college courses to test students on the required readings for that course. With a rise in online education it is often the case that students are required to provide evidence of reading the material. However, there is little empirical research stating the best written means to assess that students read the materials. This study experimentally compared the effect of assigned reading summaries or study questions on student test performance. The results revealed that study questions produced higher quiz scores and higher preparation for the quiz, based on student feedback. Limitations of the study included a small sample size and extraneous activities that may have affected general knowledge on a topic. Results suggest that study questions focusing students on critical information in the required readings improve student learning.

  14. A Comparison of Reading Response Methods to Increase Student Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Cheryl J.; Zane, Thomas

    2016-01-01

    It is common in college courses to test students on the required readings for that course. With a rise in online education it is often the case that students are required to provide evidence of reading the material. However, there is little empirical research stating the best written means to assess that students read the materials. This study…

  15. Screening for word reading and spelling problems in elementary school: An item response theory perspective

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keuning, J.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

    2008-01-01

    The purpose of the present study was to explore whether the Item Response Theory (IRT) provides a suitable framework to screen for word reading and spelling problems during the elementary school period. The following issues were addressed from an IRT perspective: (a) the dimensionality of word

  16. Reading ability and print exposure: item response theory analysis of the author recognition test.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Mariah; Gordon, Peter C

    2015-12-01

    In the author recognition test (ART), participants are presented with a series of names and foils and are asked to indicate which ones they recognize as authors. The test is a strong predictor of reading skill, and this predictive ability is generally explained as occurring because author knowledge is likely acquired through reading or other forms of print exposure. In this large-scale study (1,012 college student participants), we used item response theory (IRT) to analyze item (author) characteristics in order to facilitate identification of the determinants of item difficulty, provide a basis for further test development, and optimize scoring of the ART. Factor analysis suggested a potential two-factor structure of the ART, differentiating between literary and popular authors. Effective and ineffective author names were identified so as to facilitate future revisions of the ART. Analyses showed that the ART is a highly significant predictor of the time spent encoding words, as measured using eyetracking during reading. The relationship between the ART and time spent reading provided a basis for implementing a higher penalty for selecting foils, rather than the standard method of ART scoring (names selected minus foils selected). The findings provide novel support for the view that the ART is a valid indicator of reading volume. Furthermore, they show that frequency data can be used to select items of appropriate difficulty, and that frequency data from corpora based on particular time periods and types of texts may allow adaptations of the test for different populations.

  17. The Language Desert: The Condition of Literacy and Reading in Contemporary America

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Tracey

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This essay is an engagement with a series of propositions about literacy and reading in the United States: that large numbers of people struggle with what one might call narrative complexity; that they resolve such struggles by falling back onto narrative simplicities which, through a series of cultural preferences, congeal to produce much of the stuff of popular culture; that this condition and process is essentially what the varied critics—from left and right—of the culture of modernity were actually identifying, though from a largely normative, not empirical, standpoint; that what was being critiqued was essentially a condition formed by cognitive underdevelopment; and that we can actually explain this empirically by mining decades’ worth of research in reading and literacy studies, particularly in the context of childhood and social class. In short, this paper is an admittedly tentative step in an effort to build a bridge between two knowledge silos that have in part remained determinably apart—reading/literacy studies and cultural/critical theory. The essay also suggests that, in order to understand reading and literacy, it is important to begin to engage research in neuroscience, particularly that which suggests that the brain is actually not designed—in evolutionary terms—to read.

  18. Ecological, psychological, and cognitive components of reading difficulties: testing the component model of reading in fourth graders across 38 countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiu, Ming Ming; McBride-Chang, Catherine; Lin, Dan

    2012-01-01

    The authors tested the component model of reading (CMR) among 186,725 fourth grade students from 38 countries (45 regions) on five continents by analyzing the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study data using measures of ecological (country, family, school, teacher), psychological, and cognitive components. More than 91% of the differences in student difficulty occurred at the country (61%) and classroom (30%) levels (ecological), with less than 9% at the student level (cognitive and psychological). All three components were negatively associated with reading difficulties: cognitive (student's early literacy skills), ecological (family characteristics [socioeconomic status, number of books at home, and attitudes about reading], school characteristics [school climate and resources]), and psychological (students' attitudes about reading, reading self-concept, and being a girl). These results extend the CMR by demonstrating the importance of multiple levels of factors for reading deficits across diverse cultures.

  19. Reading for excess : Relational autobiography, affect and popular culture in Tarnation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Poletti, Anna

    2012-01-01

    In this article I will examine a limit point in current methods of reading in autobiography studies, using Jonathan Caouette's 2003 autobiographical film Tarnation as a case study. Reading a powerful and deeply ambiguous key scene from the film, I investigate the limits of a narrative-based approach

  20. Qualitative process evaluation of an Australian alcohol media literacy study: recommendations for designing culturally responsive school-based programs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chloe S. Gordon

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Alcohol media literacy programs seek to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of alcohol advertising on children’s drinking intentions and behaviours through equipping them with skills to challenge media messages. In order for such programs to be effective, the teaching and learning experiences must be tailored to their specific cultural context. Media in the Spotlight is an alcohol media literacy program aimed at 9 to 12 year old Australian children. This study evaluates the process and implementation of the program, outlining the factors that facilitated and inhibited implementation. From this evaluation, a pedagogical framework has been developed for health professionals implementing culturally responsive programs in school settings. Methods Process measures included: semi-structured interviews with teachers before and after the program was implemented (n = 11 interviews, program evaluation questionnaires completed by children (n = 166, lesson observations completed by teachers (n = 35 observations, and reflective journal entries completed by the researcher (n = 44 entries. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse all of the data sets using NVivo. Inductive coding was used, whereby the findings were derived from the research objectives and multiple readings and interpretations of the data. Results Five key pedagogical considerations were identified that facilitated implementation. These were: connecting to the students’ life worlds to achieve cultural significance; empowering students with real-world skills to ensure relevance; ensuring programs are well structured with strong connections to the school curriculum; creating developmentally appropriate activities while providing a range of assessment opportunities; and including hands-on and interactive activities to promote student engagement. Three potential inhibitors to implementing the alcohol media literacy program in upper

  1. Qualitative process evaluation of an Australian alcohol media literacy study: recommendations for designing culturally responsive school-based programs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gordon, Chloe S; Kervin, Lisa K; Jones, Sandra C; Howard, Steven J

    2017-02-02

    Alcohol media literacy programs seek to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of alcohol advertising on children's drinking intentions and behaviours through equipping them with skills to challenge media messages. In order for such programs to be effective, the teaching and learning experiences must be tailored to their specific cultural context. Media in the Spotlight is an alcohol media literacy program aimed at 9 to 12 year old Australian children. This study evaluates the process and implementation of the program, outlining the factors that facilitated and inhibited implementation. From this evaluation, a pedagogical framework has been developed for health professionals implementing culturally responsive programs in school settings. Process measures included: semi-structured interviews with teachers before and after the program was implemented (n = 11 interviews), program evaluation questionnaires completed by children (n = 166), lesson observations completed by teachers (n = 35 observations), and reflective journal entries completed by the researcher (n = 44 entries). A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse all of the data sets using NVivo. Inductive coding was used, whereby the findings were derived from the research objectives and multiple readings and interpretations of the data. Five key pedagogical considerations were identified that facilitated implementation. These were: connecting to the students' life worlds to achieve cultural significance; empowering students with real-world skills to ensure relevance; ensuring programs are well structured with strong connections to the school curriculum; creating developmentally appropriate activities while providing a range of assessment opportunities; and including hands-on and interactive activities to promote student engagement. Three potential inhibitors to implementing the alcohol media literacy program in upper-elementary school classrooms were identified. These included topic

  2. The Reading of Cultural and Lifestyle Journalism

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    From, Unni

    2010-01-01

    Based on analyses of 25 qualitative individual interviews with readers from different demographic backgrounds, this article investigates how readers experience and use journalism on culture in both online and print press. I argue that the use of journalism on culture is constituted within different...... etc.). Thus, the article explores whether and how the use of journalism on culture is interrelated with more universal processes of meaning production, and therefore it draws on a socio-cognitive perspective, especially in regard to schemes of expectation and experience (e.g. Bruun 2004; Waldahl 1998...

  3. The Dispositions for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitaker, Manya C.; Valtierra, Kristina Marie

    2018-01-01

    Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the dispositions for culturally responsive pedagogy scale (DCRPS). Design/methodology/approach: Scale development consisted of a six-step process including item development, expert review, exploratory factor analysis, factor interpretation, confirmatory factor analysis and convergent…

  4. Early Mandarin Literacy in a Class-created Reading Library

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reed Riggs

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available This article explores methods for creating an extensive reading (ER library during the first weeks of language instruction, illustrated here in a college Mandarin course. Data include student-created texts, video transcripts of students reading in groups, field notes, and a student perceptions survey. Taken together the data provide a snapshot of how students in a beginning-level university Mandarin course can utilize Internet resources to create and use a personalized ER library. ER has been shown in previous research to enrich known words (Waring & Takaki, 2003, and provide opportunities for early literacy in languages that use nonalphabetic scripts like Japanese (Hitosugi & Day, 2004. Mandarin texts feature Chinese characters, which exhibit a low reliability in sound-meaning-visual associations, effectively blocking learners from sounding out unfamiliar words and clearly identifying meaning (Everson et al., 2016. The data here show how learners were able to connect prior knowledge from their own culture to new communicative situations in the form of printed comic books to read in class in small groups. Learners were found to connect understandings between their own culture and the target culture, focusing particularly on cultural similarities.

  5. Geoethics and geological culture: awareness, responsibility and challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Peppoloni

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available The international debate in the field of geoethics focuses on some of the most important environmental emergencies, while highlighting the great responsibilities of geoscientists, whatever field they work in, and the important social, cultural and economic repercussions that their choices can have on society. The GeoItalia 2009 and 2011 conferences that were held in Rimini and Turin, respectively, and were organized by the Italian Federation of Earth Science, were two important moments for the promotion of geoethics in Italy. They were devoted to the highlighting of how, and with what tools and contents, can the geosciences contribute to the cultural renewal of society. They also covered the active roles of geoscientists in the dissemination of scientific information, contributing in this way to the correct construction of social knowledge. Geology is culture, and as such it can help to dispel misconceptions and cultural stereotypes that concern natural phenomena, disasters, resources, and land management. Geological culture consists of methods, goals, values, history, ways of thinking about nature, and specific sensitivity for approaching problems and their solutions. So geology has to fix referenced values, as indispensable prerequisites for geoethics. Together, geological culture and geoethics can strengthen the bond that joins people to their territory, and can help to find solutions and answers to some important challenges in the coming years regarding natural risks, resources, and climate change. Starting from these considerations, we stress the importance of establishing an ethical criterion for Earth scientists, to focus attention on the issue of the responsibility of geoscientists, and the need to more clearly define their scientific identity and the value of their specificities.

  6. Preparing teachers for ambitious and culturally responsive science teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seiler, Gale

    2013-03-01

    Communities, schools and classrooms across North America are becoming more ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse, particularly in urban areas. Against this backdrop, underrepresentation of certain groups in science continues. Much attention has been devoted to multicultural education and the preparation of teachers for student diversity. In science education, much research has focused on classrooms as cultural spaces and the need for teachers to value and build upon students' everyday science knowledge and ways of sense-making. However it remains unclear how best to prepare science teachers for this kind of culturally responsive teaching. In attempting to envision how to prepare science teachers with cross-cultural competency, we can draw from a parallel line of research on preparing teachers for ambitious science instruction. In ambitious science instruction, students solve authentic problems and generate evidence and models to develop explanations of scientific phenomenon, an approach that necessitates great attention to students' thinking and sense-making, thus making it applicable to cultural relevance aims. In addition, this line of research on teacher preparation has developed specific tools and engages teachers in cycles of reflection and rehearsal as they develop instructional skills. While not addressing cross-cultural teaching specifically, this research provides insights into specific ways through which to prepare teachers for culturally responsive practices. In my presentation, I will report on efforts to join these two areas of research, that is, to combine ideas about multicultural science teacher preparation with what has been learned about how to develop ambitious science instruction. This research suggests a new model for urban science teacher preparation--one that focuses on developing specific teaching practices that elicit and build on student thinking, and doing so through cycles of individual and collective planning, rehearsal

  7. Listening to Students: Modification of a Reading Program Based on the Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Belgin Aydin

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper is concerned with the modifications implemented in a second year foreign language (FL reading program with respect to the problems students experience while reading in FL. This research draws on the sources of FL reading anxiety identified in the first year reading program with a motivation to re-design the second year program to help the students perceive reading positively free from the anxiety. This paper reports on the responses of students to the modifications implemented in the second year reading program

  8. Statistical optimization of cultural conditions by response surface ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    STORAGESEVER

    2009-08-04

    Aug 4, 2009 ... Full Length Research Paper. Statistical optimization of cultural conditions by response surface methodology for phenol degradation by a novel ... Phenol is a hydrocarbon compound that is highly toxic, ... Microorganism.

  9. The Reflexive Nature of Reading as Ethnographic Practice: Editorial Note

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wolff-Michael Roth

    2004-01-01

    Full Text Available In this editorial, I suggest that not only is reading published texts a way of doing ethno­graph­ic research, but also reading concretely realizes itself in the productions of new texts that reproduce the cultural practices that are analyzed in the published text. Reading as ethnographic method is therefore a reflexive project. I provide a dialectical framework for theorizing the reflexive nature of reading. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0401390

  10. Re-reading early modern prayer as social act

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sterrett, Joseph William

    2013-01-01

    Literary criticism is increasingly interested in prayer as a cultural and literary mode. This article proposes a theoretical framework for reading prayer as a performance, as an act governed by community conventions with effects in the social world. Drawing upon groundbreaking work by Marcel Maus...... and Hans Georg Gadamer, and citing critical reading of Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Tempest, and Hamlet, I show how prayer can be read as an act defined by real and imagined audiences while retaining individual self expression....

  11. Reorganizing the Instructional Reading Components: Could There Be a Better Way to Design Remedial Reading Programs to Maximize Middle School Students with Reading Disabilities' Response to Treatment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calhoon, Mary Beth; Sandow, Alexia; Hunter, Charles V.

    2010-01-01

    The primary purpose of this study was to explore if there could be a more beneficial method in organizing the individual instructional reading components (phonological decoding, spelling, fluency, and reading comprehension) within a remedial reading program to increase sensitivity to instruction for middle school students with reading disabilities…

  12. AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN EXTENSIVE READING CLASS AT STAIN PONOROGO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dhinuk Puspita Kirana

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available It is widely believed that English Foreign Language (EFL learners need to develop their language proficiency by getting so much input. Moreover, students need to be familiarized with the real English us­age where real forms of communication and cultural knowledge are crucially exposed. Teaching through authentic materials will make the learners feel that they are learning a real language which is used by the real native speakers for real communication. incorporating au­thentic materials helps students acquire an effective communicative competence in the language focus. The research intended to describe the implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class, the problems arise and the students’ responses toward the authen­tic materials in extensive reading class. The design of the research was Descriptive Qualitative method and the research subject was the lecturer of Extensive Reading class and 33 students in B class of the fourth semester of STAIN Ponorogo who took Extensive Read­ing subject. The instruments used were in the form of observation sheet, interview guideline and questionnaire. The implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class covered some procedures into three main phases namely (1 Pre­ Activity, (2 Main­ Activity and (3 Post­Activity. The activities in main activity are as follows: (a Pre­ Activity; (b Whilst ­Activity; and (3 The language focus stage. There were problems arose during the implementation in terms of complicated planning, more time allocation and some disinterested students. Finally, the students showed significantly positive attitude toward the implementation of authentic materials in extensive reading class.

  13. A mixed methods study of culturally responsive teaching in science and math classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holocker, Angela Y.

    Through the dawn of education, student achievement has always been the primary focus of educators. The United States has not changed the structure of their educational institutions since the Industrial Revolution. With the achievement gap between mainstream and non-mainstream students continually growing, it is the responsibility of every educator to contribute to student success. However, teachers cannot be held accountable for teaching what they do not know. This study investigates the correlation between Culturally Responsive Teaching professional development and the effects on minority students. The yearlong professional development models as well as culturally responsive strategies are discussed in great length. The study reflects the attitudes of teachers before and after participation in the culturally responsive professional development. Student growth was tracked over the school year as well as teacher implementation of the culturally responsive strategies. The final teacher survey and overall student growth was analyzed for correlation.

  14. Promoting Reading Through The use of Book Talk, Story books and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Promoting Reading Through The use of Book Talk, Story books and book mobile Among Children in Selected Schools in ... Keywords: Reading culture, book talk, story book, book mobile, School Children ... AJOL African Journals Online.

  15. Culturally Responsive Pedagogies in the Classroom: Indigenous Student Experiences across the Curriculum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Savage, Catherine; Hindle, Rawiri; Meyer, Luanna H.; Hynds, Anne; Penetito, Wally; Sleeter, Christine E.

    2011-01-01

    There is agreement that teaching practices should be responsive to the cultural identities of their students, but less clarity regarding both the specifics of culturally responsive pedagogies and effective strategies for implementing them in classrooms across the curriculum. A mixed-methods research approach evaluated the impact of teacher…

  16. Cultural differences in survey responding: Issues and insights in the study of response biases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemmelmeier, Markus

    2016-12-01

    This paper introduces the special section "Cultural differences in questionnaire responding" and discusses central topics in the research on response biases in cross-cultural survey research. Based on current conceptions of acquiescent, extreme, and socially desirable responding, the author considers current data on the correlated nature of response biases and the conditions under which different response styles they emerge. Based on evidence relating different response styles to the cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism, the paper explores how research presented as part of this special section might help resolves some tensions in this literature. The paper concludes by arguing that response styles should not be treated merely as measurement error, but as cultural behaviors in themselves. © 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.

  17. Book Clubs: An Ethnographic Study of an Innovative Reading Practice in Spain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Álvarez-Álvarez, Carmen

    2016-01-01

    The most innovative reading practices currently rely on the paradigm of dialogic reading. Book clubs, literary gatherings and study circles are emerging in different social spaces to promote reading and literary discussion amongst adults, and libraries, bookshops, cultural centres, etc. are increasingly developing strategies in this direction.…

  18. Cross-cultural differences in mental representations of time: evidence from an implicit nonlinguistic task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fuhrman, Orly; Boroditsky, Lera

    2010-11-01

    Across cultures people construct spatial representations of time. However, the particular spatial layouts created to represent time may differ across cultures. This paper examines whether people automatically access and use culturally specific spatial representations when reasoning about time. In Experiment 1, we asked Hebrew and English speakers to arrange pictures depicting temporal sequences of natural events, and to point to the hypothesized location of events relative to a reference point. In both tasks, English speakers (who read left to right) arranged temporal sequences to progress from left to right, whereas Hebrew speakers (who read right to left) arranged them from right to left, replicating previous work. In Experiments 2 and 3, we asked the participants to make rapid temporal order judgments about pairs of pictures presented one after the other (i.e., to decide whether the second picture showed a conceptually earlier or later time-point of an event than the first picture). Participants made responses using two adjacent keyboard keys. English speakers were faster to make "earlier" judgments when the "earlier" response needed to be made with the left response key than with the right response key. Hebrew speakers showed exactly the reverse pattern. Asking participants to use a space-time mapping inconsistent with the one suggested by writing direction in their language created interference, suggesting that participants were automatically creating writing-direction consistent spatial representations in the course of their normal temporal reasoning. It appears that people automatically access culturally specific spatial representations when making temporal judgments even in nonlinguistic tasks. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  19. The State of Reading in Selected Secondary Schools in Oyo State ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    school are left to the discretion of students. Among the teachers who give attention to reading, we found a majority of them who failed to give students the necessary motivation to strengthen their interest in reading. It was also found out that most school heads contributed to the poor reading culture of the students by their ...

  20. An examination of acquiescent response styles in cross-cultural research

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fischer, R.; Fontaine, J.R.J.; van de Vijver, F.J.R.; van Hemert, D.A.; Gari, A.; Mylonas, K.

    2009-01-01

    Response styles constitute a formidable challenge for cross-cultural research. In this article, three different response styles are discussed (acquiescence, extremity scoring, and social desirability). Acquiescence responding (ARS) is then integrated into a larger classical test theoretical

  1. Listening to Students: Modification of a Reading Program Based on the Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Belgin Aydın

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper is concerned with the modifications implemented in a second year foreign language (FL reading program with respect to the problems students experience while reading in FL. This research draws on the sources of FL reading anxiety identified in the first year reading program with a motivation to re-design the second year program to help the students perceive reading positively free from the anxiety. This paper reports on the responses of students to the modifications implemented in the second year reading program. The participants of the study were 50 FL students who were in their second year at a state university in Turkey. All participants had already taken the first year reading course and were enrolled in the second year reading course. It was based on two qualitative research instruments. The first instrument was a semi-structured questionnaire administered to all participants. The second one was a semi-structured interview conducted with half of the participants to obtain more in depth information concerning the modifications that had been introduced. Both instruments revealed that students responded positively to the modifications introduced. The results of the study put forward that obtaining students’ opinions, giving them responsibility and involving them in decision making processes enhance their motivation, confidence and analytical skills while reading in a foreign language.

  2. Culturally and linguistically diverse students in speech-language pathology courses: A platform for culturally responsive services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Attrill, Stacie; Lincoln, Michelle; McAllister, Sue

    2017-06-01

    Increasing the proportion of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) students and providing intercultural learning opportunities for all students are two strategies identified to facilitate greater access to culturally responsive speech-language pathology services. To enact these strategies, more information is needed about student diversity. This study collected descriptive information about CALD speech-language pathology students in Australia. Cultural and linguistic background information was collected through surveying 854 domestic and international speech-language pathology students from three Australian universities. Students were categorised according to defined or perceived CALD status, international student status, speaking English as an Additional Language (EAL), or speaking a Language Other than English at Home (LOTEH). Overall, 32.1% of students were either defined or perceived CALD. A total of 14.9% spoke EAL and 25.7% identified speaking a LOTEH. CALD students were more likely to speak EAL or a LOTEH than non-CALD students, were prominently from Southern and South-Eastern Asian backgrounds and spoke related languages. Many students reported direct or indirect connections with their cultural heritage and/or contributed linguistic diversity. These students may represent broader acculturative experiences in communities. The sociocultural knowledge and experience of these students may provide intercultural learning opportunities for all students and promote culturally responsive practices.

  3. Response to Marie Paz Morales' ``Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement''

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cole, Mikel Walker

    2015-12-01

    This response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement" explores the ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy and critical literacy to examine some implications for culturally responsive science instruction implicit in the original manuscript.

  4. Gender, Order, and Femicide: Reading the Popular Culture of Murder in Ciudad Juarez

    Science.gov (United States)

    Volk, Steven S.; Schlotterbeck, Marian E.

    2007-01-01

    More than 400 women have been murdered in and around Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, over the past decade. As the murders continue unabated and unsolved, and with the likely complicity of state authorities, they have triggered a dynamic cultural response from writers, filmmakers, singers, and others who deplore the murders while suggesting the underlying…

  5. Developing Cultural Awareness in English Writing

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    邹强珍

    2014-01-01

    Language and culture have an intimate relationship,and cultural awareness plays an important role in language learning,involving aural comprehension,speaking,reading,writing and translation.This paper mainly discusses cultural awareness in English writing.

  6. Fast, visual specialization for reading in English revealed by the topography of the N170 ERP response

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    McCandliss Bruce D

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background N170 effects associated with visual words may be related to perceptual expertise effects that have been demonstrated for faces and other extensively studied classes of visual stimuli. Although face and other object expertise effects are typically bilateral or right-lateralized, the spatial topography of reading-related N170 effects are often left-lateralized, providing potential insights into the unique aspects of reading-related perceptual expertise. Methods Extending previous research in German 1, we use a high-density channel array to characterize the N170 topography for reading-related perceptual expertise in English, a language with inconsistent spelling-to-sound mapping. N170 effects related to overall reading-related expertise are defined by contrasting responses to visual words versus novel symbol strings. By contrasting each of these conditions to pseudowords, we examined how this reading-related N170 effect generalizes to well-ordered novel letter strings. Results A sample-by-sample permutation test computed on word versus symbol ERP topographies revealed differences during two time windows corresponding to the N170 and P300 components. Topographic centroid analysis of the word and symbol N170 demonstrated significant differences in both left-right as well as inferior-superior dimensions. Words elicited larger N170 negativities than symbols at inferior occipito-temporal channels, with the maximal effect over left inferior regions often unsampled in conventional electrode montages. Further contrasts produced inferior-superior topographic effects for the pseudoword-symbol comparison and left-lateralized topographic effects for the word-pseudoword comparison. Conclusion Fast specialized perception related to reading experience produces an N170 modulation detectable across different EEG systems and different languages. Characterization of such effects may be improved by sampling with greater spatial frequency recordings

  7. Talk/Reading/Voice: Re:search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Donna Patterson

    2006-06-01

    Full Text Available In this article, the authors embrace talk as space for emergence and possibilities. They flirt with the part reading plays (or might play in conversations within the academy, recognizing such readings take multiple forms: individual, shared, in response, and in reaction (to name a few. To confront oneself with the not yet known is to witness what is forming or being called forth as its shaping emerges. Using co-constructed reading responses, the authors present examples from King's (2003 The Truth about Stories as illustrations of their work together, where work, like talk, is about pushing the edges of what can be known and, more particularly, about what can(not be said. The authors maintain finding voice through reading, research, and self-study helps shape collaborative work within the academy. This reveal encourages the mapping of unmapped but taken for granted parts of academic life, an already querying of method.

  8. Deaf persons' english reading levels and associations with epidemiological, educational, and cultural factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zazove, Philip; Meador, Helen E; Reed, Barbara D; Gorenflo, Daniel W

    2013-01-01

    One hundred six Michigan d/Deaf persons, part of a study evaluating how to improve d/Deaf persons' understanding of cancer prevention recommendations, had reading levels determined using the Test of Reading Comprehension, Syntactic Sentences. Respondents averaged 52 years old, 59% female, 84% Caucasian, 58% married, and 75% Deaf community members. The mean Test of Reading Comprehension, Syntactic Sentences score was 6.1 (women: 6.2, men: 6.0). Higher scores were associated with greater income (p = .02), employment (p = .01), education (high school p = .002, some college p home, teacher in school, at home now: all p speaking with and satisfaction with physicians and nurses (p Language with physicians and nurses (.019) and Deaf community membership (p = .02). In multivariate analysis, higher scores were associated with higher income, college degree, and teacher using English. Reading levels of a predominantly Deaf population were low. Higher income, college degree, and teacher using English were associated with higher reading levels.

  9. The relation of linguistic awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling for first-grade students participating in response to intervention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Young-Suk; Apel, Kenn; Al Otaiba, Stephanie

    2013-10-01

    The relations of phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling were examined for 304 first-grade children who were receiving differentiated instruction in a Response to Intervention (RtI) model of instruction. First-grade children were assessed on their phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness; expressive vocabulary; word reading; and spelling. Year-end word reading and spelling were outcome variables, and phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness; expressive vocabulary; and RtI status (Tiers 1, 2, & 3) were predictor variables. The 3 linguistic awareness skills were unique predictors of word reading, and phonological and orthographic awareness were unique predictors of spelling. The contributions that these linguistic awareness skills and vocabulary made to word reading and spelling did not differ by children's RtI tier status. These results, in conjunction with previous studies, suggest that even beginning readers and spellers draw on multiple linguistic awareness skills for their word reading and spelling regardless of their level of literacy abilities. Educational implications are discussed.

  10. The latent structure of reading comprehension problems in pupils living in poverty

    OpenAIRE

    Košak Babuder, Milena; Kavkler, Marija

    2014-01-01

    The results of Slovene and international studies reveal a connection between literacy and education levels, employment opportunities and the subsequent socio-economic status of individuals and families. Home environment and living habits are also associated with literacy (reading culture) and, in particular, parental levels of education directly affect the development of child literacy. Reading efficiency relating to reading comprehension and reading to learn is an important element of readin...

  11. How directional change in reading/writing habits relates to directional change in displayed pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Hachoung; Oh, Songjoo

    2016-01-01

    It has been suggested that reading/writing habits may influence the appreciation of pictures. For example, people who read and write in a rightward direction have an aesthetic preference for pictures that face rightward over pictures that face leftward, and vice versa. However, correlations for this phenomenon have only been found in cross-cultural studies. Will a directional change in reading/writing habits within a culture relate to changes in picture preference? Korea is a good place to research this question because the country underwent gradual changes in reading/writing direction habits, from leftward to rightward, during the 20th century. In this study, we analyzed the direction of drawings and photos published in the two oldest newspapers in Korea from 1920-2013. The results show that the direction of the drawings underwent a clear shift from the left to the right, but the direction of the photos did not change. This finding suggests a close psychological link between the habits of reading/writing and drawing that cannot be accounted for simply by an accidental correspondence across different cultures.

  12. Response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of Culture and Language Sensitive Physics on Science Attitude Achievement"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cole, Mikel Walker

    2015-01-01

    This response to Marie Paz Morales' "Influence of culture and language sensitive physics on science attitude achievement" explores the ideas of culturally responsive pedagogy and critical literacy to examine some implications for culturally responsive science instruction implicit in the original manuscript. [For "Influence of…

  13. How Reading Volume Affects both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard L. ALLINGTON

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Long overlooked, reading volume is actually central to the development of reading proficiencies, especially in the development of fluent reading proficiency. Generally no one in schools monitors the actual volume of reading that children engage in. We know that the commonly used commercial core reading programs provide only material that requires about 15 minutes of reading activity daily. The remaining 75 minute of reading lessons is filled with many other activities such as completing workbook pages or responding to low-level literal questions about what has been read. Studies designed to enhance the volume of reading that children do during their reading lessons demonstrate one way to enhance reading development. Repeated readings have been widely used in fostering reading fluency but wide reading options seem to work faster and more broadly in developing reading proficiencies, including oral reading fluency.

  14. I Get Deja Vu When I Read You, Mr. Hirsch.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hepburn, Mary A.

    In each era of curriculum reform the prevailing perceptions of what the school curriculum must accomplish define the standard of cultural literacy for our society. E. D. Hirsch believes that contemporary youth lack cultural literacy and that without this knowledge of the fundamental facts of U.S. culture they cannot effectively read or…

  15. Reading Social wMaps.w

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clements, Millard

    1982-01-01

    What should social studies teachers be trying to teach students how to do? Every culture provides its members with social "maps" that explain how things are--e.g., school materials, advertisements. Teaching students how to read these social "maps" should be the central task for social studies education. (RM)

  16. Examining Perceptions of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Teacher Preparation and Teacher Leadership Candidates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samuels, Amy J.; Samuels, Gregory L.; Cook, Tammy M.

    2017-01-01

    The study examined a multi-tiered approach for facilitating learning and examining perceptions about culturally responsive pedagogy in teacher preparation and teacher leadership programs. The study aligned with a learning unit we designed to (1) increase understanding of culturally responsive pedagogy and (2) investigate perceptions of cultural…

  17. The improvement of reading skills of L1 and ESL children using a Response to Intervention (RtI) Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipka, Orly; Siegel, Linda S

    2010-11-01

    This study examined the development of literacy skills in children in a district that used a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. The district included children whose first language was English and children who were learning English as a second language (ESL). Tasks measuring phonological awareness, lexical access, and syntactic awareness were administered when the children entered school in kindergarten at age 5. Reading, phonological processing, syntactic awareness, memory, and spelling were administered in grade 7. When the children entered school, significant numbers of them were at risk for literacy difficulties. After systematic instruction and annual monitoring of skills, their reading abilities improved to the extent that only a very small percentage had reading difficulties. The results demonstrated that early identification and intervention and frequent monitoring of basic skills can significantly reduce the incidence of reading problems in both the ESL and language majority children.

  18. Effects of EFL Individual Learner Variables on Foreign Language Reading Anxiety and Metacognitive Reading Strategy Use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lien, Hsin-Yi

    2016-08-01

    Past research has shown an association between foreign language reading anxiety and reading strategy. However, individual variables tend to affect foreign language anxiety and strategy use. The present study examined a hypothesized model that specified direct and indirect effects among English and foreign languages readers' distinct variables, including academic level; self-perceived English level; and satisfaction with reading proficiency, reading anxiety, and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. A total of 523 volunteer Taiwanese college students provided 372 valid responses to a written questionnaire (281 women and 91 men; M age = 19.7 years, SD = 1.1) containing the translated versions of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale, Survey of Reading Strategies Inventory, and self-assessment background questionnaire. The results showed that self-evaluation of reading proficiency did not correlate with academic level and readers' perceptions. Satisfaction had a direct effect on foreign language reading anxiety but not on metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. Results of path analysis demonstrated that the perception learners who had their own reading proficiency predicted their foreign language reading anxiety and was a mediating variable for metacognitive reading strategy use. © The Author(s) 2016.

  19. Foreign Language Reading Anxiety among Yemeni Secondary School Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yehia Ahmed Y. Al-Sohbani

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to examine Foreign Language (FL reading anxiety level of Arabicspeaking Yemeni students learning English as a foreign language (n = 106. It utilized (a a background information questionnaire, (b the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS, and (c students' English school marks. Results of the study showed that learners of English experienced an above moderate level of FL reading anxiety. There was no significant difference between students' FL reading anxiety and their gender. However, a statistically reliable difference between the means of public and private schools regarding their FL reading anxiety in favor of the private school. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between students' FL reading anxiety and their type of school. Difficulties of uncertainty, pronunciation of English words, unfamiliar topic, unknown vocabulary, reading aloud, using word by word translation, unfamiliar English culture and history, unfamiliar grammar, English letters and symbols were identified as the major sources of FL reading anxiety.

  20. Do changes in socialization lead to decline in reading level? How parents, literary education, and popular culture affect the level of books read

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verboord, Marc; Rees, Kees van

    2003-01-01

    The influence of reading socialization on the level of books read in adult life was investigated for birth cohorts who finished secondary education between 1975 and 1998. Three forms of reading socialization were taken into account: socialization in the parental home, literary socialization at

  1. "Manga" Literacy: Popular Culture and the Reading Habits of Japanese College Students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Kate; Ingulsrud, John E.

    2003-01-01

    Notes that "manga"--Japanese comics--constitute the most popular kind of reading material in Japan. Discusses the skills needed to read manga. Surveys 297 Japanese college students. Suggests that many manga readers can be considered engaged readers as they are highly motivated and have developed a range of strategies to help them…

  2. Materializing Culture - Culturizing Material. On the Status, Responsibilities and Function of Cultural Property Repositories within the Framework of a "Transformative Scholarship"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markus Hilgert

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Certain theoretical streams in the cultural and social sciences that are occasionally subsumed under the term “New Materialism” 2 (see Witzgall, as well as recent social, political, cultural and media technology developments require a theoretical and research-political repositioning of academic object repositories. For it is obvious that under the influence of these multi-layered, partly interwoven processes, the status, responsibilities, as well as the function and spheres of activity of these object or cultural property repositories with research commitment (on the term see section 2 below are currently undergoing long-lasting change. For the respective institutions, these changes not only result in complex challenges regarding contents and structure, but also present extraordinary opportunities for the fulfillment of their academic, social and political responsibilities. The appropriate handling of these challenges and opportunities can substantially contribute to the sharpening of the academic and social profile of these institutions and increase their visibility on both a national and international level.

  3. Out of Context: Thinking Cultural Studies Diasporically

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Grant Farred

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available This essay on cultural studies and the African Diaspora argues for a rethinking of cultural studies in two critical ways: firstly, that cultural studies, from its founding institutional and conceptual moment, cannot but be thought diasporically; and, secondly, that cultural studies be thought ‘out of’, or, against, context—that is, cultural studies is most revealing in its political and literary articulation when it is not read, as many of its advocates claim, contextually. This essay offers a broad critique of cultural studies and the (African diaspora but derives its most cogent and creative argument from its ability to read together the work of two diasporic authors, deracinated South African and Australian writers, J. M. Coetzee and David Malouf.

  4. Cultural Responsive Teaching Readiness Scale Validity and Reliability Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kasım KARATAŞ

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research is to develop a measurement instrument that will determine the cultural responsive teaching readiness level of teacher candidates. The study group consisted of a total of 231 candidate teachers, of which 83 were males and 148 were females, who were attending their final year of class teacher education programs at various Turkish universities during the 2016-2017 education year. In the first phase, a 33-item draft form was presented to experts to be reviewed. Based on the feedback received, revisions were made and the final scale was applied to a group of 231 candidate teachers. In the analysis of the data obtained as the result of the application, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA was performed. The EFA produced 21 items within a two-factor structure as, “Personal Readiness” and “Professional Readiness.” It was observed that the sub-factors were components of the “cultural responsive teaching readiness” dimension, and that the goodness of fit measures obtained as a result of the First and Second Level Confirmatory Factor Analyzes (CFA were high. In addition, reliability coefficients were found to be high as a result of reliability measurements. With the help of these findings, this study concludes that the Cultural Responsive Teaching Readiness scale is both valid and reliable.

  5. Enhancing Self-Awareness: A Practical Strategy to Train Culturally Responsive Social Work Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nalini J. Negi

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available A primary goal of social justice educators is to engage students in a process of self-discovery, with the goal of helping them recognize their own biases, develop empathy, and become better prepared for culturally responsive practice. While social work educators are mandated with the important task of training future social workers in culturally responsive practice with diverse populations, practical strategies on how to do so are scant. This article introduces a teaching exercise, the Ethnic Roots Assignment, which has been shown qualitatively to aid students in developing self-awareness, a key component of culturally competent social work practice. Practical suggestions for classroom utilization, common challenges, and past student responses to participating in the exercise are provided. The dissemination of such a teaching exercise can increase the field’s resources for addressing the important goal of cultural competence training.

  6. Playing Reading, Using Hands: Which Activities are Linked to Number-Space Processing in Preschool Children?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patro Katarzyna

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Literate subjects from Western cultures form spatial-numerical associations (SNA in left-to-right direction, which follows their reading habits. In preliterate children, sources of SNA directionality are more disputable. One possibility is that SNA follows children's early knowledge about text orientation. It could also reflect ipsilateral/contralateral tendencies in manual task execution. Furthermore, SNA's characteristics could differ depending on the evaluation method used. In this study, we test SNA in preliterate preschoolers using object counting, finger counting, and numerosity arrangement tasks. We examined the relations of SNA to children's directional reading knowledge and their manual response tendencies. Left-to-right SNA was pronounced for object counting, disappeared for the numerosity task, and was reversed for finger counting. In all tasks, left-to-right SNA dominated in children who responded contralaterally with their hand. Reading knowledge was partially related to numerosity-based SNA, but not to other SNAs. Based on these findings, we discuss developmental characteristics of different forms of number-space associations.

  7. Reading Deeply for Disciplinary Awareness and Political Judgment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alison Kathryn Staudinger

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available What happens when students become better readers? Cultivating deep reading habits in students to help them navigate disciplinary cultures respects student autonomy. Scholarly literature predicts that three linked practices improve student reading: practice with feedback, explicit in-class work on reading strategies, and disciplinary norm discussions. To see what happens when students engage in these practices, I studied two years of students in an American Political Thought (APT course, comparing essays written at the start and end of the courses. In this article, I analyze evidence of student learning by reading their work closely, and in the context of political theory as a humanistic sub-discipline, speaking both to “what is?” student reading and exploring its implications for citizenship through political theorist Hannah Arendt’s reflective political judgment. As students deepen their reading practices, they are cultivating habits of citizenship, even if they still struggle with disciplinary awareness.

  8. Survey Response Styles, Acculturation, and Culture Among a Sample of Mexican American Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Rachel E; Resnicow, Ken; Couper, Mick P

    2011-10-01

    A number of studies have investigated use of extreme (ERS) and acquiescent (ARS) response styles across cultural groups. However, due to within-group heterogeneity, it is important to also examine use of response styles, acculturation, and endorsement of cultural variables at the individual level. This study explores relationships between acculturation, six Mexican cultural factors, ERS, and ARS among a sample of 288 Mexican American telephone survey respondents. Three aspects of acculturation were assessed: Spanish use, the importance of preserving Mexican culture, and interaction with Mexican Americans versus Anglos. These variables were hypothesized to positively associate with ERS and ARS. Participants with higher Spanish use did utilize more ERS and ARS; however, value for preserving Mexican culture and interaction with Mexican Americans were not associated with response style use. In analyses of cultural factors, endorsement of familismo and simpatia were related to more frequent ERS and ARS, machismo was associated with lower ERS among men, and la mujer was related to higher ERS among women. Caballerismo was marginally associated with utilization of ERS among men. No association was found between la mujer abnegada and ERS among women. Relationships between male gender roles and ARS were nonsignificant. Relationships between female gender roles and ARS were mixed but trended in the positive direction. Overall, these findings suggest that Mexican American respondents vary in their use of response styles by acculturation and cultural factors. This usage may be specifically influenced by participants' valuing of and engagement with constructs directly associated with social behavior.

  9. The relation of linguistic awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling for first grade students participating in Response to Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Young-Suk; Apel, Kenn; Otaiba, Stephanie Al

    2013-01-01

    Purpose We examined the relations of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness and vocabulary to word reading and spelling for first grade children who were receiving differentiated instruction in a Response to Intervention (RTI) model of instruction (N = 304). Method First grade children were assessed on their phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness, expressive vocabulary, word reading, and spelling. Year-end word reading and spelling were outcome variables while phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness, expressive vocabulary, and RTI status (Tiers 1, 2, & 3) were predictor variables assessed in the middle of the school year. Results The three linguistic awareness skills were unique predictors of word reading and phonological and orthographic awareness were unique predictors of spelling. The contributions these linguistic awareness skills and vocabulary made to word reading and spelling did not differ by children's RTI tier status. Conclusion These results, in conjunction with previous studies, suggest that even beginning readers and spellers draw on multiple linguistic awareness skills for their word reading and spelling regardless of their level of literacy skills. Educational implications are discussed. PMID:23833281

  10. The Importance of Reading in Earnest: Non-Fiction for Young Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Job, Jennifer; Coleman, Mary Ruth

    2016-01-01

    Until recently, reading instruction for early grades has focused on fiction. However, the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards both emphasize the reading of nonfiction texts to gain specific skill sets for analyzing information. Research has shown that gifted students and children with culturally/linguistically…

  11. The Influence of Schema and Cultural Difference on L1 and L2 Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Shi-sheng

    2010-01-01

    Reading in L1 shares numerous basic elements with reading in L2, and the processes also differ greatly. Intriguing questions involve whether there are two parallel cognitive processes at work, or whether there are processing strategies that accommodate both L1 and L2. This paper examines how reading in L1 is different from and similar to reading…

  12. Adult reading teachers’ beliefs about how less-skilled adult readers can be taught to read.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janet McHardy

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Despite large-scale interventions, significant numbers of adults worldwide continue to have problems with basic literacy, in particular in the area of reading. To be effective, adult reading teachers need expert knowledge at practitioner level. However, practices in adult reading education vary widely, often reflecting the individual beliefs of each teacher about how an adult can learn to read. In this study, phenomenographic analysis was used to identify categories of approaches to teaching adult reading, used by a group of 60 teachers in Western Australia and New Zealand. Four approaches were identified: reassurance, task-based, theory-based and responsive. It is argued that for teachers to become effective and consistent in responding to learner needs, they must understand their own beliefs and the consequences of these. The identification of different approaches in adult reading education is an important step in this process.

  13. "Because That's Who I Am": Extending Theories of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Consider Religious Identity, Belief, and Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dallavis, Christian

    2011-01-01

    In this conceptual article the author explores the intersection of culturally responsive pedagogy and religious school contexts. He extends theories of culturally responsive pedagogy to consider how religion, a dimension of student culture that has largely been overlooked in the literature surrounding culturally responsive pedagogy, can inflect…

  14. Cultural Responsiveness and Routines: When Center and Home Don't Match

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonzalez-Mena, Janet

    2010-01-01

    This article discusses cultural responsiveness and routines of child care centers that do not match what families are accustomed to at home. It can be difficult to discuss cultural differences in some routine caregiving activities because of the standards, rules, regulations, best practices, and health concerns that those trained in early…

  15. A Nordic comparison of national objectives for reading instruction and teachers' responses about actual reading practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rønberg, Louise Flensted-Jensen; Mejding, Jan

    2014-01-01

    and Sweden do. The Nordic teachers in general appear to prioritise advanced comprehension activities to a lesser extent than teachers in the English-speaking countries do. Furthermore, 138 Northern Lights on TIMSS and PIRLS 2011 Danish teachers put the least emphasis on formative assessments compared...... texts a higher priority than literary texts – and the opposite is apparent for Danish teachers. The Finnish and Norwegian teachers prioritise activities that enhance students’ oral reading fluency, which is important for reading comprehension development, to a greater extent than teachers in Denmark...

  16. Brains with character: Reading and writing neuronarrative

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Yaczo, T.F.

    2015-01-01

    Brains with Character: Reading and Writing Neuronarrative tracks the concept of neuronarrative by analyzing the reciprocal and catalytic relationships between neuroscience and literary media. Crucial to understanding the contemporary stakes in these two cultural endeavors is how their relationships

  17. The Effect of Cultural Background Knowledge on Learning English Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dr. Ibrahim

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to investigate the effect of cultural background knowledge on learning English Language. It also aims to investigate if there are significant differences between subjects' performance in reading comprehension according to sex and general ability in English (GAE. The study aims at answering the following questions: 1 . To what extent is the effect of cultural background knowledge on subjects' performance in reading comprehension? 2 . What is the difference in performance in reading comprehension between male and female subjects who have cultural background knowledge and those who do not have any knowledge? 3. What is the differenc e between subjects' performance in reading comprehension texts which are loaded with American culture and their general ability in English. ? The population of th is study consisted of all first - year students majoring in English at Hebron University in th e first semester of the academic year 2011/2012. They were 600. The sample of the study consisted of 60 subjects, males and females divided into four groups, two experimental and two controlled. The researcher followed the experimental method. Means, stand ard deviations and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were calculated by using SPSS program. The study revealed the following results: 1. There are statistically significant differences in performance in reading comprehension between subjects who have cu ltural background knowledge and those who do not have any knowledge . 2 . There are no statistically significant differences in performance in reading comprehension between male and female subjects who have cultural background knowledge and those who do not have any knowledge. 3. Subjects' GAE revealed that there are significant differences in performance in reading comprehension between subjects who have cultural background knowledge and those who do not have any knowledge. In the light of the results of th e study, the researcher recommends the

  18. Cultural responsiveness in EFL teaching: reflections from native instructors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cinarbas H. Ibrahim

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, many international students from different parts of the world have been studying at Turkish universities, which creates a multicultural educational setting. Due to the multicultural educational setting, English has become the most widely used language for exchanging and sharing knowledge, therefore many international universities in Turkey put a great emphasis on English language education and offer English preparatory courses to students. In order to succeed at better language education, universities employ native English instructors to provide a richer language experience with cultural components embedded in language content. In this qualitative case study, cultural reflections of native English instructors at a Turkish university were investigated. Individual and focus group interviews were data sources for the study. Findings indicated that cultural responsiveness was considered to be constructed through time, and a necessity of orientation process was emphasized. However, the native instructors’ presumptions cause intolerance and underestimation of the host culture. In addition, educational issues and students’ misbehaviors, such as cheating and calling their instructors by their first name, were attributed to cultural background of the students.

  19. Reading Comprehension and Math Skills of Students in Basic Education in Mexico: 2000-2005

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eduardo Backhoff Escudero

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available After the establishment of the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE in 2002, society demanded to know whether the educational system had progressed during the last five years. In response, the INEE used the National Standards Tests for Mathematics and Reading Comprehension, applied by the Department of Evaluation of the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP in 2000, and again in 2005. The results showed that sixth graders in private, public, rural schools had made a significant advance in mathematics and reading comprehension. Indigenous Education had also advanced considerably in the latter subject. Among junior high schools, only those of the general category showed significant improvement on both tests. Regarding gender, women scored higher than men in reading comprehension, as contrasted with math. In terms of age, it was found that students of an age normal for their scholastic level performed better than those older. The explanations found in the results highlight the differences between the learning opportunities and cultural capital of the families of the different strata and modalities.

  20. Korean Screen Cultures

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Screen Cultures sets out to redress this imbalance with a broad selection of essays spanning both North and South as well as different methodological approaches, from ethnographic and audience studies to cultural materialist readings. The first section of the book, «The South», highlights popular media...... new approaches to Korean popular culture beyond national borders and includes work on K-pop and Korean television drama. This book is a vital addition to existing scholarship on Korean popular culture, offering a unique view by providing an imaginary unification of the two Koreas negotiated through...

  1. Author’s response: A universal approach to modeling visual word recognition and reading: not only possible, but also inevitable.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frost, Ram

    2012-10-01

    I have argued that orthographic processing cannot be understood and modeled without considering the manner in which orthographic structure represents phonological, semantic, and morphological information in a given writing system. A reading theory, therefore, must be a theory of the interaction of the reader with his/her linguistic environment. This outlines a novel approach to studying and modeling visual word recognition, an approach that focuses on the common cognitive principles involved in processing printed words across different writing systems. These claims were challenged by several commentaries that contested the merits of my general theoretical agenda, the relevance of the evolution of writing systems, and the plausibility of finding commonalities in reading across orthographies. Other commentaries extended the scope of the debate by bringing into the discussion additional perspectives. My response addresses all these issues. By considering the constraints of neurobiology on modeling reading, developmental data, and a large scope of cross-linguistic evidence, I argue that front-end implementations of orthographic processing that do not stem from a comprehensive theory of the complex information conveyed by writing systems do not present a viable approach for understanding reading. The common principles by which writing systems have evolved to represent orthographic, phonological, and semantic information in a language reveal the critical distributional characteristics of orthographic structure that govern reading behavior. Models of reading should thus be learning models, primarily constrained by cross-linguistic developmental evidence that describes how the statistical properties of writing systems shape the characteristics of orthographic processing. When this approach is adopted, a universal model of reading is possible.

  2. Planning levels in naming and reading complex numerals

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meeuwissen, M.H.W.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Levelt, W.J.M.

    2003-01-01

    On the basis of evidence from studies of the naming and reading of numerals, Ferrand (1999) argued that the naming of objects is slower than reading their names, due to a greater response uncertainty in naming than in reading, rather than to an obligatory conceptual preparation for naming, but not

  3. Lectura y Vida: Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura, 2002 (Reading and Life: Latin American Reading Magazine, 2002).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lectura y Vida: Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura, 2002

    2002-01-01

    Articles in this volume include the following titles (translated from the Spanish): "Who Is in Charge of Teaching Reading and Writing at the University? Tutorials, Exam Preparation, and Class Synthesis in the Humanities" (Paula Carlino); "False Conceptions of the Linguistic Abilities, Values, and the Culture of Girls and Boys from Poor Families"…

  4. Universal Visual Features Might Be Necessary for Fluent Reading. A Longitudinal Study of Visual Reading in Braille and Cyrillic Alphabets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bola, Łukasz; Radziun, Dominika; Siuda-Krzywicka, Katarzyna; Sowa, Joanna E; Paplińska, Małgorzata; Sumera, Ewa; Szwed, Marcin

    2017-01-01

    It has been hypothesized that efficient reading is possible because all reading scripts have been matched, through cultural evolution, to the natural capabilities of the visual cortex. This matching has resulted in all scripts being made of line-junctions, such as T, X, or L. Our aim was to test a critical prediction of this hypothesis: visual reading in an atypical script that is devoid of line-junctions (such as the Braille alphabet read visually) should be much less efficient than reading in a "normal" script (e.g., Cyrillic). Using a lexical decision task, we examined Visual Braille reading speed and efficiency in sighted Braille teachers. As a control, we tested learners of a natural visual script, Cyrillic. Both groups participated in a two semester course of either visual Braille or Russian while their reading speed and accuracy was tested at regular intervals. The results show that visual Braille reading is slow, prone to errors and highly serial, even in Braille readers with years of prior reading experience. Although subjects showed some improvements in their visual Braille reading accuracy and speed following the course, the effect of word length on reading speed (typically observed in beginning readers) was remained very sizeable through all testing sessions. These results are in stark contrast to Cyrillic, a natural script, where only 3 months of learning were sufficient to achieve relative proficiency. Taken together, these results suggest that visual features such as line junctions and their combinations might be necessary for efficient reading.

  5. Radiation adaptive response for the growth of cultured glial cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Suzuki, S.; Miura, Y.; Kano, M.; Toda, T.; Urano, S.

    2003-01-01

    Full text: To examine the molecular mechanism of radiation adaptive response (RAR) for the growth of cultured glial cells and to investigate the influence of aging on the response, glial cells were cultured from young and aged rats (1 month and 24 months old). RAR for the growth of glial cells conditioned with a low dose of X-rays and subsequently exposed to a high dose of X-rays was examined for cell number and BrdU incorporation. Involvement of the subcellular signaling pathway factors in RAR was investigated using their inhibitors, activators and mutated glial cells. RAR was observed in cells cultured from young rats, but was not in cells from aged rats. The inhibitors of protein kinase C (PKC) and DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) or phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) suppressed RAR. The activators of PKC instead of low dose irradiation also caused RAR. Moreover, glial cells cultured from severe combined immunodeficiency (scid) mice (CB-17 scid) and ataxia-telangiectasia (AT) cells from AT patients showed no RAR. These results indicated that PKC, ATM, DNAPK and/or PI3K were involved in RAR for growth and BrdU incorporation of cultured glial cells and RAR decreased with aging. Proteomics data of glial cells exposed to severe stress of H 2 O 2 or X-rays also will be presented in the conference since little or no difference has not been observed with slight stress yet

  6. [Organisational responsibility versus individual responsibility: safety culture? About the relationship between patient safety and medical malpractice law].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hart, Dieter

    2009-01-01

    The contribution is concerned with the correlations between risk information, patient safety, responsibility and liability, in particular in terms of liability law. These correlations have an impact on safety culture in healthcare, which can be evaluated positively if--in addition to good quality of medical care--as many sources of error as possible can be identified, analysed, and minimised or eliminated by corresponding measures (safety or risk management). Liability influences the conduct of individuals and enterprises; safety is (probably) also a function of liability; this should also apply to safety culture. The standard of safety culture does not only depend on individual liability for damages, but first of all on strict enterprise liability (system responsibility) and its preventive effects. Patient safety through quality and risk management is therefore also an organisational programme of considerable relevance in terms of liability law.

  7. Bible reading in Africa: the shaping of a reformed perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. Wielenga

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available In this article I try to develop a reformed perspective on Bible reading in Africa by ordinary readers. I explore the concept of ordinary readers in the context of recent hermeneutical discus-sions, and of the differences between their mode of reading and that of biblical scholars against the background ofthe reality of the oral or semi-literate cultures of Africa. A reformed perspec-tive, with its emphasis on the church as locus for Bible reading under the operation of the Holy Spirit, opens up a way forward out of the dilemma between ordinary and professional Bible reading. A reformed perspective can also clear the way for a gender-sensitive reading of the Bible in a continent where most Bible readers are women. This requires from those who read the Bible together an attitude of humility.

  8. Corporate Social Responsibility and Managing Ethical Culture

    OpenAIRE

    Yeney Widya Prihatiningtias

    2012-01-01

    This essay argues that the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethical business conduct is very important. CSR nowadays has become crucial issue as major companies are expected to demonstrate their commitment to society’s values through actions. The current article explains, evaluates, and applies to relevant examples of the narrow, broader socio-economic, as well as broad maximal view of CSR. It also critically describes how organizations can develop ethical cultures and c...

  9. An Empirical Perspective on the Culture - Corporate Social Responsibility Relationship

    OpenAIRE

    Dumitru ZAIȚ; Angelica-Nicoleta ONEA; Ruxandra CIULU; Maria TĂTĂRUȘANU

    2013-01-01

    Business competition and pressure of European directives put Romanian company in a position to find answers to issues related to long-term survival and development. In this context we believe it is necessary to analyze some of the most important components that should be taken into consideration at the strategic level: national and organizational culture. The results indicate that corporate social responsibility is supported by learning and change-oriented organizational culture, but also by ...

  10. Response to Intervention as a Predictor of Long-Term Reading Outcomes in Children with Dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Kleij, Sanne W; Segers, Eliane; Groen, Margriet A; Verhoeven, Ludo

    2017-08-01

    The goal of this study was to investigate how growth during a phonics-based intervention, as well as reading levels at baseline testing, predicted long-term reading outcomes of children with dyslexia. Eighty Dutch children with dyslexia who had completed a 50-week phonics-based intervention in grade 4 were tested in grade 5 on both word and pseudoword (following regular Dutch orthographic patterns) reading efficiency and compared to 93 typical readers. In grade 5 the children with dyslexia were still significantly slower in word and pseudoword reading than their typically developing peers. Results showed that long-term pseudoword reading in the group with dyslexia was predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest and growth in pseudoword reading during the intervention, which was itself predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest. This was not the case for word reading. We found that long-term word reading was directly predicted from pretest word reading, and indirectly via pretest pseudoword reading, via growth in pseudoword and word reading. It can be concluded that pseudoword reading is not only a good indicator of severity of reading difficulties in children with dyslexia, it is also an indicator of who will profit from intervention in the long-term. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  11. COMMENTARY: CAN FREE READING TAKE YOU ALL THE WAY? A RESPONSE TO COBB (2007

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeff McQuillan

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available Cobb (2007 argues that free reading cannot provide L2 readers with sufficient opportunities for acquiring vocabulary in order to reach an adequate level of reading comprehension of English texts. In this paper, we argue that (1 Cobb severely underestimates the amount of reading even a very modest reading habit would afford L2 readers, and therefore underestimates the impact of free reading on L2 vocabulary development; and (2 Cobb’s data show that free reading is in fact a very powerful tool in vocabulary acquisition.

  12. Behavioral Attention: A Longitudinal Study of Whether and How It Influences the Development of Word Reading and Reading Comprehension among At-Risk Readers

    OpenAIRE

    Miller, Amanda C.; Fuchs, Douglas; Fuchs, Lynn S.; Compton, Donald L.; Kearns, Devin; Zhang, Wenjuan; Yen, Loulee; Patton, Samuel; Kirchner, Danielle

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which teacher ratings of behavioral attention predicted responsiveness to word reading instruction in first grade and third-grade reading comprehension performance. Participants were 110 first grade students identified as at-risk for reading difficulties who received 20 weeks of intensive reading intervention in combination with classroom reading instruction. Path analysis indicated that teacher ratings of student attention significantly ...

  13. Reading with Love: Reading of Life Narrative of a Mother of a Child with Cerebral Palsy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mercieca, Daniela; Mercieca, Duncan P.

    2014-01-01

    This paper draws upon Deleuze and Guattari's ideas to suggest a different kind of reading of a narrative of a mother of a child with severe disability, and thus a different kind of ethical response to them. This reading gives readers the possibility of opening up experiences of parents and children with disability, rather than…

  14. Dose response of tracheal epithelial cells to ionizing radiation in air-liquid interface cultures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fukutsu, K.; Yamada, Y.; Shimo, M.

    2002-01-01

    The dose-response relationships of tracheal epithelial cells to ionizing radiation was examined in air-liquid interface cultures, which were developed for the purpose of simulating in vivo conditions. The cultures investigated in this study were expected to be advantageous for the performance of irradiation experiments using short-range α rays. The level of dose response of air-liquid interface cultures to ionizing radiation proved to be the same as that for in vivo conditions. This result indicates that air-liquid interface cultures will prove most useful, to facilitate future studies for the investigation of the biological effects induced in tracheal epithelial cells by ionizing radiation, especially by α-rays. (orig.)

  15. German financial media's responsiveness to Deutsche Bank's cultural change

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Strauß, N.

    2015-01-01

    Based on first-order and second-order agenda building theory, this study analyzes the responsiveness of German financial media to frames of the "cultural change" proclaimed in the banking industry, exemplified by Deutsche Bank. Findings suggest a difference between the two major German financial

  16. Adaptive response of yeast cultures (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae) exposed to low dose of gamma radiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kulcsar, Agnes; Savu, D.; Petcu, I.; Gherasim, Raluca

    2003-01-01

    The present study was planned as follows: (i) setting up of standard experimental conditions for investigation of radio-induced adaptive response in lower Eucaryotes; (ii) developing of procedures for synchronizing Saccharomyces cerevisiae X 310 D cell cultures and cell cycle stages monitoring; (iii) investigation of gamma (Co-60) and UV irradiation effects on the viability of synchronized and non-synchronized cell cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae; the effects were correlated with the cell density and cell cycle stage; (iv) study of the adaptive response induced by irradiation and setting up of the experimental conditions for which this response is optimized. The irradiations were performed by using a Co-60 with doses of 10 2 - 10 4 Gy and dose rates ranging from 2.2 x 10 2 Gy/h to 8.7 x 10 3 Gy/h. The study of radioinduced adaptive response was performed by applying a pre-irradiation treatment of 100-500 Gy, followed by challenge doses of 2-4 kGy delivered at different time intervals, ranging from 1 h to 4 h. The survival rate of synchronized and non-synchronized cultures as a function of exposure dose shows an exponential decay shape. No difference in viability of the cells occurred between synchronized and non-synchronized cultures. The pre-irradiation of cells with 100 and 200 Gy were most efficient to induce an adaptive response for the yeast cells. In this stage of work we proved the occurrence of the adaptive response in the case of synchronized yeast cultures exposed to gamma radiation. The results will be used in the future to investigate the dependence of this response on the cell cycle and the possibility to induce such a response by a low level electromagnetic field. (authors)

  17. Literature and Lives: A Response-Based, Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching English.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carey-Webb, Allen

    Telling stories from secondary and college English classrooms, this book explores the new possibilities for teaching and learning generated by bringing together reader-response and cultural-studies approaches. The book connects William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and other canonical figures to multicultural writers, popular culture,…

  18. Beyond reading level: a systematic review of the suitability of cancer education print and Web-based materials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finnie, Ramona K C; Felder, Tisha M; Linder, Suzanne Kneuper; Mullen, Patricia Dolan

    2010-12-01

    Consideration of categories related to reading comprehension--beyond reading level--is imperative to reach low literacy populations effectively. "Suitability" has been proposed as a term to encompass six categories of such factors: content, literacy demand graphics, layout/typography, learning stimulation, and cultural appropriateness. Our purpose was to describe instruments used to evaluate categories of suitability in cancer education materials in published reports and their findings. We searched databases and reference lists for evaluations of print and Web-based cancer education materials to identify and describe measures of these categories. Studies had to evaluate reading level and at least one category of suitability. Eleven studies met our criteria. Seven studies reported inter-rater reliability. Cultural appropriateness was most often assessed; four instruments assessed only surface aspects of cultural appropriateness. Only two of seven instruments used, the suitability assessment of materials (SAM) and the comprehensibility assessment of materials (SAM + CAM), were described as having any evidence of validity. Studies using Simplified Measure of Goobledygook (SMOG) and Fry reported higher average reading level scores than those using Flesh-Kincaid. Most materials failed criteria for reading level and cultural appropriateness. We recommend more emphasis on the categories of suitability for those developing cancer education materials and more study of these categories and reliability and validity testing of instruments.

  19. The Role of Reading in the Development of Giftedness in the Context of Globalization and National Identity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shastina, Elena; Shatunova, Olga; Borodina, Tatyana; Borisov, Anatoly; Maliy, Yury

    2018-01-01

    The article explores the cultural potential of reading as one of the factors in the development of children's giftedness. The role of the book as the bearer of culture in the process of preserving national identity is revealed. The authors of the article discover the growing importance of family reading in the process of a gifted person…

  20. Emotional Landscapes of Reading

    OpenAIRE

    Natalia Samutina

    2015-01-01

    This paper focuses on fan fiction as a literary experience and especially on fan fiction readers’ receptive strategies. Methodologically, its approach is at the intersection of literary theory, theory of popular culture, and qualitative research into practices of communication within online communities. It presents a general characterization of fan fiction as a type of contemporary reading and writing, drawing upon the influential works by H. Jenkins, A. Dericho, K. Tosenberger, and others. T...

  1. Early home literacy and adolescents' online reading behavior in comparative perspective

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Notten, N.J.W.R.; Becker, B.

    2017-01-01

    Online reading behavior can be regarded as a 'new' form of cultural capital in today's digital world. However, it is unclear whether 'traditional' mechanisms of cultural and social reproduction are also found in this domain, and whether they manifest uniformly across countries at different stages of

  2. Universities' Responses to Globalisation: The Influence of Organisational Culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burnett, Sally-Ann; Huisman, Jeroen

    2010-01-01

    This study sought to assess how and why some higher education institutions have responded to aspects of globalisation and, in particular how organisational culture influences universities' responses to globalisation. Using a predominantly qualitative, mixed-methods approach, empirical research was used to explore the impact of globalisation at…

  3. Culturally Responsive Education in Music Education: A Literature Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bond, Vanessa L.

    2017-01-01

    Demographic shifts in public school enrollment within the United States necessitate preparing preservice teachers to teach students with backgrounds that differ from their own ethnically, linguistically, racially, and economically. Culturally responsive education (CRE) is a pedagogy used to validate students' varied experiences, and to teach to…

  4. How reading comprehension is embodied and why that matters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arthur M. GLENBERG

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Reading comprehension, much like comprehension of situations and comprehension of oral language, is embodied. In all cases, comprehension is the ability to take effective action on the basis ofaffordances related to the body, the physical world, and personal goals and cultural norms. In language contexts, action-based comprehension arises from simulating the linguistic content usingneural and bodily systems of perception, action, and emotion. Within this framework, a new approach to teaching reading comprehension is described: Teach children how to simulate while reading. TheMoved by Reading intervention teaches simulation in two stages. In the first stage, physical manipulation, children manipulate toys to simulate the content of what they are reading. After success in physically manipulating the toys, the children are taught to manipulate the toys in imagination. Research demonstrates that both physical and imagined manipulation leads to large gains in memory and comprehension.

  5. How reading comprehension is embodied and why that matters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arthur M. Glenberg

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Reading comprehension, much like comprehension of situations and comprehension of oral language, is embodied. In all cases, comprehension is the ability to take effective action on the basis of affordances related to the body, the physical world, and personal goals and cultural norms. In language contexts, action-based comprehension arises from simulating the linguistic content using neural and bodily systems of perception, action, and emotion. Within this framework, a new approach to teaching reading comprehension is described: Teach children how to simulate while reading. The Moved by Reading intervention teaches simulation in two stages. In the first stage, physical manipulation, children manipulate toys to simulate the content of what they are reading. After success in physically manipulating the toys, the children are taught to manipulate the toys in imagination. Research demonstrates that both physical and imagined manipulation leads to large gains in memory and comprehension.

  6. Quantification of Mycosphaerella fijiensis in vitro growth by absorbance readings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mileidy Cruz-Martín

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The slow growth of Mycosphaerella fijiensis Morelet in synthetic and semi-synthetic media as well as the characteristics of their colonies makes the use of traditional methods for evaluating the fungal growth are inadequate and impractical. Therefore, it requires a method to quantify growth in small volumes of substance and in short periods of time. The aim of this study was to quantify the M. fijiensis growth, through absorbance readings on the time, of mycelial suspensions obtained from cultures in liquid medium. Mycelial dry weight of the pathogen grown in liquid culture in flasks of 250 ml capacity and the absorbance in 96 well plates was compared. Similar procedure was used to evaluate the effect of bacterial culture filtrates with in vitro antifungal activity against M. fijiensis. A linear relationship between absorbance at 595 nm of fungal growth in liquid culture medium with respect to the dry mass was found. Absorbance readings using 96-well plates were possible to quantify the M. fijiensis mycelial suspensions growth in liquid culture. Also, there may be applied to assess the growth inhibition of the pathogen for bacterial culture filtrates with results at 48 h incubation. Key words: antifungal activity assay, biomass, DO595

  7. Latin American culture and reading: text commentary and analysis of teaching as a resource Cultura latinoamericana y comprensión lectora: comentario y análisis de texto como recurso pedagógico

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Mondaca

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available This present article develops an active learning pedagogical approach to enhance the process of reading comprehension in the XXI century classroom, through the incorporation of the Latin American culture in the use of educational resource of text analysis, which allows learners to generate a sense of belonging and cultural identity from elements such as literature, history, poetry, music, art, among others elements that make up the latinoamerican realm. This sense of cultural belonging involves learners in topics that are familiar to their contexts, recreating appreciation for reading.El presente artículo desarrolla una propuesta pedagógica activa de aprendizaje para mejorar el proceso de comprensión lectora en las aulas del siglo XXI, a través de la incorporación de la cultura latinoamericana en el recurso de aprendizaje del comentario y análisis de textos, lo que permite generar sentidos de pertenencia y de identidad cultural desde la historia, literatura, filosofía, poesía y las artes, entre otros elementos que constituyen a lo latinoamericano. Este sentido de apropiación del patrimonio cultural involucra a los estudiantes en temáticas propias de su entorno resignificando el aprecio por la lectura.

  8. Cell Culture Assay for Human Noroviruses [response

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Straub, Tim M.; Honer Zu Bentrup, Kerstin; Orosz Coghlan, Patricia; Dohnalkova, Alice; Mayer, Brooke K.; Bartholomew, Rachel A.; Valdez, Catherine O.; Bruckner-Lea, Cindy J.; Gerba, Charles P.; Abbaszadegan, Morteza A.; Nickerson, Cheryl A.

    2007-07-01

    We appreciate the comments provided by Leung et al., in response to our recently published article “In Vitro Cell Culture Infectivity Assay for Human Noroviruses” by Straub et al. (1). The specific aim of our project was to develop an in vitro cell culture infectivity assay for human noroviruses (hNoV) to enhance risk assessments when they are detected in water supplies. Reverse transcription (RT) qualitative or quantitative PCR are the primary assays for waterborne NoV monitoring. However, these assays cannot distinguish between infectious vs. non-infectious virions. When hNoV is detected in water supplies, information provided by our infectivity assay will significantly improve risk assessment models and protect human health, regardless of whether we are propagating NoV. Indeed, in vitro cell culture infectivity assays for the waterborne pathogen Cryptosporidium parvum that supplement approved fluorescent microscopy assays, do not result in amplification of the environmentally resistant hard-walled oocysts (2). However, identification of life cycle stages in cell culture provides evidence of infectious oocysts in a water supply. Nonetheless, Leung et al.’s assertion regarding the suitability of our method for the in vitro propagation of high titers of NoV is valid for the medical research community. In this case, well-characterized challenge pools of virus would be useful for developing and testing diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. As further validation of our published findings, we have now optimized RT quantitative PCR to assess the level of viral production in cell culture, where we are indeed finding significant increases in viral titer. The magnitude and time course of these increases is dependent on both virus strain and multiplicity of infection. We are currently preparing a manuscript that will discuss these findings in greater detail, and the implications this may have for creating viral challenge pools

  9. Examining Preservice Teachers' Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Doubts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siwatu, Kamau Oginga; Chesnut, Steven Randall; Alejandro, Angela Ybarra; Young, Haeni Alecia

    2016-01-01

    This study was designed to add to the research on teachers' self-efficacy beliefs by examining preservice teachers' culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy doubts. We examined the tasks that preservice teachers felt least efficacious to successfully execute and explored the reasoning behind these self-efficacy doubts. Consequently, we were…

  10. Developing reading literacy by reading badge

    OpenAIRE

    Rejc, Blanka

    2017-01-01

    Reading is a fundamental activity of our society and is present in all areas of a person’s life. Authors who deal with reading define reading with different definitions, some of them I also presented in my master’s degree thesis. The ways of reading, typology of readers and knowledge of different reading models are only some of the important theoretical facts that serve as a basis for the research and defining reading. Reading motivation is an important motivational factor, which encourages a...

  11. Exploring the Relationship between Adolescent's Reading Skills, Reading Motivation and Reading Habits

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGeown, Sarah P.; Duncan, Lynne G.; Griffiths, Yvonne M.; Stothard, Sue E.

    2015-01-01

    The present study examines the extent to which adolescents' reading affect (reading motivation) and behaviour (reading habits) predict different components of reading (word reading, comprehension, summarisation and text reading speed) and also adds to the limited research examining group differences (gender, age, ability) in adolescents' reading…

  12. Corporate Social Responsibility and Managing Ethical Culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yeney Widya Prihatiningtias

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available This essay argues that the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR and ethical business conduct is very important. CSR nowadays has become crucial issue as major companies are expected to demonstrate their commitment to society’s values through actions. The current article explains, evaluates, and applies to relevant examples of the narrow, broader socio-economic, as well as broad maximal view of CSR. It also critically describes how organizations can develop ethical cultures and corporate ethics programs for CSR.

  13. From word reading to multisentence comprehension: Improvements in brain activity in children with autism after reading intervention

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Donna L. Murdaugh

    2017-01-01

    Conclusions: Our results provide evidence for differential recruitment of brain regions based on task demands in children with ASD, and support the potential of targeted interventions to alter brain activation in response to positive gains in treatment. Children with ASD have a different reading profile from other reading disorders that needs to be specifically targeted in interventions.

  14. The Impact of Learning Culture on Worker Response to New Technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reardon, Robert F.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide a framework to measure the response of blue-collar workers to new technology in manufacturing and to establish the relationship between learning culture and that response. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected with a survey questionnaire from 12 manufacturing sites that were implementing…

  15. The power of print reading: comics in the classroom.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gabaron, Sabine

    2017-09-01

    Evidence from neuroscience and psychological studies supporting benefits of print reading over digital reading has recently been discussed in these columns (Perbal 2017 J. Cell Commun. Signal. 11:1-4). In the present commentary, I would like to add my perspective as a Humanities educator, and build upon the idea that print reading results in better comprehension, learning and communication. The argumentation that is presented herein is based on a study performed in a French Comics language class aimed at broadening students' knowledge and experience of graphic novels, and providing them with a cultural representation in the foreign language. The results that are discussed in this commentary indicate that upon reading printed books students created connections for a more meaningful learning experience, leading to personal growth and linguistic development. The impact these graphic novels had on students' learning capacity and relationship to reading was tremendous. The kinesthetic relationship with printed text was deeply enriching and gratifying. The stimulatory effects on their imagination allowed for a more creative reading, and a deeper comprehension, resulting in meaningful communication.

  16. Detection of target phonemes in spontaneous and read speech

    OpenAIRE

    Mehta, G.; Cutler, A.

    1988-01-01

    Although spontaneous speech occurs more frequently in most listeners’ experience than read speech, laboratory studies of human speech recognition typically use carefully controlled materials read from a script. The phonological and prosodic characteristics of spontaneous and read speech differ considerably, however, which suggests that laboratory results may not generalize to the recognition of spontaneous and read speech materials, and their response time to detect word-initial target phonem...

  17. Developing a Scale for Culturally Responsive Practice: Validation, Relationship with School Organizational Factors, and Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Jae-Bum

    2017-01-01

    The primary goal of this dissertation is to develop and provide preliminary validation for a new measure of culturally responsive practice. This instrument, which is called the Culturally Responsive Practice Scale (CRPS), includes items that reflect ways that teachers teach multicultural students in their classrooms. To accomplish the goal, three…

  18. Developmental changes in reading do not alter the development of visual processing skills: An application of explanatory item response models in grades K-2

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristi L Santi

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Visual processing has been widely studied in regard to its impact on a students’ ability to read. A less researched area is the role of reading in the development of visual processing skills. A cohort-sequential, accelerated-longitudinal design was utilized with 932 kindergarten, first, and second grade students to examine the impact of reading acquisition on the processing of various types of visual discrimination and visual motor test items. Students were assessed four times per year on a variety of reading measures and reading precursors and two popular measures of visual processing over a three-year period. Explanatory item response models were used to examine the roles of person and item characteristics on changes in visual processing abilities and changes in item difficulties over time. Results showed different developmental patterns for five types of visual processing test items, but most importantly failed to show consistent effects of learning to read on changes in item difficulty. Thus, the present study failed to find support for the hypothesis that learning to read alters performance on measures of visual processing. Rather, visual processing and reading ability improved together over time with no evidence to suggest cross-domain influences from reading to visual processing. Results are discussed in the context of developmental theories of visual processing and brain-based research on the role of visual skills in learning to read.

  19. I read, you read, we read: the history of reading in Slovenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anja Dular

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRACTPurpose: The aim of the article is to research reading habits in Slovenia in the period between 16th and 19th century and to find similarities with Austria and other European countries of that time.Methodology/approach: For the purpose of the analysis different resources were used – study books, catechisms, prayer books and manuals. We were focused on introductions in which readers are advised how to read, explaining to whom the work is intended and emphasizing the importance of meditation on the texts.Results: Historically the laud reading was prefered, as to continue the folk tradition. However, the 16th century texts were transmitted by women while the folk tradition was narrated by males. In the 18th century the higher level of literacy and greater book production and availability caused that the books were not a privilege of a few. At that time more texts were intended for silent, individual reading. Interestingly, the authors emphasized the importance of meditation on the texts, too. It was also advised when to read – it wasrecommedend to read in leisure time on Sundays, and on holidays. The role of books was also to breakaway with the reality and to forget everyday problems. Due to the overproduction of books in the 17th centrury it was concerned that books are misleading the crowds. The church considered the reading of books as inappropriate, and criticized fiction, novels and adventure stories mostly read by women.Research limitation: The study is based on Slovenian texts only, although the foreign literature, especially in German, was generally available, too.Originality/practical implications: The study is fullfiling the gap in the history of reading in Slovenia.

  20. Hepatitis C Virus Frameshift/Alternate Reading Frame Protein Suppresses Interferon Responses Mediated by Pattern Recognition Receptor Retinoic-Acid-Inducible Gene-I.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seung Bum Park

    Full Text Available Hepatitis C virus (HCV actively evades host interferon (IFN responses but the mechanisms of how it does so are not completely understood. In this study, we present evidence for an HCV factor that contributes to the suppression of retinoic-acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I-mediated IFN induction. Expression of frameshift/alternate reading frame protein (F/ARFP from HCV -2/+1 frame in Huh7 hepatoma cells suppressed type I IFN responses stimulated by HCV RNA pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP and poly(IC. The suppression occurred independently of other HCV factors; and activation of interferon stimulated genes, TNFα, IFN-λ1, and IFN-λ2/3 was likewise suppressed by HCV F/ARFP. Point mutations in the full-length HCV sequence (JFH1 genotype 2a strain were made to introduce premature termination codons in the -2/+1 reading frame coding for F/ARFP while preserving the original reading frame, which enhanced IFNα and IFNβ induction by HCV. The potentiation of IFN response by the F/ARFP mutations was diminished in Huh7.5 cells, which already have a defective RIG-I, and by decreasing RIG-I expression in Huh7 cells. Furthermore, adding F/ARFP back via trans-complementation suppressed IFN induction in the F/ARFP mutant. The F/ARFP mutants, on the other hand, were not resistant to exogenous IFNα. Finally, HCV-infected human liver samples showed significant F/ARFP antibody reactivity, compared to HCV-uninfected control livers. Therefore, HCV F/ARFP likely cooperates with other viral factors to suppress type I and III IFN induction occurring through the RIG-I signaling pathway. This study identifies a novel mechanism of pattern recognition receptor modulation by HCV and suggests a biological function of the HCV alternate reading frame in the modulation of host innate immunity.

  1. Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Young-Suk Grace

    2015-01-01

    The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)-how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text reading fluency; (3) unique emergent literacy predictors (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, letter name knowledge, vocabulary) of text reading fluency vs. word reading fluency; and (4) unique language and cognitive predictors (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, theory of mind) of text reading fluency vs. reading comprehension. These questions were addressed using longitudinal data (two timepoints; Mean age = 5;24 & 6;08) from Korean-speaking children ( N = 143). Results showed that listening comprehension was related to text reading fluency at time 2, but not at time 1. At both times text reading fluency was related to reading comprehension, and reading comprehension was related to text reading fluency over and above word reading fluency and listening comprehension. Orthographic awareness was related to text reading fluency over and above other emergent literacy skills and word reading fluency. Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were independently related to text reading fluency and reading comprehension whereas theory of mind was related to reading comprehension, but not text reading fluency. These results reveal developmental nature of relations and mechanism of text reading fluency in reading development.

  2. Enter the imperceptible: Reading Die Antwoord

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sonja Smit

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Die Antwoord (The Answer, a Zef-rap outfit from South Africa, have been criticised for their appropriation of cultural signifiers in their lyrics and the images which come to fore in their music videos. This paper investigates how the band uses culture as a “found object” and albeit problematically, subverts static conceptions regarding South African life. I read Die Antwoord’s performance as an embrace of simulation (via Jean Baudrillard which destabilises myths regarding authenticity. Die Antwoord’s lack of authenticity is investigated in relation to hip hop as well as the creation of a Zef counter-culture. Drawing specifically from “Fatty Boom Boom”, the analysis centres on how the band satirises exoticised myths surrounding South African life.

  3. Cultural and ethnic differences in content validation responses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Bronwynne C

    2004-04-01

    Eight instruments to evaluate grant interventions aimed at increasing recruitment and retention of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nurses were developed for a Nursing Workforce Diversity Grant. This article compares expert reviewer responses during content validation of these instruments with (a) current literature and (b) seven filmed intervals of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian nurses speaking about their educational experiences. White reviewers responded differently to certain items than did Hispanic/Latino and American Indian reviewers (or reviewers closely affiliated with such persons). Responses of Hispanic/Latino and American Indian experts were aligned with one another but not aligned with the responses of White experts, who also agreed with one another, prompting literature and film comparisons with their responses. Faculty development may be needed to help teachers uncover their assumptions about students of color, acquire knowledge about cultural perspectives, recognize institutional racism, and attain the skills necessary to develop and implement a curriculum of inclusion.

  4. Does Extensive Reading Promote Reading Speed?

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Mu

    2014-01-01

    Research has shown a wide range of learning benefits accruing from extensive reading. Not only is there improvement in reading, but also in a wide range of language uses and areas of language knowledge. However, few research studies have examined reading speed. The existing literature on reading speed focused on students' reading speed without…

  5. Detection of target phonemes in spontaneous and read speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, G; Cutler, A

    1988-01-01

    Although spontaneous speech occurs more frequently in most listeners' experience than read speech, laboratory studies of human speech recognition typically use carefully controlled materials read from a script. The phonological and prosodic characteristics of spontaneous and read speech differ considerably, however, which suggests that laboratory results may not generalise to the recognition of spontaneous speech. In the present study listeners were presented with both spontaneous and read speech materials, and their response time to detect word-initial target phonemes was measured. Responses were, overall, equally fast in each speech mode. However, analysis of effects previously reported in phoneme detection studies revealed significant differences between speech modes. In read speech but not in spontaneous speech, later targets were detected more rapidly than targets preceded by short words. In contrast, in spontaneous speech but not in read speech, targets were detected more rapidly in accented than in unaccented words and in strong than in weak syllables. An explanation for this pattern is offered in terms of characteristic prosodic differences between spontaneous and read speech. The results support claims from previous work that listeners pay great attention to prosodic information in the process of recognising speech.

  6. Games as a measure of reading and writing generalization after computerized teaching of reading skills

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Carolina Sella

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Behavior Analysis is usually accused of not being able to account for the generalization of verbal behavior that is present in linguistically competent individuals. However, several behavior analytic studies investigate this theme, and gamification has been seen as a useful way to study generalization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate reading and writing generalization in games, after these behaviors were taught through the program Learning to Read in Small Steps. Participants were four children between 7 and 12 years old who had reading and writing deficits. The experimental design was a pre-posttest design that encompassed five phases. Performance in probes suggests generalization of reading and writing skills to new activities (games and responses. This study represents a small step in a systematic understanding of how games can be used to assess behavior change.

  7. A response to Steubing et al., "Effects of systematic phonics instruction are practically significant": The origins of the National Reading Panel.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gregory Camilli

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available A recent article by Stuebing, Barth, Cirino, Francis and Fletcher critiqued the findings of Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko (2003 and Camilli, Wolfe, and Smith (2006. With a methodological argument, they attempted to resolve the conflict between these studies and the original report Teaching Children to Read (National Reading Panel, 2000. In response, it is argued that three issues must be considered in a fair assessment of the NRP report—program labels or bins, alternative bins, and the role of literacy activities in reading instruction. In this light, three hypotheses ventured by Stuebing et al. are analyzed. It is concluded that the argument by Stuebing et al. does not reveal flaws in the original NRP report by Camilli et al. (2003, though some points of agreement are acknowledged.

  8. About the school readings and the new educational demands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aitana Martos García

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This article reviews from a critical point of view the State of the art on the school readings, from their theoretical assumptions to their didactic instrumentation and the views of teachers... In this regard, are reviewed the approaches of different paradigms and authors, whose references and contributions are contrasted with the current cultural crossroads and the perceptions of students and teachers. Classical reading and writing are overwhelmed by concepts such as multialfabetizacion, transmedia, fan fiction, etc, and the school is which should facilitate models integrators and eclectic readings. Also make converge the media and encourage the participation (Jenkins, and all of this without losing the critical literacy as a backdrop.

  9. Non-native english speaking elementary ell teachers’ culturally responsive leadership profile in an ESL context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valentin Ekiaka Nzai

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Culturally responsive instruction has been suggested as quality education (Edwards, 2003 for minority students in subtractive and additivebilingualism settings. However, analytical curriculum development of several official English programs revealed that the gender-centric (malecentricand Ethno-centric (Euro/Western-centric approaches were deeply embedded in most English textbooks of curriculum development.The intent of partial mixed methods paper consisted of exploring some non-native English speaking teachers English teachers’ culturallyresponsive leadership profile in order to further the discussion on not only how to promote English curriculum transformation in English assecond language (ESL and English as foreign language (EFL settings, but also to effectively train culturally responsive non-native Englishspeaking (NNES English pre-service teachers. Comparative data analysis suggested that there were no causal relationship between NNESEnglish teachers’ culturally responsive leadership styles and their abilities to perform multicultural transformation of English curriculums. To behighly effective in transforming English curriculum, NNES English teachers needed to be systematically trained on how to do so. Implicationsfor NNES English pre-service teacher education are framed from the culturally responsive and anti-oppressive education approaches.

  10. Assessment of (Fouquieria splendens ssp. breviflora Cell Cultures Response Under to Water Stress

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leonor Angélica Guerrero Zúñiga

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Plant cell cultures are homogenous experimental systems, highly controllable that allow the study of short and large water stress adaptations without the interference of the different tissues and development of plants. An approach to understand these adaptations is through the presence of induced proteins; as a result of changes in genetic expression. This work analyze the response of Fouquieria splendens ssp. breviflora cell cultures exposed to abscisic acid (ABA, through the electrophoretic characterization of quantity and quality of stress induced proteins. There were recorded low molecular weight polypeptides (< 35kDa, common in experiments under ABA 10mM, followed by the association with 20 and 30mM ABA conditions, with a particularly response of cell cultures without the stress agent.

  11. Viewing Reading Recovery as a Restructuring Phenomenon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rinehart, James S.; Short, Paula Myrick

    2010-01-01

    This study investigated components of Reading Recovery that relate to a restructuring paradigm. Specifically, Reading Recovery was analyzed as a way to redesign teachers' work, empower teachers, and affect the core technology of teaching. Data were collected by a survey that consisted of open-ended questions and of categorical response items.…

  12. The Impact of Enactive /Vicarious pre-reading Tasks on Reading Comprehension and Self-Efficacy of Iranian Pre-Intermediate EFL Learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arezoo Eshghipour

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This study investigated the effect of enactive pre-reading tasks on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension and self-efficacy. Moreover, it explored whether Iranian per-intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension and self-efficacy are influenced by vicarious pre-reading tasks. The required data was gathered through a reading comprehension passage entailing 20 comprehension questions and a 30-item self-efficacy questionnaire with 5-point Likert-scale response options. A total of 66 participants (including 34 individuals in the enactive group and 32 leaners in the vicarious one took part in this study. The Pearson formula, an independent T-Test, paired T-test, and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to analyze the data. Based on the findings of the study, enactive pre-reading tasks played a key role in the Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability. Moreover, it was found that vicarious pre-reading tasks served an important role in the Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners’ self-efficacy.

  13. Inhibition of Reporter Genes by Small Interfering RNAs in Cell Culture and Living Fish

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Larashati, Sekar; Schyth, Brian Dall; Lorenzen, Niels

    2011-01-01

    be used to observe the knock down effect by siRNAs designed to target these reporters. One aim of this project is to verify the specific knock down effect of siRNAs in cell culture and in living fish and to establish easy-read out models for testing the effect especially in vivo. Cell culture from human...... coinjection and the assay is important in order to detect knock down by siRNA. Our experiment reveal in vivo knock down at 72 hours post injection of reporter gene and siRNA, but further dose-response experiments are required to confirm specifity....

  14. U.S. Special Forces: Culture Warriors

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-12-01

    definitions include:  “ culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, law, morals , custom, and any other capabilities and habits...perceptions towards others, such as ethnocentrism, cultural relativism , stereotypes, biases and worldview. Readings: ARSOF 2022, Special Warfare, Vol. 26...FORCES: CULTURE WARRIORS by Joshua L. Hill December 2014 Thesis Advisor: Heather S. Gregg Second Reader: Robert Burks THIS PAGE

  15. Effects of cortisol on the primary response of mouse spleen cell cultures to heterologous erythrocytes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dracott, B.N.

    1974-01-01

    Cell viability and the production of direct PFC were studied in mouse spleen cell cultures after cortisol treatment in vivo or in vitro at various times relative to primary stimulation with SRBC in vitro. Cortisol treatment in vivo reduced spleen cell numbers by 88 percent after 48 hr, but cultures of the remaining cells produced as many PFC in vitro as did cultures of equal numbers of normal spleen cells. In normal spleen cell cultures incubated with cortisol for 4 hr prior to the addition of antigen, peak responses of PFC/culture and PFC/10 6 cells occurred 24 hr later than in controls and averaged, respectively, 27 and 141 percent of control values. Minimum viable cell numbers were observed in cortisol-treated cultures after 3 days; thereafter cell numbers gradually increased. These results were not significantly altered when cultures were treated simultaneously with cortisol and antigen. The response was not suppressed if the addition of antigen preceded that of cortisol by more than 4 hr. Suppression was also considerably reduced if fetal calf serum was used when preparing cells for culture

  16. Influence of encoding instructions and response bias on cross-cultural differences in specific recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paige, Laura E; Amado, Selen; Gutchess, Angela H

    2017-10-01

    Prior cross-cultural research has reported cultural variations in memory. One study revealed that Americans remembered images with more perceptual detail than East Asians (Millar et al. in Cult Brain 1(2-4):138-157, 2013). However, in a later study, this expected pattern was not replicated, possibly due to differences in encoding instructions (Paige et al. in Cortex 91:250-261, 2017). The present study sought to examine when cultural variation in memory-related decisions occur and the role of instructions. American and East Asian participants viewed images of objects while making a Purchase decision or an Approach decision and later completed a surprise recognition test. Results revealed Americans had higher hit rates for specific memory, regardless of instruction type, and a less stringent response criterion relative to East Asians. Additionally, a pattern emerged where the Approach decision enhanced hit rates for specific memory relative to the Purchase decision only when administered first; this pattern did not differ across cultures. Results suggest encoding instructions do not magnify cross-cultural differences in memory. Ultimately, cross-cultural differences in response bias, rather than memory sensitivity per se, may account for findings of cultural differences in memory specificity.

  17. Cytogenetic adaptive response of cultured fish cells to low doses of X-rays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kurihara, Yasuyuki; Etoh, Hisami; Rienkjkarn, M.

    1992-01-01

    The adaptive response was examining chromosomal aberrations and micronucleus in cultured fish cells, ULF-23 (mudminnow) and CAF-31 (gold fish). When cultured fish cells were first irradiated with small doses of X-rays, they became less sensitive to subsequent exposures to high doses. The effective adaptive dose was 4.8 cGy-9.5 cGy. Adaptive doses given cells in the G1 phase were more effective than when given in the S phase. The adaptive response was maximal at 5 hours and disappeared at 10 hours after the adaptive dose. The expression of the response was inhibited by treatment with 3-aminobenzamide, as reported for mammalian cells, and with arabinofuranoside cytosine, an inhibitor of DNA polymerase alpha. Caffeine, an inhibitor of post-replicational repair, had no effect on the response. (author)

  18. Cytogenetic adaptive response of cultured fish cells to low doses of X-rays

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kurihara, Yasuyuki; Etoh, Hisami (National Inst. of Radiological Sciences, Chiba (Japan)); Rienkjkarn, M.

    1992-12-01

    The adaptive response was examining chromosomal aberrations and micronucleus in cultured fish cells, ULF-23 (mudminnow) and CAF-31 (gold fish). When cultured fish cells were first irradiated with small doses of X-rays, they became less sensitive to subsequent exposures to high doses. The effective adaptive dose was 4.8 cGy-9.5 cGy. Adaptive doses given cells in the G1 phase were more effective than when given in the S phase. The adaptive response was maximal at 5 hours and disappeared at 10 hours after the adaptive dose. The expression of the response was inhibited by treatment with 3-aminobenzamide, as reported for mammalian cells, and with arabinofuranoside cytosine, an inhibitor of DNA polymerase alpha. Caffeine, an inhibitor of post-replicational repair, had no effect on the response. (author).

  19. Evidence for universality and cultural variation of differential emotion response patterning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scherer, K R; Wallbott, H G

    1994-02-01

    The major controversy concerning psychobiological universality of differential emotion patterning versus cultural relativity of emotional experience is briefly reviewed. Data from a series of cross-cultural questionnaire studies in 37 countries on 5 continents are reported and used to evaluate the respective claims of the proponents in the debate. Results show highly significant main effects and strong effect sizes for the response differences across 7 major emotions (joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, and guilt). Profiles of cross-culturally stable differences among the emotions with respect to subjective feeling, physiological symptoms, and expressive behavior are also reported. The empirical evidence is interpreted as supporting theories that postulate both a high degree of universality of differential emotion patterning and important cultural differences in emotion elicitation, regulation, symbolic representation, and social sharing.

  20. Reading from electronic devices versus hardcopy text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hue, Jennifer E; Rosenfield, Mark; Saá, Gianinna

    2014-01-01

    The use of electronic reading devices has increased dramatically. However, some individuals report increased visual symptoms when reading from electronic screens. This investigation compared reading from two electronic devices (Amazon Kindle or Apple Ipod) versus hardcopy text in two groups of 20 subjects. Subjects performed a 20 min reading task for each condition. Both the accommodative response and reading rate were monitored during the trial. Immediately post-task, subjects completed a questionnaire concerning the ocular symptoms experienced during the task. In comparing the Kindle with hardcopy, no significant difference in the total symptom score was observed, although the mean score for the symptoms of tired eyes and eye discomfort was significantly higher with the Kindle. No significant differences in reading rate were found. When comparing the Ipod with hardcopy, no significant differences in symptom scores were found. The mean reading rate with the Ipod was significantly slower than for hardcopy while the mean lag of accommodation was significantly larger for the Ipod. Given the significant increase in symptoms with the Kindle, and larger lag of accommodation and reduced reading rate with the Ipod, one may conclude that reading from electronic devices is not equivalent to hardcopy.

  1. A Systemic Approach to Culturally Responsive Assessment Practices and Evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slee, June

    2010-01-01

    In an earlier paper, Slee and Keenan demonstrated that it was possible for tertiary education institutions to design culturally responsive assessment procedures that complied with standardised assessment policy. The authors' paper described "Growing Our Own," an initiative between Charles Darwin University and Northern Territory Catholic…

  2. Realities and Fallacies of Reading Instruction for Ethnically Different Students: Cognitive and Affective Concerns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vick, Marian Lee

    A review of the literature about reading instruction for ethnically different students discloses a body of information largely disconnected and biased. Numerous factors are alleged to be determinants of the reading retardation of such students. Generally, these fall into two categories: racial factors in intelligence and cultural deprivation. The…

  3. Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension

    OpenAIRE

    Kim, Young-Suk Grace

    2015-01-01

    The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)—how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text readi...

  4. Behavioural and electrophysiological effects related to semantic violations during braille reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glyn, Vania; Lim, Vanessa K; Hamm, Jeff P; Mathur, Ashwin; Hughes, Barry

    2015-10-01

    This study investigated the potential to detect event related potentials (ERPs) occurring in response to a specific task in braille reading. This would expand current methodologies for studying the cognitive processes underlying braille reading. An N400 effect paradigm was utilised, whereby proficient blind braille readers read congruent- and incongruent-ending braille sentences. Kinematic and electroencephalography (EEG) data were obtained simultaneously and synchronised. The ERPs differed between the incongruent and congruent sentences in a manner consistent with the N400 effect found with a previous sighted reading paradigm, demonstrating that ERPs can be obtained during braille reading. The frequency of finger reversals and the degree of intermittency in the finger velocity were significantly higher when reading incongruent versus congruent sentence endings. Both reversals and the potential N400 effect may reflect processes involved in semantic unification. These findings have significant implications for the modelling of braille reading. The refinement of the technique will enable other ERPs to be identified and related to behavioural responses, to further our understanding of the braille reading process. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Should We Use a Capital Framework to Understand Culture? Applying Cultural Capital to Communities of Color

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinton, Kip Austin

    2015-01-01

    Social science research on communities of color has long been shaped by theories of social and cultural capital. This article is a hermeneutic reading of metaphorical capital frameworks, including community cultural wealth and funds of knowledge. Financial capital, the basis of these frameworks, is premised on unequal exchange. Money only becomes…

  6. A multilevel analysis of Swedish and Norwegian students’ overall and digital reading performance with a focus on equity aspects of education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria A. Rasmusson

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Influence of external factors in general, and socioeconomic background factors in particular, on traditional reading performance has been extensively researched and debated. While traditional reading is well investigated in this respect, there is a lack of studies on equity aspects related to digital reading achievement, in spite of the fact that time spent on reading from digital devices such as computers, tablets, and smart phones without doubt is increasing all over the world. In the hope of contributing to an area that up until now to a great extent has been left unresearched, the present study aims at investigating to what degree external factors, such as cultural and economic capital, parental pressure, and school choice, are related to 15-year-old students’ achievement in digital reading and in overall reading on both the student level and the school level in Norway and Sweden. Methods To conduct the analysis, multilevel structural modeling techniques have been used on PISA data from the two countries. Results The results for the Norwegian as well as for the Swedish sample showed that overall reading achievement was related to cultural capital in both countries, as expected, and in line with previous research. An identified digital reading factor, representing the unique aspects of digital reading achievement when overall reading was controlled for, was less influenced by the external factors of cultural and economic capital, and by parental pressure and school type, compared to performance in overall reading. Interestingly, on the school level, it was found that the external factors, school choice, and parental pressure related to overall reading achievement differently in the Norwegian and Swedish samples. School choice influenced overall reading in the Swedish data but not in the Norwegian data, and the opposite pattern was found for parental pressure. Conclusion In conclusion, it is suggested that the results

  7. Culture modulates the brain response to human expressions of emotion: electrophysiological evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Pan; Rigoulot, Simon; Pell, Marc D

    2015-01-01

    To understand how culture modulates on-line neural responses to social information, this study compared how individuals from two distinct cultural groups, English-speaking North Americans and Chinese, process emotional meanings of multi-sensory stimuli as indexed by both behaviour (accuracy) and event-related potential (N400) measures. In an emotional Stroop-like task, participants were presented face-voice pairs expressing congruent or incongruent emotions in conditions where they judged the emotion of one modality while ignoring the other (face or voice focus task). Results indicated that while both groups were sensitive to emotional differences between channels (with lower accuracy and higher N400 amplitudes for incongruent face-voice pairs), there were marked group differences in how intruding facial or vocal cues affected accuracy and N400 amplitudes, with English participants showing greater interference from irrelevant faces than Chinese. Our data illuminate distinct biases in how adults from East Asian versus Western cultures process socio-emotional cues, supplying new evidence that cultural learning modulates not only behaviour, but the neurocognitive response to different features of multi-channel emotion expressions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tamir, Diana I; Bricker, Andrew B; Dodell-Feder, David; Mitchell, Jason P

    2016-02-01

    Research in psychology has suggested that reading fiction can improve individuals' social-cognitive abilities. Findings from neuroscience show that reading and social cognition both recruit the default network, a network which is known to support our capacity to simulate hypothetical scenes, spaces and mental states. The current research tests the hypothesis that fiction reading enhances social cognition because it serves to exercise the default subnetwork involved in theory of mind. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants read literary passages that differed along two dimensions: (i) vivid vs abstract and (ii) social vs non-social. Analyses revealed distinct subnetworks of the default network respond to the two dimensions of interest: the medial temporal lobe subnetwork responded preferentially to vivid passages, with or without social content; the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) subnetwork responded preferentially to passages with social and abstract content. Analyses also demonstrated that participants who read fiction most often also showed the strongest social cognition performance. Finally, mediation analysis showed that activity in the dmPFC subnetwork in response to the social content mediated this relation, suggesting that the simulation of social content in fiction plays a role in fiction's ability to enhance readers' social cognition. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  9. Influence of newspapers in the development of student's reading ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Influence of newspapers in the development of student's reading culture in two Nigerian University Libraries. ... PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH ... Information Impact: Journal of Information and Knowledge Management ... size of 200 and questionnaire was the major instrument used for data collection.

  10. Developmental relations between reading comprehension and reading strategies

    OpenAIRE

    Muijselaar, M.M.L.; Swart, N.M.; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G.; Droop, W.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.; Jong, P.F. de

    2017-01-01

    We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary, and working memory were administered. A structural equation model was constructed to estimate the unique relations between reading strategies and reading comprehension, while controlling for reading...

  11. The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lotem, Arnon; Halpern, Joseph Y; Edelman, Shimon; Kolodny, Oren

    2017-07-24

    When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological traits. For example, there is evidence that dairy farming by humans favored alleles for adult lactose tolerance. Similarly, the invention of cooking possibly affected the evolution of jaw and tooth morphology. However, when it comes to cognitive traits and learning mechanisms, it is much more difficult to determine whether and how their evolution was affected by culture or by their use in cultural transmission. Here we argue that, excluding very recent cultural innovations, the assumption that culture shaped the evolution of cognition is both more parsimonious and more productive than assuming the opposite. In considering how culture shapes cognition, we suggest that a process-level model of cognitive evolution is necessary and offer such a model. The model employs relatively simple coevolving mechanisms of learning and data acquisition that jointly construct a complex network of a type previously shown to be capable of supporting a range of cognitive abilities. The evolution of cognition, and thus the effect of culture on cognitive evolution, is captured through small modifications of these coevolving learning and data-acquisition mechanisms, whose coordinated action is critical for building an effective network. We use the model to show how these mechanisms are likely to evolve in response to cultural phenomena, such as language and tool-making, which are associated with major changes in data patterns and with new computational and statistical challenges.

  12. Assessing the Impact of the National Cultural Framework on Responsible Corporate Behaviour towards Consumers: an Application of Geert Hofstede`s Cultural Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cristina Gănescu

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available This article aims to define and measure responsible corporate behaviour towards consumers in EU countries by defining an index of responsible corporate behaviour towards consumers and to establish the impact of Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions on the responsible behaviour of organisations towards consumers. The index uses a specific measurement methodology based on three major components of responsible corporate behaviour towards customers and on content analysis of the Eurostat databases, the RAPEX 2012 Annual Report, the 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Report and the Global Reporting Initiative database. We used the multifactorial regression and the Wald significance test to demonstrate that organisations operating in countries characterised by low power distance, individualism, femininity, tolerance of unknown and long-term orientation pay more attention to responsible corporate behaviour towards customers. The study highlights theoretical considerations that support the influence of the national cultural framework on responsible corporate behaviour towards consumers. The methodology for calculating the index of responsible corporate behaviour towards consumers can become a basis of analysis of responsible corporate behaviour towards local consumers or other stakeholders.

  13. Promoting reading skills or wasting time? Students’ perceived benefits of reading in an intermediary programme at the Vaal University of Technology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Linda Scott

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Notwithstanding the substantial transformation of education in South Africa in the last 20 years, specifically to redress the past inequalities, the challenges are ongoing. These challenges include tertiary institutions having to accommodate a culturally and linguistically diverse group of students, often second-language (L2 English speakers, in an English lingua franca classroom. This study investigated the reading attitudes and habits of students in an intermediary programme of a tertiary institution and any perceived changes to these attitudes or habits, as well as their perceptions of the promotion of reading by the programme. On successful completion of the intermediary programme, students register for the compulsory first-year English distance learning course and are required to complete a placement test. Results for students who attended the intermediary programme were compared with those of students who did not attend the intermediary programme but registered directly for mainstream. The teaching of reading appeared invaluable at the tertiary level with the indication that students’ attitudes and behaviour changed and that they inter alia realised the academic value thereof, made decisions to take up reading as a hobby and discovered new genres. Keywords: Reading; Linguistically diverse

  14. Teaching Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Day, Richard R.

    2013-01-01

    "Teaching Reading" uncovers the interactive processes that happen when people learn to read and translates them into a comprehensive easy-to-follow guide on how to teach reading. Richard Day's revelations on the nature of reading, reading strategies, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and reading objectives make fascinating…

  15. Slow Reading: Reading along "Lectio" Lines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badley, K. Jo-Ann; Badley, Ken

    2011-01-01

    The medieval monastic movement preserved and developed reading practices--lectio--from ancient Greek pedagogy as a slow, mindful approach to reading for formation. This ancient way of reading, now better known as lectio divina, challenges the fast, pragmatic reading so characteristic of our time. We propose that the present moment may be ripe for…

  16. Reading Psalm 23 In African Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David T. Adamo

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The book of Psalms is the best known, most discussed and most cited book of the Old Testament. Psalm 23 especially is the most loved book of the Psalms. That must have been the reason why it was named ‘an American icon’ and the ‘nightingale of the Psalms’. Two major ways of reading this Psalm are: as a shepherd to a sheep and as God to a human. The author of this article reads Psalms 23 Africentrically, that is, as God to a human. This means that Psalms 23 is read for the purpose of protection, provision, healing and success in all aspects of life, which are the main concerns of African people. It means reading Psalm 23 existentially with African life interest. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is concerned with biblical studies, African Traditional Religion and culture and African Biblical Hermeneutics. It seeks to challenge the traditional Eurocentric approaches for its methodological approaches that do not make biblical studies adequately relevant to African Christianity. The book of Psalms is used as a perfect example of how it can be interpreted relevantly in Africa. Further implication is that there will be reduction of the Bible and Christianity looking like a foreign book and religion.

  17. Faculty Perspectives on Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices in Developmental Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raney, Kristen A.

    2013-01-01

    This mixed methods study examined the perspectives of developmental math faculty at a two-year technical college regarding culturally responsive beliefs and instructional practices. Thirteen faculty who taught the developmental class Elementary Algebra with Applications were surveyed. Nine of the 13 faculty responded. One section of Wisconsin's…

  18. Organizational culture during the accident response process

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shurberg, D.A.; Haber, S.B.

    1992-01-01

    The ability of an organization to effectively move from an anticipatory to an ad hoc strategy may well depend on the organization having the ability to balance these two apparently dichotomous cultural styles. The organization which is most capable of making the necessary transition in an optimal manner may well exhibit some aspects of both cultural styles during normal operations. Data collected at one NPP does exhibit this pattern of results, with the organization exhibiting a clear hierarchical chain of command and perceived conventional behavioral expectations as well as exhibiting a more decentralized and collegial approach to decisionmaking, a team work orientation, and informal communications. Thus, it is expected that this organization possesses the capabilities to make a successful transition from an anticipatory to an ad hoc strategy. Data collected at a second NPP more strongly exhibits the traditional style suggested as being important during the anticipatory strategy, with more formal communications and bureaucratically controlled decision-making. This organization may experience difficulty if faced with the need to make a transition from an anticipatory to an ad hoc strategy. These conclusions are further validated based on observation of Emergency Preparedness Exercise Inspections, which suggest that the more anticipatory types of behaviors actually inhibit successful performance during an ad hoc response. The final validation of these hypotheses needs to be demonstrated with cultural data collected during emergency simulations. The mechanism to obtain such data during these types of situations is an area for future research

  19. Affordances of the Cultural Inquiry Process in Building Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Capacity for Cultural Responsiveness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Frieda; Bartell, Tonya; Novak, Jodie D.

    2017-01-01

    Over the last couple of decades, there has been a growing call for teachers to become more responsive to the increasing cultural diversity of students as a means of improving students' experiences in school and their learning outcomes. Challenges exist in working with secondary mathematics teachers due to the common belief that math is…

  20. Culture, threat, and mental illness stigma: identifying culture-specific threat among Chinese-American groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Lawrence H; Purdie-Vaughns, Valerie; Kotabe, Hiroki; Link, Bruce G; Saw, Anne; Wong, Gloria; Phelan, Jo C

    2013-07-01

    We incorporate anthropological insights into a stigma framework to elucidate the role of culture in threat perception and stigma among Chinese groups. Prior work suggests that genetic contamination that jeopardizes the extension of one's family lineage may comprise a culture-specific threat among Chinese groups. In Study 1, a national survey conducted from 2002 to 2003 assessed cultural differences in mental illness stigma and perceptions of threat in 56 Chinese-Americans and 589 European-Americans. Study 2 sought to empirically test this culture-specific threat of genetic contamination to lineage via a memory paradigm. Conducted from June to August 2010, 48 Chinese-American and 37 European-American university students in New York City read vignettes containing content referring to lineage or non-lineage concerns. Half the participants in each ethnic group were assigned to a condition in which the illness was likely to be inherited (genetic condition) and the rest read that the illness was unlikely to be inherited (non-genetic condition). Findings from Study 1 and 2 were convergent. In Study 1, culture-specific threat to lineage predicted cultural variation in stigma independently and after accounting for other forms of threat. In Study 2, Chinese-Americans in the genetic condition were more likely to accurately recall and recognize lineage content than the Chinese-Americans in the non-genetic condition, but that memorial pattern was not found for non-lineage content. The identification of this culture-specific threat among Chinese groups has direct implications for culturally-tailored anti-stigma interventions. Further, this framework might be implemented across other conditions and cultural groups to reduce stigma across cultures. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. How Cultural Differences Affect Written and Oral Communication: The Case of Peer Response Groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, Gayle L.

    1997-01-01

    Peer response groups contribute to students' effectiveness as writers in any field, but cultural differences in communication affect interactions within the group. Culture-based dimensions on which communication may differ include individualism/collectivism, power distance, concept of "face," and communication style. Recommendations are…

  2. Responding to Reading Instruction in a Primary-Grade Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mokhtari, Kouider; Porter, Leah; Edwards, Patricia

    2010-01-01

    In this article, the authors present a snapshot of how one kindergarten and Reading Recovery teacher organized instruction in her classroom, enabling her to provide constructively responsive reading assessment and instruction for her developing and struggling readers. (Contains 2 figures.)

  3. The effects of corporate social responsibility on employees' affective commitment: a cross-cultural investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Karsten; Hattrup, Kate; Spiess, Sven-Oliver; Lin-Hi, Nick

    2012-11-01

    This study investigated the moderating effects of several Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) cultural value dimensions on the relationship between employees' perceptions of their organization's social responsibility and their affective organizational commitment. Based on data from a sample of 1,084 employees from 17 countries, results showed that perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) was positively related to employees' affective commitment (AC), after controlling for individual job satisfaction and gender as well as for nation-level differences in unemployment rates. In addition, several GLOBE value dimensions moderated the effects of CSR on AC. In particular, perceptions of CSR were more positively related to AC in cultures higher in humane orientation, institutional collectivism, ingroup collectivism, and future orientation and in cultures lower in power distance. Implications for future CSR research and cross-cultural human resources management are discussed. (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

  4. What Brain Research Suggests for Teaching Reading Strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willis, Judy

    2009-01-01

    How the brain learns to read has been the subject of much neuroscience educational research. Evidence is mounting for identifiable networks of connected neurons that are particularly active during reading processes such as response to visual and auditory stimuli, relating new information to prior knowledge, long-term memory storage, comprehension,…

  5. Gender, culture, and sex-typed cognitive abilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reilly, David

    2012-01-01

    Although gender differences in cognitive abilities are frequently reported, the magnitude of these differences and whether they hold practical significance in the educational outcomes of boys and girls is highly debated. Furthermore, when gender gaps in reading, mathematics and science literacy are reported they are often attributed to innate, biological differences rather than social and cultural factors. Cross-cultural evidence may contribute to this debate, and this study reports national gender differences in reading, mathematics and science literacy from 65 nations participating in the 2009 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Consistently across all nations, girls outperform boys in reading literacy, d = -.44. Boys outperform girls in mathematics in the USA, d = .22 and across OECD nations, d = .13. For science literacy, while the USA showed the largest gender difference across all OECD nations, d = .14, gender differences across OECD nations were non-significant, and a small female advantage was found for non-OECD nations, d = -.09. Across all three domains, these differences were more pronounced at both tails of the distribution for low- and high-achievers. Considerable cross-cultural variability was also observed, and national gender differences were correlated with gender equity measures, economic prosperity, and Hofstede's cultural dimension of power distance. Educational and societal implications of such gender gaps are addressed, as well as the mechanisms by which gender differences in cognitive abilities are culturally mediated.

  6. Gender, culture, and sex-typed cognitive abilities.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Reilly

    Full Text Available Although gender differences in cognitive abilities are frequently reported, the magnitude of these differences and whether they hold practical significance in the educational outcomes of boys and girls is highly debated. Furthermore, when gender gaps in reading, mathematics and science literacy are reported they are often attributed to innate, biological differences rather than social and cultural factors. Cross-cultural evidence may contribute to this debate, and this study reports national gender differences in reading, mathematics and science literacy from 65 nations participating in the 2009 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA. Consistently across all nations, girls outperform boys in reading literacy, d = -.44. Boys outperform girls in mathematics in the USA, d = .22 and across OECD nations, d = .13. For science literacy, while the USA showed the largest gender difference across all OECD nations, d = .14, gender differences across OECD nations were non-significant, and a small female advantage was found for non-OECD nations, d = -.09. Across all three domains, these differences were more pronounced at both tails of the distribution for low- and high-achievers. Considerable cross-cultural variability was also observed, and national gender differences were correlated with gender equity measures, economic prosperity, and Hofstede's cultural dimension of power distance. Educational and societal implications of such gender gaps are addressed, as well as the mechanisms by which gender differences in cognitive abilities are culturally mediated.

  7. Working memory influences processing speed and reading fluency in ADHD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacobson, Lisa A; Ryan, Matthew; Martin, Rebecca B; Ewen, Joshua; Mostofsky, Stewart H; Denckla, Martha B; Mahone, E Mark

    2011-01-01

    Processing-speed deficits affect reading efficiency, even among individuals who recognize and decode words accurately. Children with ADHD who decode words accurately can still have inefficient reading fluency, leading to a bottleneck in other cognitive processes. This "slowing" in ADHD is associated with deficits in fundamental components of executive function underlying processing speed, including response selection. The purpose of the present study was to deconstruct processing speed in order to determine which components of executive control best explain the "processing" speed deficits related to reading fluency in ADHD. Participants (41 ADHD, 21 controls), ages 9-14 years, screened for language disorders, word reading deficits, and psychiatric disorders, were administered measures of copying speed, processing speed, reading fluency, working memory, reaction time, inhibition, and auditory attention span. Compared to controls, children with ADHD showed reduced oral and silent reading fluency and reduced processing speed-driven primarily by deficits on WISC-IV Coding. In contrast, groups did not differ on copying speed. After controlling for copying speed, sex, severity of ADHD-related symptomatology, and GAI, slowed "processing" speed (i.e., Coding) was significantly associated with verbal span and measures of working memory but not with measures of response control/inhibition, lexical retrieval speed, reaction time, or intrasubject variability. Further, "processing" speed (i.e., Coding, residualized for copying speed) and working memory were significant predictors of oral reading fluency. Abnormalities in working memory and response selection (which are frontally mediated and enter into the output side of processing speed) may play an important role in deficits in reading fluency in ADHD, potentially more than posteriorally mediated problems with orienting of attention or perceiving the stimulus.

  8. The What, Why, and How of Culturally Responsive Teaching: International Mandates, Challenges, and Opportunities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gay, Geneva

    2015-01-01

    This discussion acknowledges that culturally responsive teaching is relevant for international contexts. However, it needs to be nuanced to fit the specific characteristics and needs of these different settings, relative to societal dynamics, and student ethnic, cultural, racial, immigration/migration, economic, and linguistic demographics.…

  9. THE IMPORTANCE OF ‘SIGNIFICANT OTHERS’ IN BRIDGING THE GAPS BETWEEN DIFFERENT READING CONTEXTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna-Karin Svensson

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The current research is an in-depth study of four pre-service teachers’ own experience of reading in various contexts and for different reasons. The aim is to analyse what has been significant regarding reading in a life history perspective by the use of narratives. A socio-cultural perspective on reading is used as analysis tool. The over-arching result from analysing pre-service teachers’ narratives is that reading is a relational process regardless of the context reading takes place in. The emerging themes allow a deeper understanding on critical aspects for developing reading in various contexts and at different levels. Significant others seem important in every reading practice, from new readers in primary school to pre-service teachers’ reading at university level. The narratives reveal a need for bridging the gaps that arise between the reading practices in the various contexts that students meet in school and university.

  10. The Clinical and Classroom Utility of the Inventory of Reading Occupations: An Assessment Tool of Children ’s Reading Participation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lenin Grajo

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Background: The aim of this study was to determine the initial clinical and classroom utility of the Inventory of Reading Occupations (IRO, a new tool to assess children’s reading participation. Method: The study used phenomenological qualitative and descriptive methods. The participants included 38 occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, classroom teachers, and parents who completed or reviewed responses of children on the IRO. To provide triangulation, 20 of the children who completed the IRO were interviewed. Data were thematically analyzed and then categorized using a central StrengthsWeaknesses-Opportunities-Threats premise. Results: The majority of the participants indicated favorable response to the clinical and classroom utility of the tool. Common themes were (a the IRO is a user-friendly and engaging assessment that allows students to reflect on their reading participation; (b the IRO is more suitable for children who engage in more structured reading; (c the IRO can be adapted for older children; and (d there is a need to identify whether the IRO is better as a screening or a full assessment tool. Conclusion: The study provided useful perspectives on how the tool can be further improved as a measure of the reading participation of school-aged children.

  11. Reading comprehension and reading related abilities in adolescents with reading disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghelani, Karen; Sidhu, Robindra; Jain, Umesh; Tannock, Rosemary

    2004-11-01

    Reading comprehension is a very complex task that requires different cognitive processes and reading abilities over the life span. There are fewer studies of reading comprehension relative to investigations of word reading abilities. Reading comprehension difficulties, however, have been identified in two common and frequently overlapping childhood disorders: reading disability (RD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The nature of reading comprehension difficulties in these groups remains unclear. The performance of four groups of adolescents (RD, ADHD, comorbid ADHD and RD, and normal controls) was compared on reading comprehension tasks as well as on reading rate and accuracy tasks. Adolescents with RD showed difficulties across most reading tasks, although their comprehension scores were average. Adolescents with ADHD exhibited adequate single word reading abilities. Subtle difficulties were observed, however, on measures of text reading rate and accuracy as well as on silent reading comprehension, but scores remained in the average range. The comorbid group demonstrated similar difficulties to the RD group on word reading accuracy and on reading rate but experienced problems on only silent reading comprehension. Implications for reading interventions are outlined, as well as the clinical relevance for diagnosis.

  12. The Explicit Instruction of Reading Strategies: Directed Reading Thinking Activity vs. Guided Reading Strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Mehdi Yazdani

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Investigating the efficiencies and deficiencies of reading strategies is one of the noticeable issues in the related theory and research in reading comprehension instruction. This study was to examine the impact of Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA and Guided Reading (GR on reading comprehension. Sixty three Iranian students of grade one in Shahed high school in the city of Bojnourd took part in the study. They were assigned in three groups, one control and two experimental groups. The instruction lasted for ten weeks. This study utilized a pretest posttest control group in quantitative quasi- experimental design. The same reading comprehension test was administered as pre-test and post-test. The results were twofold: First, the instruction of learning strategies could foster reading comprehension skill. Second, while the explicit instruction of both strategies could improve the students' reading comprehension skill, Directed Reading Thinking Activity had a more significant positive effect than Guided Reading.

  13. Behavioral Theory and Culture Special Issue: Authors' Response to Commentaries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pasick, Rena J.; Burke, Nancy J.; Joseph, Galen

    2009-01-01

    This article presents the authors' response to commentaries that focus on the "Behavioral Constructs and Culture in Cancer Screening" (3Cs) study. The 3Cs study had an unremarkable beginning, with two colleagues discussing their frustration over the narrow range of behavioral theories and the limited guidance the theories offered for a study…

  14. Developmental Relations Between Reading Comprehension and Reading Strategies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Muijselaar, M.; Swart, N.M.; Steenbeek-Planting, E.G,.; Droop, M.; Verhoeven, L.; de Jong, P.F.

    2017-01-01

    We examined the developmental relations between knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension in a longitudinal study of 312 Dutch children from the beginning of fourth grade to the end of fifth grade. Measures for reading comprehension, reading strategies, reading fluency, vocabulary,

  15. Culture in Context: An Interdisciplinary Travel Study Course.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Karen A.; O'Neill, Geraldine P.

    2002-01-01

    Describes an interdisciplinary travel study course designed to teach cultural appreciation and sensitivity in context. Readings and instruction focus on cultural issues that affect business and marketing practices, using France and the French as the subjects of the study. (Author/VWL)

  16. Culture, health, and bigotry: How exposure to cultural accounts of fatness shape attitudes about health risk, health policies, and weight-based prejudice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frederick, David A; Saguy, Abigail C; Gruys, Kjerstin

    2016-09-01

    We conducted three experiments to examine how cultural frames shape attitudes about health, focusing on obesity, which is considered a public health crisis and is imbued with symbolic meaning. College students (Ns = 99, 114, and 293) read news articles that presented high body weight according to one or more of the following frames: 1) public health crisis; 2) personal responsibility; 3) health at every size (HAES); or 4) fat rights. Compared to people who read the HAES and Fat Rights articles, those who read the Public Health Crisis and Personal Responsibility articles expressed more belief in the health risks of being fat (ds = 1.28 to 1.79), belief that fat people should pay more for insurance (ds = 0.53 to 0.71), anti-fat prejudice (ds = 0.61 to 0.69), willingness to discriminate against fat people (ds = 0.41 to 0.59), and less willingness to celebrate body-size diversity (ds = 0.77 to 1.07). They were less willing to say women at the lower end of the obese range could be healthy. Exposure to these articles increased support for price-raising policies to curb obesity but not support for redistributive or compensatory policies. In Experiment 3, in comparison to a control condition, exposure to HAES or Fat Rights frames significantly reduced beliefs in the risks of obesity and support for charging fat people more for insurance. However, only people exposed to the Fat Rights frame expressed fewer anti-fat attitudes and more willingness to celebrate body-size diversity. Our findings suggest that simply disseminating information that people can be both fat and healthy will not suffice to reduce prejudice. Given that anti-fat stigma is a health risk and barrier to collective solidarity, fat rights viewpoints can buffer against the negative consequences of anti-fat stigma and promote a culture of health by fostering empathy and social justice. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. When does picture naming take longer than word reading?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea eValente

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Differences between the cognitive processes involved in word reading and picture naming are well established (e.g. visual or lexico-semantic stages. Still, it is commonly thought that retrieval of phonological forms is shared across tasks. We report a test of this second hypothesis based on the time course of electroencephalographic (EEG neural activity, reasoning that similar EEG patterns might index similar processing stages.Seventeen participants named objects and read aloud the corresponding words while their behavior and EEG activity were recorded. The latter was analyzed from stimulus onset onwards (stimulus-locked analysis and from response onset backwards (response-locked analysis, using non-parametric statistics and the spatio-temporal segmentation of ERPs.Behavioral results confirmed that reading entails shorter latencies than naming. The analysis of EEG activity within the stimulus-to-response period allowed distinguishing three phases, broadly successive. Early on, we observed identical distribution of electric field potentials (i.e. topographies albeit with large amplitude divergences between tasks. Then, we observed sustained cross-task differences in topographies accompanied by extended amplitude differences. Finally, the two tasks again revealed the same topographies, with significant cross-task delays in their onsets and offsets, and still significant amplitude differences. In the response-locked ERPs, the common topography displayed an offset closer to response articulation in word reading compared with picture naming, that is the transition between the offset of this shared map and the onset of articulation was significantly faster in word reading.The results suggest that the degree of cross-task similarity varies across time. The first phase suggests similar visual processes of variable intensity and time course across tasks, while the second phase suggests marked differences. Finally, similarities and differences within the

  18. Forecasting Reading Anxiety for Promoting English-Language Reading Performance Based on Reading Annotation Behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Chih-Ming; Wang, Jung-Ying; Chen, Yong-Ting; Wu, Jhih-Hao

    2016-01-01

    To reduce effectively the reading anxiety of learners while reading English articles, a C4.5 decision tree, a widely used data mining technique, was used to develop a personalized reading anxiety prediction model (PRAPM) based on individual learners' reading annotation behavior in a collaborative digital reading annotation system (CDRAS). In…

  19. Culture shapes a mesolimbic response to signals of dominance and subordination that associates with behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freeman, Jonathan B; Rule, Nicholas O; Adams, Reginald B; Ambady, Nalini

    2009-08-01

    It has long been understood that culture shapes individuals' behavior, but how this is accomplished in the human brain has remained largely unknown. To examine this, we made use of a well-established cross-cultural difference in behavior: American culture tends to reinforce dominant behavior whereas, conversely, Japanese culture tends to reinforce subordinate behavior. In 17 Americans and 17 Japanese individuals, we assessed behavioral tendencies towards dominance versus subordination and measured neural responses using fMRI during the passive viewing of stimuli related to dominance and subordination. In Americans, dominant stimuli selectively engaged the caudate nucleus, bilaterally, and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), whereas these were selectively engaged by subordinate stimuli in Japanese. Correspondingly, Americans self-reported a tendency towards more dominant behavior whereas Japanese self-reported a tendency towards more subordinate behavior. Moreover, activity in the right caudate and mPFC correlated with behavioral tendencies towards dominance versus subordination, such that stronger responses in the caudate and mPFC to dominant stimuli were associated with more dominant behavior and stronger responses in the caudate and mPFC to subordinate stimuli were associated with more subordinate behavior. The findings provide a first demonstration that culture can flexibly shape functional activity in the mesolimbic reward system, which in turn may guide behavior.

  20. Responsibility and Social Solidarity as Values of Organizational Culture in Venezuelan Schools

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eva Pasek De Pinto

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The controversial and even hostile climate of coexistence of many schools formed a culture where prevailing values contrary to the stated vision and mission. Therefore, the objective of the study was to describe the responsibility and social solidarity as values of organizational culture in Venezuelan schools. Methodologically, it was a descriptive research with field design. The population was 200 subjects and sample of 74 members of staff managerial, teaching, administrative and environmental support of three schools. To gather information about the variables responsibility and social solidarity a valid and reliable questionnaire was applied (79.7%, alpha of Cronbach. As result it was found empirical evidence that 69% of the staff is responsible and 40% is solidarity. In conclusion, the practice of organizational values is not ideal or generalized because only some of its aspects are practiced in addition that not all the staff practice them. Low solidarity makes it difficult the coexistence, for the success and excellence of institutions.

  1. Cultural and musical activity among Norwegian doctors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nylenna, Magne; Aasland, Olaf Gjerløw

    2013-06-25

    The cultural and musical activity of Norwegian doctors was studied in 1993. We wished to re-examine their cultural and musical activity, analyse the development and study the correlation with satisfaction, health and other leisure activities. In the autumn of 2010, a survey was undertaken among a representative sample of economically active Norwegian doctors. The survey asked the same questions as in 1993, and the responses were also compared to the population studies conducted by Statistics Norway. We also used a cultural index that we have developed ourselves. Altogether 1,019 doctors (70%) responded to the survey. They reported a higher level of cultural activity in 2010 than in 1993, measured in terms of reading of non-medical literature and visits to the cinema, theatre and concerts. The doctors engaged in musical activity of their own especially frequently: 58% reported to be able to play an instrument, and 21% reported to play on a regular basis, which is more than among other academic professions. We found a significant correlation between the doctors' level of cultural activity and their job satisfaction, general satisfaction, self-reported health and physical activity. The doctors who engage most frequently in cultural activities are thus most satisfied with their work and with life in general. Furthermore, they also have better self-reported health. Norwegian doctors give priority to cultural and musical activities. The assertion that doctors are particularly fond of music is more than just a myth.

  2. Factors Contributing to Learners’ Autonomy in EFL Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sri Endah Tabiati

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: This study aims to discover factors that assist learners develop their autonomy in EFL reading. The approach employed is qualitative involving EFL learners in an English Department of the Faculty of Cultural Studies, Brawijaya University Malang. There are two stages in the study: the subject selection stage intended to gain potential subjects and the main study intended to find the answer of the research questions. The findings of the study show that the autonomy of EFL learners in reading is influenced by 14 internal and 14 external factors.These factors appear to happen naturally. It seemed that autonomy in reading is subconscious and has been gained by the subjects gradually since childhood. Moreover, autonomy in EFL reading is presumed to be universal as it is found in a collectivist culture such as the one in Indonesia. Based on the findings, suggestions are proposed and addressed to Reading lecturers, parents and the faculty representing the goverment. Because the factors seem to occur before they study at a university, the suggestions are also addressed to teachers and schools. Key Words: internal factors, external factors, contribution, learners’ autonomy, EFL reading Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan faktor yang membantu mahasiswa dalam mengembangkan kemampuannya secara otonom pada kemampuan membaca EFL. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain kualitative dengan melibatkan mahasiswa kategori EFL Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Universitas Brawijaya Malang. Terdapat dua thapa dalam penelitian ini. Tahap pertama merupakan pemilihan subyek yang bertujuan untuk mencari subyek yang berpotensi dan setelah itu penelitian dilakukan untuk menjawab rumusan masalah. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa sikap otonom mahasiswa EFL dalam kemampuan membaca dipengaruhi oleh 14 faktor internal dan 14 faktor eksternal. Faktor-faktor tersebut muncul secara natural. Terlihat bahwa sikap otonom dalam kemampuan membaca merupakah hal yang terjadi

  3. Changes in microfilament and focal adhesion distribution with loss of androgen responsiveness in cultured mammary tumor cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Couchman, J R; Yates, J; King, R J

    1981-01-01

    of the cells to grow in suspension culture. All these parameters were documented for androgen-responsive and -unresponsive cells grown in culture, as well as the transition of androgen-responsive to -unresponsive cells when deprived of androgen. The androgen-unresponsive cells had extensive and prominent...... microfilament bundles together with focal adhesions on the lower cell surface and also showed strict anchorage dependence for growth. In contrast, microfilament bundles and focal adhesions were absent from androgen-responsive cells, which furthermore had the ability to grow in suspension culture. Differences......, characteristics of both cell types were visible in the cell populations. However, at the stage where all androgen-responsive characteristics were lost, the cells were no longer androgen sensitive. The loss of androgen responsiveness in Shionogi 115 mouse mammary tumor cells is correlated with changes at the cell...

  4. Examining How Proactive Management and Culturally Responsive Teaching Relate to Student Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Larson, Kristine E.; Pas, Elise T.; Bradshaw, Catherine P.; Rosenberg, Michael S.; Day-Vines, Norma L.

    2018-01-01

    The discipline gap between White students and African American students has increased demand for teacher training in culturally responsive and behavior management practices. Extant research, however, is inconclusive about how culturally responsive teaching practices relate to student behavior or how to assess using such practices in the classroom.…

  5. Software theory a cultural and philosophical study

    CERN Document Server

    Frabetti, Federica

    2014-01-01

    This book engages directly in close readings of technical texts and computer code in order to show how software works. It offers an analysis of the cultural, political, and philosophical implications of software technologies that demonstrates the significance of software for the relationship between technology, philosophy, culture, and society.

  6. Creating Spaces for Urban Youth: The Emergence of Culturally Responsive (Hip-Hop) School Leadership and Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khalifa, Muhammad

    2013-01-01

    Ladson-Billings, Gay and among others have demonstrated the strong need for educational curriculum and practice to respond to the specific academic, cultural, and social needs of culturally unique, minoritized students. This article focuses on culturally responsive leadership practices for students with Hip-Hop identity performatives. This…

  7. An Investigation of a Culturally Responsive Approach to Science Education in a Summer Program for Marginalized Youth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garvin, Brittany A.

    There have been numerous calls and efforts made to provide states, school districts, and communities needed financial support to increase and enhance access to and opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) related disciplines for marginalized populations (Tyson, Lee, & Hanson, 2007; Caldwell & Siwatu, 2003). As the challenge to better educate students of color and poor students intensifies, the need to provide equitable science learning experiences for all students aimed at scientific literacy and STEM also becomes critical. Thus the need to provide summer science enrichment programs where students engage in scientific experimentation, investigation, and critical thinking are vital to helping students who have been traditionally marginalized achieve success in school science and enter the science career pipeline. This mixed methods study examined the impact of a culturally responsive approach on student attitudes, interests in science education and STEM careers, and basic science content knowledge before and after participation in an upward bound summer program. Quantitative results indicated using a culturally responsive approach to teach science in an informal learning space significantly increases student achievement. Students receiving culturally responsive science instruction exhibited statistically significant increases in their posttest science scores compared to pretest science scores, M = 0.376, 95% CI [0.266, 0.487], t (10) = 7.610, p < 0.001. Likewise, students receiving culturally responsive science instruction had a significantly higher interest in science (M = 1.740, SD = 0.548) and STEM careers, M = 0.597, 95% CI [0.276, 0.919], p = 0.001. The qualitative data obtained in this study sought to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impact of a culturally responsive approach on students' attitudes, interests in science and STEM careers. Findings suggest providing students the opportunity to do and learn science utilizing a

  8. Baby, you light-up my face: culture-general physiological responses to infants and culture-specific cognitive judgements of adults.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gianluca Esposito

    Full Text Available Infants universally elicit in adults a set of solicitous behaviors that are evolutionarily important for the survival of the species. However, exposure, experience, and prejudice appear to govern adults' social choice and ingroup attitudes towards other adults. In the current study, physiological arousal and behavioral judgments were assessed while adults processed unfamiliar infant and adult faces of ingroup vs. outgroup members in two contrasting cultures, Japan and Italy. Physiological arousal was investigated using the novel technique of infrared thermography and behavioral judgments using ratings. We uncovered a dissociation between physiological and behavioral responses. At the physiological level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant activation (increase of facial temperature for both ingroup and outgroup infant faces. At the behavioral level, both Japanese and Italian adults showed significant preferences for ingroup adults. Arousal responses to infants appear to be mediated by the autonomic nervous system and are not dependent on direct caregiving exposure, but behavioral responses appear to be mediated by higher-order cognitive processing based on social acceptance and cultural exposure.

  9. Media discourse on Split reading rooms and libraries in Dalmatian periodicals (1862 - 1918

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivanka Kuić

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The paper focuses on the media discourse on reading rooms and libraries as a historical phenomenon that describes the role and place of reading rooms and libraries in Dalmatia in the 60ties of the 19th century and World War I. The papers in Dalmatian newspapers from that period, as materialized forms of discourse, answer many important questions related to the history of Croatian librarianship: how were the reading rooms and libraries established and what crucial concept determined their role and place in a particular period in history. The paper presents the historical concept, conditions in which the discourse occurred, discourse types and functions, conceptual structure, and transformation processes towards new discourse practices. The discourse analysis has shown that the reading rooms and libraries are cultural artifacts strongly influenced by the social context. Two stages in the development of discourse have been identified: in the first stage the discourse takes a considerable role in metaphorical games and construction of mythical structures - ethnic identity, national unity and language community. On the conceptual level the role of reading rooms and libraries is recognized in the deconstruction of traditional relations - they are a territorially separate, exclusive place of symbolic production, creation of new social structures and cultural values. In that context, the activities of libraries are underrepresented compared to other activities of reading rooms. The second stage, which started in the 90ies of the 19th century, is marked by discourse multiplication, differentiation of library organization structure and function from other functions of culture, and the strong influence of new discourse. The media discourse presents the change of conceptual structures, in which the role and place of libraries is interpreted in the context of the role of knowledge and education in meeting society goals in the situation of social

  10. Empathy without borders? Cross-cultural heart and mind-reading in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Background: This cross-cultural study was designed to examine cultural differences in empathy levels of first-year medical students. Methods: A total of 257 students from the academic year 2010/11, 131 at Jimma University, Ethiopia, and 126 at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, completed the Balanced ...

  11. Expresssing culture through drama: a reading of Anowa and the ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper examines the relationship between literature and culture through seminal effort exhibited in two plays; Anowa and The Marriage of Anansewa by Ama Atta Aidoo and Efua Sutherland respectively. With various discourse in the plays, we strive to analyse the link between literature and culture. The paper begins

  12. The State of Reading in Selected Secondary Schools in Oyo State ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Nekky Umera

    Introduction ... culture, lack of reading materials and other socio-economic, have been ... One of the fundamental objectives of education is to produce a literate .... carry out the study, appropriate questions that captured the issues that are.

  13. IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH IINTERACTIVE READ-ALOUD TECHNIQUE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edi Santoso

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: The present study, entitled Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension through Interactive Read-Aloud, attempts to unlock problems found in teaching and reading comprehension through interactive read-aloud in a Senior High School of Sport (SMAN Olah Raga Lampung, in Metro. The findings revealed that students’ reading comprehension improved through interactive read-aloud. The improvement can be seen from the increase of test results, meaning construction, and motivation. The process of reading activities showed that the teacher’s gesture and body language, 20 questions, explain and guess activities were proven to help the students construct meaning from the given texts. In addition, interactive read-aloud is effective to boost students’ motivation to comprehend the texts.   Key words: Reading comprehension, interactive read-aloud.

  14. Your Place or Mine? Reading Art, Place and Culture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brander, Birgitte Gade; Reisberg, Mira; Greenwood, David

    2006-01-01

    and force colleges of education into the position of creating programs that demonstrate compliance with governing codes. Educational practices are usually developed and become entrenched without a clear articulation of the theories on which they are founded. Critical pedagogy is committed to the exploration...... and development of a culture of schooling that supports the nature of self-conscious critique. Like critical pedagogues, place-based educators are centrally concerned with cultural context of teaching and learning and the role of schooling in shaping and reconstructing society. In drawing on the local environment...

  15. Physiological Response of In Vitro Cultured MAGNOLIA SP. to Nutrient Medium Composition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Sokolov Rossen

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study was to assess the regeneration response of in vitro cultured Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Alexandrina’ and Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’ to nutrient medium composition. In the primary culture (initiated from dormant axillary buds combinations of Murashige and Skoog (MS basal salts with 6-benzylaminopurine and α-naphthaleneacetic acid were tested. The primary explants of cv. ‘Alexandrina’ expressed higher regeneration rate than cv. ‘Nigra’. For both species, the regen eration was most strongly potentiated at addition of 0.25 mg dm−3 of the cytokinin alone. The auxin exerted undesir–able effects. Several basal salts media were applied in proliferation stage and their physiological effects were evaluated in reference to traditionally used MS. At culturing on Chée & Pool C2d Vitis Medium (VM that is for the first time introduced to magnolia and on MS, M. liliiflora formed more but less elongated shoots than M. soulangeana. However, on VM, substantial increase (25-30% of the number of axillary shoots and leaves, shoot length and fresh and dry weights over MS was established for both species. This suggested VM as promising composition of nutrients in multiplication stage. Microshoots obtained on MS, VM, Rugini Olive Medium and DKW Juglans Medium were successfully rooted in vitro and subsequently established ex vitro. The findings expand the information on magnolia response to culture conditions and contribute to elaboration of innovative elements of protocols for establishing tissue cultures with high regeneration capacity.

  16. Reading faster

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul Nation

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available This article describes the visual nature of the reading process as it relates to reading speed. It points out that there is a physical limit on normal reading speed and beyond this limit the reading process will be different from normal reading where almost every word is attended to. The article describes a range of activities for developing reading fluency, and suggests how the development of fluency can become part of a reading programme.

  17. 3D culture of Her2+ breast cancer cells promotes AKT to MAPK switching and a loss of therapeutic response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gangadhara, Sharath; Smith, Chris; Barrett-Lee, Peter; Hiscox, Stephen

    2016-06-01

    The Her2 receptor is overexpressed in up to 25 % of breast cancers and is associated with a poor prognosis. Around half of Her2+ breast cancers also express the estrogen receptor and treatment for such tumours can involve both endocrine and Her2-targeted therapies. However, despite preclinical data supporting the effectiveness of these agents, responses can vary widely in the clinical setting. In light of the increasing evidence pointing to the interplay between the tumour and its extracellular microenvironment as a significant determinant of therapeutic sensitivity and response here we investigated the impact of 3D matrix culture of breast cancer cells on their therapeutic sensitivity. A 3D Matrigel-based culture system was established and optimized for the growth of ER+/Her2+ breast cancer cell models. Growth of cells in response to trastuzumab and endocrine agents in 3D culture versus routine monolayer culture were assessed using cell counting and Ki67 staining. Endogenous and trastuzumab-modulated signalling pathway activity in 2D and 3D cultures were assessed using Western blotting. Breast cancer cells in 3D culture displayed an attenuated response to both endocrine agents and trastuzumab compared with cells cultured in traditional 2D monolayers. Underlying this phenomenon was an apparent matrix-induced shift from AKT to MAPK signalling; consequently, suppression of MAPK in 3D cultures restores therapeutic response. These data suggest that breast cancer cells in 3D culture display a reduced sensitivity to therapeutic agents which may be mediated by internal MAPK-mediated signalling. Targeting of adaptive pathways that maintain growth in 3D culture may represent an effective strategy to improve therapeutic response clinically.

  18. Autobiographies in Preservice Teacher Education: A Snapshot Tool for Building a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gunn, AnnMarie Alberton; Bennett, Susan V.; Evans, Linda Shuford; Peterson, Barbara J.; Welsh, James L.

    2013-01-01

    Many scholars have made the call for teacher educators to provide experiences that can lead preservice teachers to embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy. We investigated the use of brief autobiographies during an internship as a tool (a) for preservice teachers to examine their multidimensional culture; and (b) for teacher educators to assess…

  19. Response to Glenn

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephen Arons

    1998-01-01

    Full Text Available Arons responds to what he considers to be Glenn's misrepresentations of the tone and content of Short Route To Chaos. He writes that Glenn "appears to be attempting to construct the book's message into just one more salvo fired in the endless school wars. It is anything but....Reading Glenn's review, one is left with the impression that the book is a Christian-bashing, left-leaning, work of communitarian fuzziness in which a legal scholar unaccountably refuses to confine himself to ... technical explication of existing constitutional doctrine." In his response, Arons affirmatively sets out some of the book's main themes of political /cultural conflict over standardized schooling, corrects some of what he sees as Glenn's misunderstandings, and notes that the book itself invites readers to eschew partisanship and recognize that there are deep structural problems in American public education. In closing, Arons uses an example of Glenn's partisan misunderstanding that leads Arons to recommend to the reader that it would be better to read Short Route to Chaos for oneself.

  20. Modeling Local Item Dependence in Cloze and Reading Comprehension Test Items Using Testlet Response Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baghaei, Purya; Ravand, Hamdollah

    2016-01-01

    In this study the magnitudes of local dependence generated by cloze test items and reading comprehension items were compared and their impact on parameter estimates and test precision was investigated. An advanced English as a foreign language reading comprehension test containing three reading passages and a cloze test was analyzed with a…

  1. Women on boards and corporate social responsibility

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francesca Gennari

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Data by EU Commission show a low representation of women on boards. The scope of this article is to read contemporary and according to a managerial approach the possible causes of this situation: the availability of skills possessed by women to cover top positions, the presence of binding or self-regulatory rules and the corporate culture towards CSR approach. Our research is focused on EU countries, where the gender equality on board is currently matter of attention and regulatory interventions. We conclude that the scarce presence of women in the boardrooms is not ascribable to a scarcity of expertise, but it is associated with a social background and a corporate culture not inspired by corporate global responsibility values. Regulatory interventions may accelerate the consciousness of gender balance on boards, but without companies’ commitment in CSR matters and without a clear vision of corporate global responsibility (including economic, social and environmental aspects, they tend to become additional tasks in the management of corporate compliance risk.

  2. Promoting preschool reading

    OpenAIRE

    Istenič, Vesna

    2013-01-01

    The thesis titled Promoting preschool reading consists of a theoretiral and an empirical part. In the theoretical part I wrote about reading, the importance of reading, types of reading, about reading motivation, promoting reading motivation, internal and external motivation, influence of reading motivation on the child's reading activity, reading and familial literacy, the role of adults in promotion reading literacy, reading to a child and promoting reading in pre-school years, where I ...

  3. The development of an automated sentence generator for the assessment of reading speed

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Legge Gordon E

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Reading speed is an important outcome measure for many studies in neuroscience and psychology. Conventional reading speed tests have a limited corpus of sentences and usually require observers to read sentences aloud. Here we describe an automated sentence generator which can create over 100,000 unique sentences, scored using a true/false response. We propose that an estimate of the minimum exposure time required for observers to categorise the truth of such sentences is a good alternative to reading speed measures that guarantees comprehension of the printed material. Removing one word from the sentence reduces performance to chance, indicating minimal redundancy. Reading speed assessed using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP of these sentences is not statistically different from using MNREAD sentences. The automated sentence generator would be useful for measuring reading speed with button-press response (such as within MRI scanners and for studies requiring many repeated measures of reading speed.

  4. Contingency Teaching during Close Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, Douglas; Frey, Nancy

    2015-01-01

    12 teachers were interviewed and observed as they engaged students in close reading. We analyzed their responses and instruction to determine the scaffolds that were used as well as the contingency teaching plans they implemented when students were unable to understand the text.

  5. The reading teacher as a trainer of citizens

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennie Brand Barajas

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The present is a qualitative study by theorizing, from the approach of the problem of reading as a basic resource for the formation of citizens through education. It starts from the definition of the reading capacity, followed by the revision of the general characteristics of the reading brain proposed by Stalisnas Dehaene (2014, as well as the revolutions in the materials and devices used for the writing, besides the changes in the form of reading, from Sumerian tablets to digital technologies. The process of Education for Development and the distinctive features of digital citizenship are presented, which are: immediacy in the production, transmission and reception of messages; interactivity between receiver and producer; the multi-authoritarian, which gives birth to “the prosumers”; the accessibility of the environment; freedom of expression; the democratization of access and the appropriation of a public space. All this allows contextualizing new forms of reading and new profiles of readers, as well as the generation of virtual reading spaces where communities of dialogue and exchange are formed. The study reaches the teachers and their reading biographies, which largely define their competence to encourage reading among their students and their ability to mobilize them towards citizen responsibility through reading.

  6. Method for improved reading of a digital data disc

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2004-01-01

    Method for regulating the control signal for adjustment of the optical path between a data disc and a signal pick-up detector system in a data disc drive, where the control is regulated as a response to the deviation of the actual reading signals from expected reading signals, and wherein...

  7. "Este Libro Es Mi Historia": Mother-Child Interactions during Storybook Reading in a Mexican-American Household.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manyak, Patrick

    A study explored the storybook reading experiences between Ms. Garza and her children. A broad conception of the zone of proximal development, involving use, adaptation, and transformation of culturally shaped tools in the process of shared activity, provides the framework for examining this particular Mexican-American family's reading behavior.…

  8. Text-Selection for Teaching Reading to ESL Tertiary Students: A Study on Genre and Content Preferences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nordin, Razanawati; Eng, Lin Siew

    2017-01-01

    Most learners studying English language feel that their educators use irrelevant, uninteresting, and culturally unfamiliar reading materials for teaching reading. As a result, most of them struggle to comprehend the English language texts used by the teachers. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the genre and content preferences…

  9. Teaching and Learning Critical Reading with Transnational Texts at a Mexican University: An Emergentist Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perales Escudero, Moises Damian

    2011-01-01

    This dissertation project examines the implementation of a critical reading intervention in a Mexican university, and the emergence of target critical reading processes in Mexican college-level EFL readers. It uses a Complexity Theory-inspired, qualitative methodology. Orienting the selection and design of materials is a deep view of culture that…

  10. Cultural Journalism Publications for Reluctant Readers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hatcher, Barbara

    1980-01-01

    Provides a list of cultural journalism publications (based on oral history interviews) written, edited, and produced by students around the country that provide good easy reading for older reluctant readers. (MKM)

  11. Dealing with extreme response style in cross-cultural research: A restricted latent class factor approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Morren, M.H.; Gelissen, J.P.T.M.; Vermunt, J.K.

    2011-01-01

    Cross-cultural comparison of attitudes using rating scales may be seriously biased by response styles. This paper deals with statistical methods for detection of and correction for extreme response style (ERS), which is one of the well-documented response styles. After providing an overview of

  12. Enhancing L2 Reading Comprehension with Hypermedia Texts: Student Perceptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garrett-Rucks, Paula; Howles, Les; Lake, William M.

    2015-01-01

    This study extends current research about L2 hypermedia texts by investigating the combined use of audiovisual features including: (a) Contextualized images, (b) rollover translations, (c) cultural information, (d) audio explanations and (e) comprehension check exercises. Specifically, student perceptions of hypermedia readings compared to…

  13. Nissan Showcases the Results of an Energy-Wise Corporate Culture

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    2010-06-11

    The corporate leadership at Nissan cultivates a culture of energy efficiency, encouraging employees to practice good energy management at work and in every part of their lives. Read about Nissan's energy-conscience culture.

  14. Revisiting the IFN-γ release assay: Whole blood or PBMC cultures? - And other factors of influence

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartmann, Sofie Bruun; Emnéus, Jenny; Wolff, Anders

    2016-01-01

    light on external factors that could influence the read out in terms of IFN-γ levels. It was found that optimal culture conditions varied between individual animals; when polyclonal activated, cells from whole blood cultures were most responsive, but when activated specifically, the optimal cell....... However, there is no consensus whether to use whole blood cultures or purified PBMCs for the assay, and both cell populations are being used and results compared. Therefore the aim of this study was to compare different culture settings using immune cells from previously vaccinated calves, and to shed...... concentration/population varied with whole blood, 10 × 106 cells/ml PBMC and 5 × 106 cells/ml PBMC being the highest performing conditions. A further investigation of the distribution of cell populations in PBMCs compared to whole blood was conducted, and a significant (p

  15. Processes Utilized by High School Students Reading Scientific Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clinger, Alicia Farr

    2014-01-01

    In response to an increased emphasis on disciplinary literacy in the secondary science classroom, an investigation of the literacy processes utilized by high school students while reading scientific text was undertaken. A think-aloud protocol was implemented to collect data on the processes students used when not prompted while reading a magazine…

  16. RESPONSE STYLES IN CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH – EVIDENCE FROM HISTORICAL REGIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patricea Elena BERTEA

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The study aims to identify differences in response styles between regions which belong to Romania, but have previously been under foreign occupation. To do that, we employ data from the European Social Survey, the 2006 round. We investigate extreme response styles as this is known as a common problem in cross-cultural research. Extreme response styles increase reliability, but affect the validity as all correlation specific methods can be biased in this case. We compare response styles across regions and inside regions using language as a factor variable to identify ethnic groups. Results show that in some cases there are significant differences between regions of the same country, whereas there are none for neighbouring regions belonging to different countries.

  17. Grist and mills: on the cultural origins of cultural learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heyes, Cecilia

    2012-01-01

    Cumulative cultural evolution is what ‘makes us odd’; our capacity to learn facts and techniques from others, and to refine them over generations, plays a major role in making human minds and lives radically different from those of other animals. In this article, I discuss cognitive processes that are known collectively as ‘cultural learning’ because they enable cumulative cultural evolution. These cognitive processes include reading, social learning, imitation, teaching, social motivation and theory of mind. Taking the first of these three types of cultural learning as examples, I ask whether and to what extent these cognitive processes have been adapted genetically or culturally to enable cumulative cultural evolution. I find that recent empirical work in comparative psychology, developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience provides surprisingly little evidence of genetic adaptation, and ample evidence of cultural adaptation. This raises the possibility that it is not only ‘grist’ but also ‘mills’ that are culturally inherited; through social interaction in the course of development, we not only acquire facts about the world and how to deal with it (grist), we also build the cognitive processes that make ‘fact inheritance’ possible (mills). PMID:22734061

  18. Reading Societies and their Social Exclusivity: Dalmatia in the First Half of the 19th century

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jelena Lakuš

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Reading societies, known as the gabinetto di lettura, or the casino, appeared in Dalmatia in the middle of the 18th century modelled on their Western European, North Italian and Austrian counterparts. They became centres of social and cultural life in the region. However, their number was very small in comparison with other Central and Western European countries. In spite of that, their statutes can serve a historian as very fertile and useful historical sources. First of all, they can reveal the importance given to books and reading as well as changing attitude towards reading in the course of time. They can also indicate social structure of the reading circles as well as the interaction and communication among the members. In addition, they can reveal the participation of women in social and cultural life, internal functioning of the society, etc. Based on the statutes of several reading societies of the 19th century, this work suggests several important issues. First, it shows that in the first half of the 19th century the membership of these societies was still select and prestigious, acquired by position on the social scale. In other words, reading societies were still confined to very narrow social circles of the educated. Although in Western parts of Europe the reading public became more heterogeneous and open, in Dalmatia reading still preserved its exclusive features. Second, the work also suggests that what some historians of book and reading called the ”reading revolution” or ”revolution in reading” occurred in Dalmatia much later, and even then mostly in urban areas. Some changes in reading habits occurred in the region, albeit to a limited extent and with less influence on society as a whole. Third, the work also demonstrates that from the 1840s reading acquired a new dimension, becoming open to the more social strata and gradually losing its exclusive character. The reading societies, lending libraries and other cultural

  19. Fabrication of thermo-responsive PNIPAAm-g-ETFE for cell culture dishes by pre-irradiation grafting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamahara, Yumi; Nagasawa, Naotsugu; Taguchi, Mitsumasa; Oshima, Akihiro; Washio, Masakazu

    2018-01-01

    Thermo-responsive templates for the cell cultivation based on Poly(tetrafluoroethylene-co-ethylene) (ETFE) were fabricated by pre-irradiation grafting of N-isoproplyacrylamide (NIPAAm) monomer by electron beam (EB) irradiation under nitrogen gas atmosphere at room temperature, and their characteristic properties were studied. The detachment of cultured HeLa cells from fabricated thermo-responsive templates were attempted. Furthermore, the reaction mechanism is proposed using ESR spectroscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy. It is confirmed that the cultured HeLa cells were detached from fabricated thermo-responsive templates at 20 °C. Water contact angle analysis indicated that obtained templates had thermo-response around 30 °C. It is suggested that the grafted polymer chains would mainly react with peroxy radicals (-CF2-CF(OO・)-) on tetrafluoroethylene unit in ETFE.

  20. The Impact of an In-Service Workshop on Cooperating Teachers' Perceptions of Culturally Responsive Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKoy, Constance L.; MacLeod, Rebecca B.; Walter, Jennifer S.; Nolker, D. Brett

    2017-01-01

    Culturally responsive teaching values students' identities, backgrounds, and cultural references as key tools for building meaningful learning environments. It has been adopted by many educators globally, but has not been incorporated consistently by music educators. Few researchers in music education have investigated the impact of culturally…

  1. Initiating Culturally Responsive Teaching for Identity Construction in the Malaysian Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Idrus, Faizah

    2014-01-01

    This article presents evidence to the need for Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) to construct students' identity in the Malaysian classrooms. Since an important objective of education is to prepare individuals to exercise efficaciously in their environment, all students in multicultural society could benefit from exposure to CRT (Gay, 2000). In…

  2. Urban Teachers' Professed Classroom Management Strategies: Reflections of Culturally Responsive Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Dave F.

    2004-01-01

    Thirteen urban educators teaching from 1st through 12th grade selected from 7 cities across the United States were interviewed in this qualitative research study to determine if the classroom management strategies they use reflect the research on culturally responsive teaching. Participants revealed using several management strategies that reflect…

  3. How reading differs from object naming at the neuronal level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, C J; McCrory, E; Noppeney, U; Mechelli, A; Moore, C J; Biggio, N; Devlin, J T

    2006-01-15

    This paper uses whole brain functional neuroimaging in neurologically normal participants to explore how reading aloud differs from object naming in terms of neuronal implementation. In the first experiment, we directly compared brain activation during reading aloud and object naming. This revealed greater activation for reading in bilateral premotor, left posterior superior temporal and precuneus regions. In a second experiment, we segregated the object-naming system into object recognition and speech production areas by factorially manipulating the presence or absence of objects (pictures of objects or their meaningless scrambled counterparts) with the presence or absence of speech production (vocal vs. finger press responses). This demonstrated that the areas associated with speech production (object naming and repetitively saying "OK" to meaningless scrambled pictures) corresponded exactly to the areas where responses were higher for reading aloud than object naming in Experiment 1. Collectively the results suggest that, relative to object naming, reading increases the demands on shared speech production processes. At a cognitive level, enhanced activation for reading in speech production areas may reflect the multiple and competing phonological codes that are generated from the sublexical parts of written words. At a neuronal level, it may reflect differences in the speed with which different areas are activated and integrate with one another.

  4. Welcome to My House: African American and European American Students' Responses to Virginia Hamilton's "House of Dies Drear."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spears-Bunton, Linda A.

    1990-01-01

    Addresses the relationship between reader response and culture. Presents portraits of a teacher and her Black students and White students as they studied a series of African American literary texts, including Virginia Hamilton's "House of Dies Drear" (1968). The reading of this text marked a turning point for the teacher and students.…

  5. Comparison of reading speed with 3 different log-scaled reading charts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buari, Noor Halilah; Chen, Ai-Hong; Musa, Nuraini

    2014-01-01

    A reading chart that resembles real reading conditions is important to evaluate the quality of life in terms of reading performance. The purpose of this study was to compare the reading speed of UiTM Malay related words (UiTM-Mrw) reading chart with MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart. Fifty subjects with normal sight were randomly recruited through randomized sampling in this study (mean age=22.98±1.65 years). Subjects were asked to read three different near charts aloud and as quickly as possible at random sequence. The charts were the UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart, MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart, respectively. The time taken to read each chart was recorded and any errors while reading were noted. Reading performance was quantified in terms of reading speed as words per minute (wpm). The mean reading speed for UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart, MNread Acuity Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart was 200±30wpm, 196±28wpm and 194±31wpm, respectively. Comparison of reading speed between UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart and MNread Acuity Chart showed no significant difference (t=-0.73, p=0.72). The same happened with the reading speed between UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart and Colenbrander Reading Chart (t=-0.97, p=0.55). Bland and Altman plot showed good agreement between reading speed of UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart with MNread Acuity Chart with the Colenbrander Reading Chart. UiTM-Mrw Reading Chart in Malay language is highly comparable with standardized charts and can be used for evaluating reading speed. Copyright © 2013 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  6. Reading Urban Environment by Photo: A Critical Tool for Socio ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Reading Urban Environment by Photo: A Critical Tool for Socio-Cultural Analyzing. ... Science, Technology and Arts Research Journal ... In the last decades usage of photos in landscape and urban design grow noticeably; yet applying it in architectural research or education for discovering social determinations needs more ...

  7. Strategic Reading Groups: Guiding Readers in the Middle Grades

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berne, Jennifer; Degener, Sophie C.

    2012-01-01

    Strategic grouping can transform reading instruction in the middle grades from a hit-or-miss learning experience to a targeted, responsive one. This book features a practical and field-tested model for small-group differentiated reading instruction in Grades 4-8. Jennifer Berne and Sophie C. Degener offer a clear, detailed discussion of how to…

  8. Scientific Structural Changes within Texts of Adapted Reading Materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aziz, Anealka; Fook, Chan Yuen; Alsree, Zubaidah

    2010-01-01

    ESL instructors generally use ready-made reading materials in commercially published coursebooks. However, it would be more effective for learners if ESL instructors are involved in developing reading materials for them. This is because they are closer, more sensitive and responsive to the needs of their learners and they are also aware of the…

  9. The Culture of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Academic Framework: Some Literary Implications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, Sandhya Rao

    2011-01-01

    Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is swiftly emerging as an integral part of corporate culture and discourse. Associated with notions of responsibility, accountability and community involvement, it remains privileged with concerns that increasingly define the new millennium. Less developed, however, is the relevance of CSR ideas to academic…

  10. Imagens de Leitura na Literatura de Cordel (Images of Reading in "Cordel" Literature).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hata, Luli

    1997-01-01

    Shows, in "Cordel" literature (a popular manifestation found in northeastern Brazil) an expressive source for the analysis of popular culture in Brazil. Uses this literature to discuss images of reading. (PA)

  11. Course Syllabus--Culture, Science and Technology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coleman, Sam

    1988-01-01

    Presents a course syllabus and requirements for an anthropology course on the cross-cultural analysis of the relationships between technology, science, and social organization. Provides daily topics, suggested text readings, and reference articles. (MVL)

  12. A Patchwork Paper: What Paediatricians Should Read.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bush, Andrew

    2016-01-01

    This paper honours a paediatrician whose career has been patchwork but distinguished, with many facets. It is a light-hearted look at the printed (infinitely preferable to the electronic) word. Although the obvious response is "read everything I have written", this would only drive down the stores of Prozac. Read the scientific literature of course. The oldie reads to stay one jump ahead on the ward round. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews rely on the judgement of others, so should be regarded with suspicion. Do your own research, and do not rely on the thoughts of other people. Read beyond PubMed. "There is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is dreamed of in your PubMed" (Shakespeare). Read the giants of the past. Richard Asher has so much to teach. What are the seven sins of medicine, and how many have you committed? Asher is top read of the talk. Learn from the mistakes of the past. Your patient comes first. Read how the medical profession covered up the death of Steve Biko and never compromise with patient safety and your integrity. Finally, remember thou art mortal - read a real book for pleasure. Kindle reading must be like making love to an inflatable doll (not that I have done either). Choose what you relax with; for me, PG Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Billy Bunter and Wisden. Who said and why: 'Madam, under similar circumstances I would have kicked the Archangel Gabriel!'. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  13. What oral text reading fluency can reveal about reading comprehension

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Veenendaal, N.J.; Groen, M.A.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

    2015-01-01

    Text reading fluency – the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonation – has been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study, we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor

  14. Proust and Eliot: An Intertextual Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Inge Crosman Wimmers

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Defining intertextuality as “the reader’s perception of relationships between one work and others, which either preceded or followed it” (Riffaterre, this essay sets out to highlight compelling similarities between Proust’s novel, A la recherche du temps perdu , and the fictional works of George Eliot. The emphasis is on affective memory (involuntary memory and emotional templates, ethical considerations (empathy and compassion, and the kind of self-reflexive reading both writers encourage through a complicit narration that implicates the reader. They show readers how emotional memory constitutes the essence of their personal history, thus anticipating modern research in psychology and the neurosciences. In doing so, they make us aware that there are no insurmountable barriers between fictional worlds and ours. In conclusion, this intertextual reading of two novelists from different centuries and cultures has confirmed that these insights are still valid today.

  15. Using the World Wide Web To Teach Francophone Culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beyer, Deborah Berg; Van Ells, Paula Hartwig

    2002-01-01

    Examined use of the World Wide Web to teach Francophone culture. Suggests that bolstering reading comprehension in the foreign language and increased proficiency in navigating the Web are potential secondary benefits gained from the cultural Web-based activities proposed in the study.(Author/VWL)

  16. Ever Since the World Began: A Reading & Interview with Masha Tupitsyn

    OpenAIRE

    Masha Tupitsyn

    2013-01-01

    Writer and cultural critic Masha Tupitsyn is interviewed on her audio recording of her reading Ever Since This World Began, produced specially for this issue of continent. and adapted from her recently published Love Dog (Success and Failure) out from Penny-Ante Editions.

  17. Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who Are at Risk for Reading Problems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Speece, Deborah L; Ritchey, Kristen D; Silverman, Rebecca; Schatschneider, Christopher; Walker, Caroline Y; Andrusik, Katryna N

    2010-06-01

    The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate a universal screening battery for reading that is appropriate for older elementary students in a response to intervention model. Multiple measures of reading and reading correlates were administered to 230 fourth-grade children. Teachers rated children's reading skills, academic competence, and attention. Children were classified as not-at-risk or at-risk readers based on a three-factor model reflecting reading comprehension, word recognition/decoding, and word fluency. Predictors of reading status included group-administered tests of reading comprehension, silent word reading fluency, and teacher ratings of reading problems. Inclusion of individually administered tests and growth estimates did not add substantial variance. The receiver-operator characteristic curve analysis yielded an area under the curve index of 0.90, suggesting this model may both accurately and efficiently screen older elementary students with reading problems.

  18. Reading "Las Meninas": An Ekphrastic Approach to Teaching "Don Quijote"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ortuno, Marian

    2012-01-01

    Reading and teaching "Don Quijote" present multiple challenges to twenty-first century students and instructors who are culturally and historically distanced from the seventeenth century. With "Las Meninas" serving as a visual lexicon for cuing correlative themes and events in "Don Quijote", the instructor, through an ekphrastic, interdisciplinary…

  19. The Rhetorical Making of the Asian/Asian American Face: Reading and Writing Asian Eyelids

    OpenAIRE

    Sano-Franchini, Jennifer

    2013-01-01

    In The Rhetorical Making of the Asian/Asian American Face: Reading and Writing Asian Eyelids, I examine representations of East Asian blepharoplasty in online video in order to gain a sense of how cultural values change over time. Drawing on scholarship in and around rhetorical theory, cultural rhetorics, Asian American rhetoric, cultural studies, Asian American studies, and postcolonial theory alongside qualitative data analysis of approximately fifty videos and the numerous viewer comments ...

  20. Reinscribing the Goddess into the Culturally Relative Minutiae of Tantric Texts and Practices: A Perennialist Response to Tantric Visual Culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeffrey S. Lidke

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available A celebration and critical evaluation of Sthaneshwar Timalsina’s brilliant book, Tantric Visual Culture: A Cognitive Approach. In this groundbreaking work, Timalsina utilizes the lens of cognitive studies to shed interpretive light on the Tantric visualization practices that he knows both as a scholar and lifetime practitioner. Timalsina argues that mastery of Tantric practice requires immersion in the culturally relative metonymic and holographic logic framed by the Tantric ritual texts. The conclusion that arises from his analysis is that Tantric “truths” are bound to the linguistic and cultural systems that frame them. In response, I herewith offer a perennialist critique and argument for a more nuanced consideration of the transcendent “truth” or “being” that is the stated aim of Tantric practice.

  1. The Cultural Responsiveness of Teacher Candidates Towards Roma Pupils in Serbia and Slovenia--Case Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pecek, Mojca; Macura-Milovanovic, Suncica; Vujisic-Živkovic, Nataša

    2014-01-01

    In many countries, there is a growing need for teacher awareness and sensitivity to cultural differences, what is often called culturally responsive teaching. This is why teacher education institutions are making significant efforts to require student teachers to enrol in courses that focus on understanding, tolerance and acceptance of differences…

  2. Intrinsic reading motivation of Chinese preschoolers and its relationships with home literacy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Hui; Salili, Farideh

    2008-10-01

    The relationship between intrinsic motivation and home literacy of preschoolers was explored. One hundred and seventy-seven preschool children (3.8 to 6.6 years old) in Mainland China and one of the parents who primarily took care of each child participated in the study. Six indicators were considered as a measure of home literacy. Results showed that after controlling for parents' education level and children's age, three home literacy indicators-parental model of reading behaviour, number of books, and years of character teaching-could explain children's intrinsic reading motivation. Contrary to previous Western studies, Chinese children's freedom of book choice was not related to their intrinsic reading motivation. Results are discussed in the context of culture differences.

  3. Progressive outcomes of collaborative strategic reading to EFL learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sofyan A. Gani

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed to discover the effects of using Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR in teaching reading to EFL learners. The method used in this study was experimental research which referred to the true experimental design through tests and a questionnaire as data collection instruments. The questionnaire consisted of items to gain the students' responses toward 3 categories of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR implementation on their reading ability, namely: instruction, procedure, and impact. In total, 67 students in a senior high school in Banda Aceh were involved as participants (32 students in the experimental group and 35 students in the control group. The data were analyzed using the mean, standard deviation, and Z-test percentage. The Z-score between the experimental group and control group was 2.37. The critical value of the Z-score for 68 degrees of freedom was 2.01 at the .05 significance level. Therefore, the critical value of the students' Z-score (2.37 was significant at the .05 level. This indicated that the students who were taught reading using CSR achieved better scores than those who were taught using the non-CSR approach. The results of the questionnaire further showed that more than 80 percent of the students gave vastly positive responses in relation to CSR classroom implementation. This approach not only helped them to develop their reading skills, but also produced positive outcomes in their social relationships and interactions in the classroom.

  4. Dynamic Visual Perception and Reading Development in Chinese School Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Xiangzhi; Cheng-Lai, Alice; Zeng, Biao; Stein, John F.; Zhou, Xiaolin

    2011-01-01

    The development of reading skills may depend to a certain extent on the development of basic visual perception. The magnocellular theory of developmental dyslexia assumes that deficits in the magnocellular pathway, indicated by less sensitivity in perceiving dynamic sensory stimuli, are responsible for a proportion of reading difficulties…

  5. Global Perspectives: Making the Shift from Multiculturalism to Culturally Responsive Teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walter, Jennifer S.

    2018-01-01

    In the early part of the 1970s, multicultural music education began in earnest and was focused primarily on the curriculum used for music: textbooks, method books, and repertoire. At the turn of the 21th century, however, culturally responsive teaching emerged as the predominant pedagogy for relating to students. It was considered a…

  6. The Effects of Extensive Reading on Reading Comprehension, Reading Rate, and Vocabulary Acquisition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suk, Namhee

    2017-01-01

    Several empirical studies and syntheses of extensive reading have concluded that extensive reading has positive impacts on language learning in second- and foreign-language settings. However, many of the studies contained methodological or curricular limitations, raising questions about the asserted positive effects of extensive reading. The…

  7. Character order processing in Chinese reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Junjuan; Li, Xingshan; Liversedge, Simon P

    2015-02-01

    We explored how character order information is encoded in isolated word processing or Chinese sentence reading in 2 experiments using a masked priming paradigm and a gaze-contingent display-change paradigm. The results showed that response latencies in the lexical decision task and reading times on the target word region were longer in the unrelated condition (the prime or the preview was unrelated with the target word) than the transposed-character condition (the prime or the preview was a transposition of the 2 characters of the target word), which were respectively longer than in the identity condition (the prime or preview was identical to the target word). These results show that character order is encoded at an early stage of processing in Chinese reading, but character position encoding was not strict. We also found that character order encoding was similar for single-morpheme and multiple-morpheme words, suggesting that morphemic status does not affect character order encoding. The current results represent an early contribution to our understanding of character order encoding during Chinese reading.

  8. Epilogue: Reading Comprehension Is Not a Single Ability--Implications for Assessment and Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamhi, Alan G.; Catts, Hugh W.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: In this epilogue, we review the 4 response articles and highlight the implications of a multidimensional view of reading for the assessment and instruction of reading comprehension. Method: We reiterate the problems with standardized tests of reading comprehension and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of recently developed…

  9. Reading in a second language: Considering the "simple view of reading" as a foundation to support ESL readers in Lesotho, Southern Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    van Staden, Annalene

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Globally, reading proficiency has been a major area of difficulty for English second-language (ESL learners. This research inter alia utilised a quantitative, quasi-experimental, pre-test/post-test research design to address the paucity of evidence-based second-language reading research internationally, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Lesotho in particular; and to determine if second-language learners (L2 in the experimental group can improve their L2 reading abilities after being exposed to reading intervention strategies, based on the “simple view of reading”. Drawing from both psycholinguistic and cognitive linguistic principles, the authors considered this as a working model to develop reading strategies to support ESL learners in Lesotho who experienced significant delays in L2 reading abilities and comprehension. In the present study, strategies based on the “simple view of reading”, , included, inter alia, effective language exposure, building a rich vocabulary, improving reading fluency and word recognition abilities, and creating socio-linguistic opportunities to develop vocabulary and enhance reading comprehension (for example, creating a “word wall”, interactive story-book reading and the application of the ReQuest reading method. Results from this quantitative study demonstrated that Grade 4 ESL learners in the experimental group (N=36 significantly outperformed those in the control group (N=36 with regard to sight word fluency, word recognition, syntactic awareness, vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. As we move forward in an attempt to understand the nuances of creating a responsive reading environment to support ESL learners’ reading development, assessing the effectiveness of strategies to improve their reading skills is essential.

  10. Language and culture modulate online semantic processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellis, Ceri; Kuipers, Jan R; Thierry, Guillaume; Lovett, Victoria; Turnbull, Oliver; Jones, Manon W

    2015-10-01

    Language has been shown to influence non-linguistic cognitive operations such as colour perception, object categorization and motion event perception. Here, we show that language also modulates higher level processing, such as semantic knowledge. Using event-related brain potentials, we show that highly fluent Welsh-English bilinguals require significantly less processing effort when reading sentences in Welsh which contain factually correct information about Wales, than when reading sentences containing the same information presented in English. Crucially, culturally irrelevant information was processed similarly in both Welsh and English. Our findings show that even in highly proficient bilinguals, language interacts with factors associated with personal identity, such as culture, to modulate online semantic processing. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press.

  11. Neuromyelitis optica IgG stimulates an immunological response in rat astrocyte cultures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howe, Charles L; Kaptzan, Tatiana; Magaña, Setty M; Ayers-Ringler, Jennifer R; LaFrance-Corey, Reghann G; Lucchinetti, Claudia F

    2014-05-01

    Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a primary astrocyte disease associated with central nervous system inflammation, demyelination, and tissue injury. Brain lesions are frequently observed in regions enriched in expression of the aquaporin-4 (AQP4) water channel, an antigenic target of the NMO IgG serologic marker. Based on observations of disease reversibility and careful characterization of NMO lesion development, we propose that the NMO IgG may induce a dynamic immunological response in astrocytes. Using primary rat astrocyte-enriched cultures and treatment with NMO patient-derived serum or purified IgG, we observed a robust pattern of gene expression changes consistent with the induction of a reactive and inflammatory phenotype in astrocytes. The reactive astrocyte factor lipocalin-2 and a broad spectrum of chemokines, cytokines, and stress response factors were induced by either NMO patient serum or purified IgG. Treatment with IgG from healthy controls had no effect. The effect is disease-specific, as serum from patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, Sjögren's, or systemic lupus erythematosus did not induce a response in the cultures. We hypothesize that binding of the NMO IgG to AQP4 induces a cellular response that results in transcriptional and translational events within the astrocyte that are consistent with a reactive and inflammatory phenotype. Strategies aimed at reducing the inflammatory response of astrocytes may short circuit an amplification loop associated with NMO lesion development. Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. Enhancing academic reading skills through extensive reading ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Abstract. The current study explores the feasibility of an extensive reading programme in the context of a low-income country (Mozambique), as well as the influence of extensive reading on academic reading. The programme took over 4 months and was conducted among 30 students majoring in Journalism at the Eduardo ...

  13. A functional near-infrared spectroscopic investigation of speech production during reading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wan, Nick; Hancock, Allison S; Moon, Todd K; Gillam, Ronald B

    2018-03-01

    This study was designed to test the extent to which speaking processes related to articulation and voicing influence Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) measures of cortical hemodynamics and functional connectivity. Participants read passages in three conditions (oral reading, silent mouthing, and silent reading) while undergoing fNIRS imaging. Area under the curve (AUC) analyses of the oxygenated and deoxygenated hemodynamic response function concentration values were compared for each task across five regions of interest. There were significant region main effects for both oxy and deoxy AUC analyses, and a significant region × task interaction for deoxy AUC favoring the oral reading condition over the silent reading condition for two nonmotor regions. Assessment of functional connectivity using Granger Causality revealed stronger networks between motor areas during oral reading and stronger networks between language areas during silent reading. There was no evidence that the hemodynamic flow from motor areas during oral reading compromised measures of language-related neural activity in nonmotor areas. However, speech movements had small, but measurable effects on fNIRS measures of neural connections between motor and nonmotor brain areas across the perisylvian region, even after wavelet filtering. Therefore, researchers studying speech processes with fNIRS should use wavelet filtering during preprocessing to reduce speech motion artifacts, incorporate a nonspeech communication or language control task into the research design, and conduct a connectivity analysis to adequately assess the impact of functional speech on the hemodynamic response across the perisylvian region. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  14. Incidence of Sociodemographic Factors in the Attitudes to the Reading of High School Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Teresa Cervera Mata

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the high school students determine their possibilities to change their attitude towards the reading and, in this way, encourage their reading habit. A program of workshops to inspire Reading carried out in an educational compensation center shows how a relationship between sociodemographic factors and the change happened with their reading habit is established. This methodology is introduced in the classroom as a tool that intends to produce a transformation in their literary education through playful elements, which are required in the necessary contexts of social transformation. An attitude towards reading are the first aspects that must be positively modified to strengthen the relationship between books and students and thus, encourage the reading as an habit. Therefore, the knowloedge of the social and family influential environment will contribute to the application of this methodology in the classroom, enhancing or mitigating the effects of this relationship.

  15. Developing Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teachers: Secondary Teachers' Evolving Conceptions of Knowing Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Frieda; Bartell, Tonya Gau; Novak, Jodie D.

    2017-01-01

    Research advances in teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment have not changed the continued underperformance of marginalized students in mathematics education. Culturally responsive teaching is a means of addressing the needs of these students. It is sometimes challenging, however, to convince secondary mathematics teachers about the…

  16. INTERTEXTUALITY AND LITERARY MEMOIRS: READING AS MEMOIRS’ PRAXIS IN RUI KNOPFLI

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Otavio Henrique Meloni

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Reading and writing practices are inseparable, quite intimate and revealing a deep memory exercise. For most people it is such an exercise, and always shares the memory associated intimate fragments with social and cultural aspects. So when we think of memory that is built through the readings of an individual, we have various spheres of thought and reflection on the same reality, even transformed by his gaze reader. This paper discusses the role of literary memoirs in building the poetic universe of Mozambican Rui Knopfli, taking into account their condition “deterritorialized” and the  need to assert a place of belonging (reading as bound reference. This site security is strengthened at the junction memory literary with intertextu­ality that it causes. We thus believe that the literary memoirs assume the role of place belongs to the poetical subject of Mozambique, softening their fractures of naturalness, stating and justifying the existence of the subject through their reading experience.

  17. Reading: Time

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Annemarie Wennekers; Frank Huysmans; Jos de Haan

    2018-01-01

    Original title: Lees:Tijd The amount of time that Dutch people spend reading has been declining steadily since the 1950s. This decline in reading time contrasts starkly with the positive personal and social benefits that can be derived from reading, according to lots of research. The Reading:

  18. The Changing Role of the Reading Specialist: A Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ginsburg, Victoria Elaine

    2012-01-01

    This descriptive qualitative case study explored the changing role of the reading specialist through various perceptions of professionals in the Neon Shadow School District. The purpose of the study was to explore what, how, and why the duties and responsibilities of the reading specialist have changed since first employed as an…

  19. Brain-based individual difference measures of reading skill in deaf and hearing adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehravari, Alison S; Emmorey, Karen; Prat, Chantel S; Klarman, Lindsay; Osterhout, Lee

    2017-07-01

    Most deaf children and adults struggle to read, but some deaf individuals do become highly proficient readers. There is disagreement about the specific causes of reading difficulty in the deaf population, and consequently, disagreement about the effectiveness of different strategies for teaching reading to deaf children. Much of the disagreement surrounds the question of whether deaf children read in similar or different ways as hearing children. In this study, we begin to answer this question by using real-time measures of neural language processing to assess if deaf and hearing adults read proficiently in similar or different ways. Hearing and deaf adults read English sentences with semantic, grammatical, and simultaneous semantic/grammatical errors while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. The magnitude of individuals' ERP responses was compared to their standardized reading comprehension test scores, and potentially confounding variables like years of education, speechreading skill, and language background of deaf participants were controlled for. The best deaf readers had the largest N400 responses to semantic errors in sentences, while the best hearing readers had the largest P600 responses to grammatical errors in sentences. These results indicate that equally proficient hearing and deaf adults process written language in different ways, suggesting there is little reason to assume that literacy education should necessarily be the same for hearing and deaf children. The results also show that the most successful deaf readers focus on semantic information while reading, which suggests aspects of education that may promote improved literacy in the deaf population. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Online Case Studies as a Professional Development Opportunity for Teachers of Elementary Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vereb, Anita; Carlisle, Joanne F.; Mihocko-Bowling, Emily

    2015-01-01

    This study explores teachers' response to a professional development program called Case Studies of Reading Lessons (CSRL) that uses case studies of reading instruction to provide opportunities for elementary teachers to learn to analyze features that affect the quality of reading lessons. One important question is whether analyzing others'…

  1. ONLINE READING COMPREHENSION: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julie Coiro/

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper details a number of challenges and opportunities for today’s learners when reading for information on the Internet. After defining online reading comprehension from a new literacies perspective and how it appears to be different than offline reading comprehension, I highlight details about four of the biggest challenges for today’s learners. These include 1 understanding and becoming proficient with the new literacy skills and practices needed for online research; 2 developing a special kind of digital wisdom that focuses on learning how to learn with the Internet; 3 taking on new roles in a digital culture that expects learners to actively participate and contribute with new knowledge as a member of their community; and 4 developing positive attitudes toward using the Internet for academic work. The second part of the paper shares examples of how skilled online readers can use the steps of online inquiry to think more deeply about topics that interest them; develop a personal voice as they share ideas with others; and work collaboratively to build meaning and new digital products that enable them to make a difference in their world, or matter. You can explore the research and resources from this presentation in more depth at .

  2. Culturally Responsive Peace Education: A Case Study at One Urban Latino K-8 Catholic School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buck, Brandon

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a case study of a yearlong research-based peace education program at one urban K-8 private Catholic school situated in a community plagued by structural violence in an enclave of a large Midwestern city. To frame the analysis, the author employs concepts central to culturally responsive pedagogy (including cultural competence,…

  3. Dialogic Reading Aloud to Promote Extensive Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacobs, George M.

    2016-01-01

    How can teachers motivate students to read extensively in a second language? One strategy is for teachers to read aloud to students to promote the joys of reading generally, to build students' language skills and to introduce students to specific authors, book series, genres, websites, etc. This article begins by discussing why teachers might want…

  4. Reading for empowerment: Intertextuality offers creative possibilities for enlightened citizenry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fetson Kalua

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Julia Kristeva coined the term ‘intertextuality’ to explain her utter belief in the mutability and movement of texts, in contradistinction to the time-honoured popular idea that a text is an autonomous and self-evident object. For Kristeva, any text implies the existence and embedding of other texts, also known as sub-texts, within it. This has far-reaching implications for the way we read, engage with, and interpret various texts. This article describes the concept of intertextuality as a model of reading which puts the reader at the centre of the reading process. It goes on to link intertextuality to other domains of literacy, notably the notion of ‘spheres of literacy’. Central to intertextuality and spheres of literacy is their privileging of the reader, as opposed to the author, in the reading process. Finally, the article explores the ways in which our awareness and use of intertextuality can help to develop a literate and free-thinking citizenry who derive utmost autonomy and empowerment from various cultural texts accessible to them.

  5. Moleculo Long-Read Sequencing Facilitates Assembly and Genomic Binning from Complex Soil Metagenomes

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    White, Richard Allen; Bottos, Eric M.; Roy Chowdhury, Taniya; Zucker, Jeremy D.; Brislawn, Colin J.; Nicora, Carrie D.; Fansler, Sarah J.; Glaesemann, Kurt R.; Glass, Kevin; Jansson, Janet K.; Langille, Morgan

    2016-06-28

    functional roles in ecosystem stability and responses to environmental perturbations. This knowledge gap is largely due to the difficulty in culturing the majority of soil microbes. Thus, use of culture-independent approaches, such as metagenomics, promises the direct assessment of the functional potential of soil microbiomes. Soil is, however, a challenge for metagenomic assembly due to its high microbial diversity and variable evenness, resulting in low coverage and uneven sampling of microbial genomes. Despite increasingly large soil metagenome data volumes (>200 Gbp), the majority of the data do not assemble. Here, we used the cutting-edge approach of synthetic long-read sequencing technology (Moleculo) to assemble soil metagenome sequence data into long contigs and used the assemblies for binning of genomes.

    Author Video: Anauthor video summaryof this article is available.

  6. An investigation of Chinese university EFL learner’s foreign language reading anxiety, reading strategy use and reading comprehension performance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhongshe Lu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The present study explored the interrelations between foreign language (FL reading anxiety, FL reading strategy use and their interactive effect on FL reading comprehension performance at the tertiary level in China. Analyses of the survey data collected from 1702 university students yielded the following results: (a Both Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS and Foreign Language Reading Strategy Use Scale (FLRSUS had important subcomponents, (b more than half of the students generally did not feel anxious when reading English, and were confident in and satisfied with their English reading proficiency. Meanwhile, (c more than half of them moderately used different types of reading strategies such as planning, checking and confirming, predicting and assessing, when reading English, (d compared with their female peers, male students felt significantly more anxious when facing reading activities, less satisfied with their English reading proficiency, and used specific analyzing and planning strategies significantly less often during a reading activity, (e FLRAS was significantly inversely related to FLRSUS, and both were significantly correlated with the students’ FL reading comprehension performance, and (f FLRAS (overall FL reading anxiety, FLRAS1 (general anxiety about FL reading, and FLRSUS2 (predicting strategies were good predictors of FL reading comprehension performance. Based on the findings, some implications are discussed.

  7. Engaging High School Girls in Native American Culturally Responsive STEAM Enrichment Activities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kant, Joanita M.; Burckhard, Suzette R.; Meyers, Richard T.

    2018-01-01

    Providing science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) culturally responsive enrichment activities is one way of promoting more interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) studies and careers among indigenous students. The purpose of the study was to explore the impact, if any, of STEAM culturally…

  8. COMPUGIRLS' Standpoint: Culturally Responsive Computing and Its Effect on Girls of Color

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Kimberly A.; White, Mary Aleta

    2013-01-01

    This article investigates the motivations of African American and Latino girls ("N" = 41) who navigate urban Southwest school districts during the day, but voluntarily attend a 2-year, culturally responsive multimedia program after school and into the summer. Understanding that girls from economically disadvantaged settings are indeed…

  9. Gendered Citizenship and the Individualization of Environmental Responsibility: Evaluating a Campus Common Reading Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kennedy, Emily Huddart; Boyd, Amanda

    2018-01-01

    Campus common reading programs are intended to stimulate critical thinking and dialogue across disciplines yet scarce evidence exists to evaluate the success of such programs. We assess the extent to which engagement in an environmentally-themed common reading program is related to (1) concern for waste-related issues, (2) beliefs that addressing…

  10. The Habit of Reading: A Neglected Dimension of Adult Reading Instruction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fink, Katherine T.; Devine, Thomas G.

    1993-01-01

    Less competent adult readers have not developed the habit of reading. Ways to cultivate adult reading habits include relevant material, environment saturated with reading material, reading aloud to adults, having them read to children, sustained silent reading, modeling, book sharing, author conferences, and recognition. (SK)

  11. Cross-cultural reading the mind in the eyes: an fMRI investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adams, Reginald B; Rule, Nicholas O; Franklin, Robert G; Wang, Elsie; Stevenson, Michael T; Yoshikawa, Sakiko; Nomura, Mitsue; Sato, Wataru; Kveraga, Kestutis; Ambady, Nalini

    2010-01-01

    The ability to infer others' thoughts, intentions, and feelings is regarded as uniquely human. Over the last few decades, this remarkable ability has captivated the attention of philosophers, primatologists, clinical and developmental psychologists, anthropologists, social psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. Most would agree that the capacity to reason about others' mental states is innately prepared, essential for successful human social interaction. Whether this ability is culturally tuned, however, remains entirely uncharted on both the behavioral and neural levels. Here we provide the first behavioral and neural evidence for an intracultural advantage (better performance for same- vs. other-culture) in mental state decoding in a sample of native Japanese and white American participants. We examined the neural correlates of this intracultural advantage using fMRI, revealing greater bilateral posterior superior temporal sulci recruitment during same- versus other-culture mental state decoding in both cultural groups. These findings offer preliminary support for cultural consistency in the neurological architecture subserving high-level mental state reasoning, as well as its differential recruitment based on cultural group membership.

  12. One Step Forward and Two Steps Back in Teaching an Endangered Language? Revisiting L2 Reading in Irish

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hickey, Tina M.; Stenson, Nancy

    2016-01-01

    Hickey's (1991) article ["Leisure reading in a second language: An experiment with audio tapes." "Language, Culture and Curriculum," 4(2), 119-131. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908319109525098] reported the benefits of audio-support for L2 reading of real books, showing gains in fluency and motivation among…

  13. Miraculous Readings: Using Fantasy Novels about Reading to Reflect on Reading the Bible

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dalton, Russell W.

    2009-01-01

    This article reflects on the vivid images of reading presented in several popular fantasy novels, including "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "The Great Good Thing," and "The Neverending Story." It suggests that these images can be used to help children, youth, and adults reflect on the nature of reading and the potential power of reading sacred texts.…

  14. Ever Since the World Began: A Reading & Interview with Masha Tupitsyn

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Masha Tupitsyn

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Writer and cultural critic Masha Tupitsyn is interviewed on her audio recording of her reading Ever Since This World Began, produced specially for this issue of continent. and adapted from her recently published Love Dog (Success and Failure out from Penny-Ante Editions.

  15. Reading Comics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tilley, Carol L.

    2008-01-01

    Many adults, even librarians who willingly add comics to their collections, often dismiss the importance of comics. Compared to reading "real" books, reading comics appears to be a simple task and compared to reading no books, reading comics might be preferable. After all, comics do have words, but the plentiful pictures seem to carry most of the…

  16. Reading to deaf children who sign: a response to Williams (2012) and suggestions for future research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andrews, Jean F

    2012-01-01

    A commentary on Williams's (2012) invited article on the use of adapted vocabulary learning interventions focuses on three areas: (a) Vocabulary interventions with storybook reading originally designed for hearing children can be adapted for deaf children. (b) Teachers are invited to reflect on how the read-aloud process in English differs from the read-aloud process in sign. (b) Teachers are asked to consider adding drawing and writing activities to reading lessons to show young deaf readers how reading and writing are reciprocal processes. The emergent literacy theory is used, as it informs and drives instructional vocabulary teaching practices for deaf children in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. The emergent literacy theory broadly captures cognitive, social, perceptual, and linguistic understandings of how young signing deaf children acquire both English word recognition abilities and vocabulary knowledge, among other important prereading concepts.

  17. Reading Processes of University Students with Dyslexia - An Examination of the Relationship between Oral Reading and Reading Comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedersen, Henriette Folkmann; Fusaroli, Riccardo; Lauridsen, Lene Louise; Parrila, Rauno

    2016-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of oral reading and how it relates to reading comprehension in students with dyslexia. A group of Danish university students with dyslexia (n = 16) and a comparison group of students with no history of reading problems (n = 16) were assessed on their oral reading performance when reading a complex text. Along with reading speed, we measured not only the number and quality of reading errors but also the extent and semantic nature of the self-corrections during reading. The reading comprehension was measured through aided text retellings. The results showed that, as a group, the dyslexics performed poorer on most measures, but there were notable within-group differences in the reading behaviours and little association between how well university students with dyslexia read aloud and comprehended the text. These findings suggest that many dyslexics in higher education tend to focus their attention on one subcomponent of the reading process, for example, decoding or comprehension, because engaging in both simultaneously may be too demanding for them. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  18. Epilogue: Reading Comprehension Is Not a Single Ability-Implications for Assessment and Instruction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamhi, Alan G; Catts, Hugh W

    2017-04-20

    In this epilogue, we review the 4 response articles and highlight the implications of a multidimensional view of reading for the assessment and instruction of reading comprehension. We reiterate the problems with standardized tests of reading comprehension and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of recently developed authentic tests of reading comprehension. In the "Instruction" section, we review the benefits and limitations of strategy instruction and highlight suggestions from the response articles to improve content and language knowledge. We argue that the only compelling reason to administer a standardized test of reading comprehension is when these tests are necessary to qualify students for special education services. Instruction should be focused on content knowledge, language knowledge, and specific task and learning requirements. This instruction may entail the use of comprehension strategies, particularly those that are specific to the task and focus on integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge.

  19. Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meisinger, Elizabeth B; Bloom, Juliana S; Hynd, George W

    2010-06-01

    The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.

  20. "Read the Text, as if!"The Reading Retention Strategy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Divoll, Kent; Browning, Sandra

    2013-01-01

    Students do not always read what is expected in college courses (Berry, Cook, Hill, & Stevens, 2010; Phillips & Phillips, 2007; Sikorski et al., 2002) or they read to cram for an exam or quiz (Clump, Bauer, & Bradley, 2004). The Reading Retention Strategy (RRS) is designed to motivate students to read and assist students in…

  1. SELF-PACED READING AND THE ACHIEVEMENT OF PERSIAN EFL LEARNERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Toghyani Khorasgani

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed at investigating the effects of reading goals on L2 reading comprehension in a computer-mediated environment when reading is self-paced by the learners and students are responsible for their own comprehension. Sixty participants (30 males & 30 females in three groups of 20 were involved. A computer program, written in C#.NET program, presented the text on the screen four lines at a time, and measured the amount of time students would spend on each page initially, how many times students re-read pages, and how much time students would spend re-reading pages. L2 learners’ comprehension and learning strategies were measured in three ways: recall of materials, time spent reading each page of the text and time spent re-reading pages, and the number of times pages were re-read. Finally, after one month from the first test a posttest was administered to determine which group could remember materials better. The results revealed that recall of materials was significantly greater for the teaching-goal group than the other two groups in both first and second tests. Time spent re-reading was significantly greater for the teaching-goal group as well. These findings suggest that reading goals do have an effect on comprehension and recalling in a computer-mediated environment and students with a different reading goal performed differently while reading passages.

  2. Do reading additions improve reading in pre-presbyopes with low vision?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alabdulkader, Balsam; Leat, Susan

    2012-09-01

    This study compared three different methods of determining a reading addition and the possible improvement on reading performance in children and young adults with low vision. Twenty-eight participants with low vision, aged 8 to 32 years, took part in the study. Reading additions were determined with (a) a modified Nott dynamic retinoscopy, (b) a subjective method, and (c) an age-based formula. Reading performance was assessed with MNREAD-style reading charts at 12.5 cm, with and without each reading addition in random order. Outcome measures were reading speed, critical print size, MNREAD threshold, and the area under the reading speed curve. For the whole group, there was no significant improvement in reading performance with any of the additions. When participants with normal accommodation at 12.5 cm were excluded, the area under the reading speed curve was significantly greater with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.031, 0.028, and 0.028, respectively). Also, the reading acuity threshold was significantly better with all reading additions compared with no addition (p = 0.014, 0.030, and 0.036, respectively). Distance and near visual acuity, age, and contrast sensitivity did not predict improvement with a reading addition. All, but one, of the participants who showed a significant improvement in reading with an addition had reduced accommodation. A reading addition may improve reading performance for young people with low vision and should be considered as part of a low vision assessment, particularly when accommodation is reduced.

  3. They Have "Verve": Preservice Teachers' Perceptions about Culturally Relevant/Responsive Pedagogy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nash, Kindel

    2018-01-01

    Based on concerns about the permanence of racism in our society and its impact on opportunities for children's equitable education, this empirical study used narrative inquiry to explore four preservice teachers' developing dispositions as they studied and implemented culturally relevant/responsive pedagogy (CR/RP) in an early literacy education…

  4. Teaching about Refugees: Developing Culturally Responsive Educators in Contexts of Politicised Transnationalism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gagné, Antoinette; Schmidt, Clea; Markus, Paula

    2017-01-01

    This article addresses issues of teaching about refugees in initial teacher education and professional development for practicing teachers. We respond to the who, what, where, when, why and how of teaching about refugees and developing culturally responsive pedagogy in contexts of politicised transnationalism, where the wider politics around…

  5. Do reading and spelling share a lexicon?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Angela C; Rawson, Katherine A

    2016-05-01

    In the reading and spelling literature, an ongoing debate concerns whether reading and spelling share a single orthographic lexicon or rely upon independent lexica. Available evidence tends to support a single lexicon account over an independent lexica account, but evidence is mixed and open to alternative explanation. In the current work, we propose another, largely ignored account--separate-but-shared lexica--according to which reading and spelling have separate orthographic lexica, but information can be shared between them. We report three experiments designed to competitively evaluate these three theoretical accounts. In each experiment, participants learned new words via reading training and/or spelling training. The key manipulation concerned the amount of reading versus spelling practice a given item received. Following training, we assessed both response time and accuracy on final outcome measures of reading and spelling. According to the independent lexica account, final performance in one modality will not be influenced by the level of practice in the other modality. According to the single lexicon account, final performance will depend on the overall amount of practice regardless of modality. According to the separate-but-shared account, final performance will be influenced by the level of practice in both modalities but will benefit more from same-modality practice. Results support the separate-but-shared account, indicating that reading and spelling rely upon separate lexica, but information can be shared between them. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Autonomous Histories of Muslim Women Cultural Poetics; A Critical Reading of the Personal/Academic Narratives of Leila Ahmed and Amina Wadud

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hadeer Abo El Nagah

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Louis Montrose's "Professing the Renaissance: the Poetics and Politics of Culture" renewed concern with the historical, social and political conditions of literary productions (1989. He suggested a platform through which autonomous aesthetics and academic issues to be understood as inextricably linked to other discourses. While autobiography is considered as a "writing back," I argue here that it is rather a strategic transitional act that connects the past with the present and remaps the future. Though a very personal opening, autobiography is seen as a documentation of public events from a personal perspective. Academic autobiographies like Arab American history professor Leila Ahmad's A Border Passage from Cairo to America; A Woman’s Journey (2012 and African American theology professor Amina Wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad (2008 are two examples of the production of interwoven private and public histories. The personal opening in such narratives is an autonomous act that initiates cross-disciplinary dialogues that trigger empowerment and proposes future changes. In that sense, these autobiographies are far from being mere stories of the past. Conversely, they are tools of rereading one's contributions and thus repositioning the poetics and politics of culture as testimonial narratives. Employing post-colonial, Islamic feminism and new historicism, the aim of this study is to critically read the above academic/personal two autobiographies as examples of the private/ public negotiations of culture. It also aims to explore the dialogue between the literary, historical and social elements as they remap the future of women in Muslim societies and the diaspora.

  7. Popular Music as a Foundation for a French Culture Course.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abrate, Jayne

    1988-01-01

    Described an advanced college-level course on contemporary French culture which used popular songs, supplemented by readings and news articles, as the focus for presentations on cultural phenomena relating to geography and travel, the family, education, work and leisure, government, and daily life. (CB)

  8. A Comparison of the Policy Response to Cultural Diversity in China and India

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    宋丽娜

    2015-01-01

    This essay attempts to explore the current cultural diversity in China and India with the comparison of policy responses, especially the multiculturalism and language policies, as well as the policies on the workplace. Results show that India enriched and deepened its multiculturalism through the recognition of languages diversity, while China weakened its cultural diversity by popularizing one official language, Mandarin. However, both China and India should do more in practice to make different ethnic groups live and participant as equal partners in the social life.

  9. Culturalism and existentialist thought—a reading of Julien Kilanga ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    existentialism, globalisation, Julien Kilanga Musinde, meaning of death. ... violence and dictatorship” (119). By contrast, and using his own style .... Josué boasts a humanistic education in which Greco-Latin culture looms large. This is not only ...

  10. Burning the page the ebook revolution and the future of reading

    CERN Document Server

    Merkoski, Jason

    2013-01-01

    From one of the founders of Amazon Kindle comes the definitive book about ebooks and a revolutionary vision for the future of reading. We're witnessing a major revolution in books that's transforming the future of reading and our culture. For many readers, books are beloved objects, and ebooks signal a momentous change. What will happen to long-familiar friends from the print world, like bookshelves, autographs, covers, and even bookworms? Will they die out, or transform into something new? Is digital the death knell of print, or will it breathe new life into books? Will books evolve so much

  11. Maternal Reading Self-Efficacy Associated with Perceived Barriers to Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joyce Lin

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Although early reading practices impact a host of child literacy, language, and school outcomes, many parents do not read to their young children. One possible explanation for this lack of early literacy practices is mothers’ feelings about their ability to successfully read to their children. A series of multiple regressions were used to explore whether new mothers’ reading self-efficacy predicted their perceived barriers to reading to their 18-month-old children. Findings suggest that self-efficacy buffers against mother-centered (e.g., too tired, child-centered (e.g., toddler fussy, and structural (e.g., environmental distractions barriers to reading. Given the importance of early literacy and that not all mothers read to their toddlers, increasing reading self-efficacy may offer a way to reduce perceived barriers to early literacy practices.

  12. Reading Strategies Used by Iranian EFL Learners While Reading Academic Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vida Yousefian

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The major aim of this study was to explore the nature and frequency of the reading strategies used by the EFL learners while reading academic texts. Normally, students tend to read all the information provided in reading materials. This study explores whether learners use reading strategies to assist them in reading comprehension. There was a sample of 45 English language (EFL learners from Islamic Azad University, Falavarjan Branch. The instrument utilized in this study was a survey questionnaire with 30 items including 13 global reading strategies, 8 problem solving strategies and 9 support reading strategies. The survey was going to signify how much EFL learners use each of these strategies while reading academic texts. The findings indicated that the participants used global reading strategies more (44.5% than problem solving strategies (29.0% and support reading strategies (26.5%. The results of the present study will let the instructors improve the reading strategies which are not used by EFL learners frequently. It also helps learners to promote the ability of using reading strategies and utilize the strategies in an appropriate and effective way.

  13. Practitioners' Perceptions of Culturally Responsive School-Based Mental Health Services for Low-Income African American Girls

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harper, Erin; Kruger, Ann Cale; Hamilton, Chela; Meyers, Joel; Truscott, Stephen D.; Varjas, Kris

    2016-01-01

    School-based mental health practitioners are positioned to address low-income urban African American girls' mental health needs through culturally responsive services. Despite the importance of culturally reflective practice, it is understudied. We asked school-based mental health practitioners (N = 7) to reflect on barriers and facilitators to…

  14. Musical, language and reading abilities in early Portuguese readers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer eZuk

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Early language and reading abilities have been shown to correlate with a variety of musical skills and elements of music perception in children. It has also been shown that reading impaired children can show difficulties with music perception. However, it is still unclear to what extent different aspects of music perception are associated with language and reading abilities. Here we investigated the relationship between cognitive-linguistic abilities and a music discrimination task that preserves an ecologically valid musical experience. Forty-three Portuguese-speaking students from an elementary school in Brazil participated in this study. Children completed a comprehensive cognitive-linguistic battery of assessments. The music task was presented live in the music classroom, and children were asked to code sequences of four sounds on the guitar. Results show a strong relationship between performance on the music task and a number of linguistic variables. A Principle Component Analysis of the cognitive-linguistic battery revealed that the strongest component (Prin1 accounted for 33% of the variance and Prin1 was significantly related to the music task. Highest loadings on Prin1 were found for reading measures such as Reading Speed and Reading Accuracy. Interestingly, twenty-two children recorded responses for more than four sounds within a trial on the music task, which was classified as Superfluous Responses (SR. SR was negatively correlated with a variety of linguistic variables and showed a negative correlation with Prin1. When analyzing children with and without SR separately, only children with SR showed a significant correlation between Prin1 and the music task. Our results provide implications for the use of an ecologically valid music-based screening tool for the early identification of reading disabilities in a classroom setting.

  15. The Impact of Intensive Reading Intervention on Level of Attention in Middle School Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Greg; Rane, Shruti; Fall, Anna-Mária; Denton, Carolyn A.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Vaughn, Sharon

    2014-01-01

    Objective The purpose of the study was to estimate the impact of reading intervention on ratings of student attention over time. Method We used extant data from a longitudinal randomized study of a response-based reading intervention to fit a multiple-indicator, multilevel growth model. The sample at randomization was 54% male, 18% limited English proficient, 85% eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, 58% African American, and 32% Hispanic. Reading ability was measured by using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Attention was measured by using the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD Symptoms and Normal Behavior Scale. Results Findings indicate that intensive, response-based reading intervention over 3 years improved reading achievement and behavioral attention in middle school struggling readers, with treatment directly affecting reading, which in turn influenced attention. In the business-as-usual condition, there was no relation between improved reading and attention. Conclusions The results are consistent with a correlated liabilities model of comorbidity. The results do not align with the inattention-as-cause hypothesis, which predicts that reading intervention should not affect attention. The findings do not support, but do not necessarily preclude, the phenocopy hypothesis. The results are especially pertinent for older students who may be inattentive partly because of years of struggling with reading. PMID:24885289

  16. Culturally Relevant Literature: What Matters Most to Primary-Age Urban Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cartledge, Gwendolyn; Keesey, Susan; Bennett, Jessica G.; Ramnath, Rajiv; Council, Morris R., III.

    2016-01-01

    The ratings and rationales primary-age urban learners gave culturally relevant reading passages was the focus of this descriptive study. First- and second-grade students each read 30 researcher-developed passages reflecting the students' immediate and historical backgrounds. The students rated the passages and gave a reason for their ratings. A…

  17. "Can't Nobody Sleep" and Other Characteristics of Culturally Responsive English Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adkins, Theresa A.

    2012-01-01

    In this article the author presents a collective case study of two English teachers identified as particularly successful with Black students. Through the use of ethnographic techniques, the study provides a snapshot of how these teachers facilitated academic gains in urban high schools through their use of culturally responsive English…

  18. Davies, Florence (1995. Introducing Reading. Davies, Florence (1995. Introducing Reading.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sonia Maria Gomes Ferreira

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Arising at a time of unprecedented growth of interest in fostering critical thinking, Introducing Reading offers a clear introduction and thorough account of contemporary developments in the field of reading. While overtly focusing on the special demands of social and human aspects of the reading practice, the issues raised have crucial resonance in the sphere of critical reading. Explicitly addressed to teachers of mother tongue and foreign language contexts, the book claims to elaborate on aspects of reading which have received meager attention to date: individual readers engaged in different real-world reading tasks, the social contexts where such readers engage and interact with texts, and the nature and variety of texts, here regarded as “participants” in the interaction between reader and writer. To this extent, the book successfully reaches the ambitious aim of “socializing and humanizing reading and the teaching of reading” (p. xi. Arising at a time of unprecedented growth of interest in fostering critical thinking, Introducing Reading offers a clear introduction and thorough account of contemporary developments in the field of reading. While overtly focusing on the special demands of social and human aspects of the reading practice, the issues raised have crucial resonance in the sphere of critical reading. Explicitly addressed to teachers of mother tongue and foreign language contexts, the book claims to elaborate on aspects of reading which have received meager attention to date: individual readers engaged in different real-world reading tasks, the social contexts where such readers engage and interact with texts, and the nature and variety of texts, here regarded as “participants” in the interaction between reader and writer. To this extent, the book successfully reaches the ambitious aim of “socializing and humanizing reading and the teaching of reading” (p. xi.

  19. Effects of "literariness" on emotions and on empathy and reflection after reading

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    E.M. Koopman (Emy)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractThis study investigated the effects of foregrounding on affective responses (i.e., emotions) during reading, and on empathy and reflection after reading, using both quantitative and qualitative measures. In addition, the influence of personal factors (trait empathy, personal experience,

  20. Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Context of Mathematics: A Grounded Theory Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonner, Emily P.; Adams, Thomasenia L.

    2012-01-01

    In this grounded theory case study, four interconnected, foundational cornerstones of culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT), communication, knowledge, trust/relationships, and constant reflection/revision, were systematically unearthed to develop an initial working theory of CRMT that directly informs classroom practice. These…

  1. A Cross-Cultural Examination of Preschool Teacher Cognitions and Responses to Child Aggression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pochtar, Randi; Del Vecchio, Tamara

    2014-01-01

    The associations among preschool teachers' attributions about child responsibility, intentionality, knowledge, and the seriousness of hypothetical displays of children's aggressive behavior are examined in United States ("N"?=?82) and Vietnamese ("N"?=?91) preschool teachers. The results suggest cross-cultural differences as…

  2. Book Clubs in Developmental Reading: Building Reading Comprehension, Fostering Reading Enjoyment, and Engaging Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maldonado, Michele

    2012-01-01

    The use of book clubs in college developmental reading classes is an effective way to encourage reluctant readers to build and strengthen reading skills, foster reading enjoyment, and engage students. In addition, book clubs build a sense of community within the classroom as the students converse and share their interpretations of the reading…

  3. Temperament trait of sensory processing sensitivity moderates cultural differences in neural response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aron, Arthur; Ketay, Sarah; Hedden, Trey; Aron, Elaine N; Rose Markus, Hazel; Gabrieli, John D E

    2010-06-01

    This study focused on a possible temperament-by-culture interaction. Specifically, it explored whether a basic temperament/personality trait (sensory processing sensitivity; SPS), perhaps having a genetic component, might moderate a previously established cultural difference in neural responses when making context-dependent vs context-independent judgments of simple visual stimuli. SPS has been hypothesized to underlie what has been called inhibitedness or reactivity in infants, introversion in adults, and reactivity or responsivness in diverse animal species. Some biologists view the trait as one of two innate strategies-observing carefully before acting vs being first to act. Thus the central characteristic of SPS is hypothesized to be a deep processing of information. Here, 10 European-Americans and 10 East Asians underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing simple visuospatial tasks emphasizing judgments that were either context independent (typically easier for Americans) or context dependent (typically easier for Asians). As reported elsewhere, each group exhibited greater activation for the culturally non-preferred task in frontal and parietal regions associated with greater effort in attention and working memory. However, further analyses, reported here for the first time, provided preliminary support for moderation by SPS. Consistent with the careful-processing theory, high-SPS individuals showed little cultural difference; low-SPS, strong culture differences.

  4. Response of cultured human airway epithelial cells to X-rays and energetic α-particles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, T.C.; Holley, W.R.; Curtis, S.B.; Gruenert, D.C.; California Univ., San Francisco, CA

    1990-01-01

    Radon and its progeny, which emit α-particles during decay, may play an important role in inducing human lung cancer. To gain a better understanding of the biological effects of α-particles in human lung we studied the response of cultured human airway epithelial cells to X-rays and monoenergetic helium ions. Experimental results indicated that the radiation response of primary cultures was similar to that for airway epithelial cells that were transformed with a plasmid containing an origin-defective SV40 virus. The RBE for cell inactivation determined by the ratio of D 0 for X-rays to that for 8 MeV helium ions was 1.8-2.2. The cross-section for helium ions, calculated from the D 0 value, was about 24 μm 2 for cells of the primary culture. This cross-section is significantly smaller than the average geometric nuclear area (∼ 180 μm 2 ), suggesting that an average of 7.5 α-particles (8 MeV helium ions) per cell nucleus are needed to induce a lethal lesion. (author)

  5. Buscando Hallaras. Que Bonito Es Leer, II. Libro II. Libro de Lectura (Looking You Will Find. How Nice Reading Is, II. Book II. Reading Book).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dissemination and Assessment Center for Bilingual Education, Austin, TX.

    The Spanish reader, which has an accompanying workbook and teacher's guide, is the second in a series of readers designed for second grade supplementary Spanish reading instruction. The book contains eight stories, each about fifteen pages long. The first four have cultural themes and the last four, animal themes. There are black and white…

  6. Sharpening the lens of culturally responsive science teaching: a call for liberatory education for oppressed student groups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Codrington, Jamila

    2014-12-01

    Wallace and Brand's framing of culturally responsive science teaching through the lens of critical race theory honors the role of social justice in science education. In this article, I extend the discussion through reflections on the particular learning needs of students from oppressed cultural groups, specifically African Americans. Understanding the political nature of education, I explore the importance of transforming science education so that it has the capacity to provide African American students with tools for their own liberation. I discuss Wallace and Brand's research findings in relation to the goal of liberatory education, and offer ideas for how science educators might push forward this agenda as they strive for culturally responsive teaching with oppressed student groups.

  7. Cell-cycle distributions and radiation responses of Chinese hamster cells cultured continuously under hypoxic conditions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tokita, N.; Carpenter, S.G.; Raju, M.R.

    1984-01-01

    Cell-cycle distributions were measured by flow cytometry for Chinese hamster (CHO) cells cultured continuously under hypoxic conditions. DNA histograms showed an accumulation of cells in the early S phase followed by a traverse delay through the S phase, and a G 2 block. During hypoxic culturing, cell viability decreased rapidly to less than 0.1% at 120 h. Radiation responses for cells cultured under these conditions showed an extreme radioresistance at 72 h. Results suggest that hypoxia induces a condition similar to cell synchrony which itself changes the radioresistance of hypoxic cells. (author)

  8. Motivational reading on education, meaningful reading realisation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adriana Qafa

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available In this study I will present some ideas on today’s educational practice for motivation, the realization of the meaningful reading. There is a special place for the methodical ranking of the reading process, starting in school. Main requests of this reading, consist of the deep meaning of the subject, exploration of the idea, and other elements of the subject, implementation of the technique’s rules of the expressive reading, such as breathing, voice, diction, intonation, spelling, stoppages, logical emphasizes, emotional expressions, temper, timber, gesticulations, and mimic. There is also highlighted the fact that the used method comes from the pupils’ results and depends on the capability and level of the teacher, from the programming’s scale, the tools that are put into disposition, the age and the level of the pupils, and from the environment that the teacher creates during courses. At the end there are some practical guidelines for the realization of the expressive reading in the literature subject.

  9. Object Lessons: Material Culture on the World Wide Web.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mires, Charlene

    2001-01-01

    Describes the content of a course on material culture for undergraduate students that was separated into two sections: (1) first students read books and analyzed artifacts; and (2) then the class explored the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) in 1876, applying material culture methods and constructing a Web site from their…

  10. Word Reading Efficiency, Text Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension among Chinese Learners of English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Xiangying; Sawaki, Yasuyo; Sabatini, John

    2012-01-01

    This study examined the relationship among word reading efficiency, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension for adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Data from 185 adult Chinese EFL learners preparing to take the Test-of-English-as-a-Foreign-Language[TM] (TOEFL[R]) were analyzed in this study. The participants completed a…

  11. Getting Students to Read: Anticipation Guides as Tools to Encourage Engagement with Academic Texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaback, Suzanne

    2012-01-01

    Supporting the reading development of college students is the responsibility of all professors. As experts in the field, with experience navigating and interpreting readings in a particular discipline, professors are obligated to think of themselves as master artisans apprenticing their students to the craft of reading. Texts in all subject areas…

  12. Learning by Leading: Dynamic Mentoring to Support Culturally Responsive Mathematical Inquiry Communities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, Roberta; Hunter, Jodie; Bills, Trevor; Thompson, Zain

    2016-01-01

    While there is widespread agreement that "all" learners of the 21st century need to be numerate and literate, reforming pedagogical practices to achieve such an outcome is challenging for many teachers. This is a report of one aspect of a project which aims to integrate a culturally responsive pedagogical mathematics practice within…

  13. Maximizing Reading Narrative Text Ability by Probing Prompting Learning Technique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wiwied Pratiwi

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this research was to know whether Probing Prompting Learning Technique can be used to get the maximum effect of students’ reading narrative ability in teaching and learning process. This research was applied collaborative action reEsearch, this research was done in two cycle. The subject of this research was 23 students at tenth grade of SMA Kartikatama Metro. The result of the research showed that the Probing Prompting Learning Technique is useful and effective to help students get maximum effect of their reading. Based on the results of the questionnaire obtained an average percentage of 95%, it indicated that application of Probing Prompting Learning Technique in teaching l reading was appropriately applied. In short that students’ responses toward Probing Prompting Learning Technique in teaching reading was positive. In conclusion, Probing Prompting Learning Technique can get maximum effect of students’ reading ability. In relation to the result of the reserach, some suggestion are offered to english teacher, that  the use of Probing Prompting learning Technique in teaching reading will get the maximum effect of students’ reading abilty.

  14. Isolation and open reading frame 5 gene analysis of porcine ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ARL

    2012-11-08

    Nov 8, 2012 ... viral RNA of fourth generation, reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR based on open reading frame 5 (ORF5) ... fourth generation. TCID50 of isolate measured by Reed-Muench method was 10-3.6/0.1 ml. Genetic evolution of ORF5 indicated that the two isolated strains were in a .... generation of the virus culture.

  15. Clock domain crossing modules for OCP-style read/write interfaces

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Herlev, Mathias; Sparsø, Jens

    The open core protocol (OCP) is an openly licensed, configurable, and scalable interface protocol for on-chip subsystem communications. The protocol defines read and write transactions from a master towards a slave across a point-to-point connection and the protocol assumes a single common clock....... This paper presents the design of two OCP clock domain crossing interface modules, that can be used to construct systems with multiple clock domains. One module (called OCPio) supports a single word read-write interface and the other module (called OCPburst) supports a four word burst read-write interface......-style read-write transaction interfaces. An OCP interface typically has control signals related to both the master issuing a read or write request and the slave producing a response. If all these control signals are passed across the clock domain boundary and synchronized it may add significant latency...

  16. Cultural cognition in the thinking-aloud method for usability evaluation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Clemmensen, Torkil; Hertzum, Morten; Hornbæk, Kasper

    2008-01-01

    ) and Easterners (people from China and the countries heavily influenced by its culture). We illustrate the impact of cultural cognition on four central elements of TA: (1) instructions and tasks, (2) the user's verbalizations, (3) the evaluator's reading of the user, and (4) the overall relationship between user...

  17. How many books can be read in a lifetime?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Igor Grdina

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRACTPurpose: The essay is mostly based on the analysis of primary sources (reminiscences and addresses the question of which currents influenced the number of read books in various periods of modern history and particularly in the age of bourgeoisie in Slovenia.Methodology/approach: The research was carried out in accordance with the paradigms of new cultural history with special emphasis on the history of ideas and mentalities.Results: The mentality of enlightenment and national-awakening looked upon as highly non-elitist and emancipatory in Slovenia, led to efficient ways of spreading books and the circle of their readers. The publishers whose mass production became available to everyone, including the poorest strata of the society, ensured low prices of their book editions. Public and private libraries were an important instrument for the spread and creation of interest groups and national communities.Research limitation: The research is based on available resources; however, the lost or unknown resources could surely offer more answers. It is logical that some assumptions can be confirmed by a detailed analysis or by the review of manuscripts and other similar documents held in Slovenian libraries and abroad.Originality/practical implications: The analysis of reminiscences in the political, economical and historical context offers a new point of view of the social stand and cultural values of the Slovenian bourgeoisie in the early 20th century. The study presents the position of Slovenian people and identity shaped by the reading culture and language identity.

  18. Gender, Culture, and Sex-Typed Cognitive Abilities

    OpenAIRE

    Reilly, David

    2012-01-01

    Although gender differences in cognitive abilities are frequently reported, the magnitude of these differences and whether they hold practical significance in the educational outcomes of boys and girls is highly debated. Furthermore, when gender gaps in reading, mathematics and science literacy are reported they are often attributed to innate, biological differences rather than social and cultural factors. Cross-cultural evidence may contribute to this debate, and this study reports national ...

  19. Developing New Reading Assessments to Promote Beginning Reading in Singapore

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koh, Kim H.; Paris, Scott G.

    2011-01-01

    Effective reading instruction and intervention are rooted in effective assessments of children's developing skills in reading. The article aims to describe the development of new reading assessments to help promote beginning reading in Singapore primary schools. We begin with an introduction to the educational landscape and policies before…

  20. Teachers’ perceptions of reading instruction in selected primary schools in the Eastern Cape

    OpenAIRE

    Madoda Cekiso

    2017-01-01

    Background: There is a general outcry that too many South African Foundation Phase (Grades 1–3) teachers do not know how to teach reading and are currently teaching reading in an ad hoc, unsystematic way. Objectives: In response to this, this study explored the Foundation Phase teachers’ perceptions of their role in teaching reading. The focus was on the relevance of the initial training, awareness of reading strategies and how these strategies were reflected in their classroom practice. ...

  1. Teachers' perceptions of reading instruction in selected primary schools in the Eastern Cape

    OpenAIRE

    Cekiso, Madoda

    2017-01-01

    Background: There is a general outcry that too many South African Foundation Phase (Grades 1–3) teachers do not know how to teach reading and are currently teaching reading in an ad hoc, unsystematic way. Objectives: In response to this, this study explored the Foundation Phase teachers’ perceptions of their role in teaching reading. The focus was on the relevance of the initial training, awareness of reading strategies and how these strategies were reflected in their classroom practice. ...

  2. Reading Speed as a Constraint of Accuracy of Self-Perception of Reading Skill

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwon, Heekyung; Linderholm, Tracy

    2015-01-01

    We hypothesised that college students take reading speed into consideration when evaluating their own reading skill, even if reading speed does not reliably predict actual reading skill. To test this hypothesis, we measured self-perception of reading skill, self-perception of reading speed, actual reading skill and actual reading speed to…

  3. Early Reading Strategies in Irish and English: Evidence from Error Types

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parsons, Christine E.; Lyddy, Fiona

    2009-01-01

    For the majority of people in Ireland, Irish is a second language acquired primarily through the schooling system. This study examined the reading strategies children used in response to English and Irish words (presented in isolation), through an analysis of their oral reading errors. Children in their 4th year of schooling attending…

  4. Exploring Students' Reading Profiles to Guide a Reading Intervention Programme

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boakye, Naomi A. N. Y.

    2017-01-01

    There have been a number of studies on reading interventions to improve students' reading proficiency, yet the majority of these interventions are undertaken with the assumption that students' reading challenges are obvious and generic in nature. The interventions do not take into consideration the diversity in students' reading backgrounds and…

  5. Response to intervention as a predictor of long-term reading outcomes in children with dyslexia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kleij, S.W. van der; Segers, P.C.J.; Groen, M.A.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

    2017-01-01

    The goal of this study was to investigate how growth during a phonics-based intervention, as well as reading levels at baseline testing, predicted long-term reading outcomes of children with dyslexia. Eighty Dutch children with dyslexia who had completed a 50-week phonics-based intervention in grade

  6. Device-independent quantum reading and noise-assisted quantum transmitters

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roga, W; Buono, D; Illuminati, F

    2015-01-01

    In quantum reading, a quantum state of light (transmitter) is applied to read classical information. In the presence of noise or for sufficiently weak signals, quantum reading can outperform classical reading by reason of enhanced state distinguishability. Here we show that enhanced quantum efficiency depends on the presence in the transmitter of a particular type of quantum correlations, the discord of response. Different encodings and transmitters give rise to different levels of efficiency. Considering noisy quantum probes, we show that squeezed thermal transmitters with non-symmetrically distributed noise among the field modes yield higher quantum efficiency compared with coherent thermal quantum states. The noise-enhanced quantum advantage is a consequence of the discord of response being a non-decreasing function of increasing thermal noise under constant squeezing, a behavior that leads to increased state distinguishability. We finally show that, for non-symmetric squeezed thermal states, the probability of error, as measured by the quantum Chernoff bound, vanishes asymptotically with increasing local thermal noise with finite global squeezing. Therefore, with fixed finite squeezing, noisy but strongly discordant quantum states with a large noise imbalance between the field modes can outperform noisy classical resources as well as pure entangled transmitters with the same finite level of squeezing. (paper)

  7. Cultural realities of being

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cultural Realities of Being offers a dialogue between academic activity and everyday lives by providing an interface between several perspectives on human conduct. Very often, academic pursuits are arcane and obscure for ordinary people, this book will attempt to disentangle these dialogues, lift...... fresh light on the everyday events presented in the text. Cultural Realities of Being will be essential reading for those studying Cross Cultural Psychology as well as those interested in social representation and identity......., lifting everyday discourse and providing a forum for advancing discussion and dialogue. Nandita Chaudhary, S. Anandalakshmy and Jaan Valsiner bring together contributors from the field of cultural psychology to consider how people living within social groups, regardless of how liberal, are guided...... of cultural psychology. The book builds upon rich cultural traditions present in India, and precisely because of this focus, the book has much larger implications and relevance to the field and aims to orient the academic reader from around the world to viewing India and Indian society as a valuable area...

  8. A indústria cultural lida pela cultura erudita: tomadas de posição e ideologia * Culture industry read by high culture: positions and ideology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MARIA LUÍSA CARNEIRO FUMANERI

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Resumo: Muitos intelectuais têm discutido o problema da compreensão da cultura de massa como uma forma de alienação. Desde a "Dialética do esclarecimento" de Adorno e Horkheimer, tende-se a entender cultura de massa em oposição à alta cultura. Este artigo tenta mostrar como uma compreensão menos estanque do fenômeno poderia ajudar a ver o problema como ele aparece hoje. Se “cultura de massa” e “alta cultura” parecem, em muitos aspectos, inextricavelmente confundidas atualmente, este trabalho baseia-se na teoria sociológica, a fim de esclarecer as posições dos agentes no campo de produção erudita.Palavras-chave: Cultura de massa – Alta cultura – Indústria cultural. Abstract: Many intellectuals have been discussing the problem of understanding mass culture as a way to alienation. Since Adorno and Horkheimer´s "Dialectic of Enlightenment", we tend to understand mass culture in opposition to high culture. This article tries to show how a less tight understanding of the phenomena could help us to look at the problem as it appears today. If mass culture and high culture seem, in many ways, inextricably mixed these days, this work relies on some sociological works, in order to enlighten the agents’ positions within the cultural field.Keywords: Mass culture – High cultureCulture industry.

  9. The Religion of Learning English in "English": A Language Educator's Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Xuesong

    2011-01-01

    This essay is my reading of "English," a novel based on author Wang Gang's experiences in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Northwest China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). As a language educator, I was particularly interested in the way that Wang describes learning English in the novel. The essay focuses on three…

  10. Can the Relationship Between Rapid Automatized Naming and Word Reading Be Explained by a Catastrophe? Empirical Evidence From Students With and Without Reading Difficulties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sideridis, Georgios D; Simos, Panagiotis; Mouzaki, Angeliki; Stamovlasis, Dimitrios; Georgiou, George K

    2018-05-01

    The purpose of the present study was to explain the moderating role of rapid automatized naming (RAN) in word reading with a cusp catastrophe model. We hypothesized that increases in RAN performance speed beyond a critical point would be associated with the disruption in word reading, consistent with a "generic shutdown" hypothesis. Participants were 587 elementary schoolchildren (Grades 2-4), among whom 87 had reading comprehension difficulties per the IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion. Data were analyzed via a cusp catastrophe model derived from the nonlinear dynamics systems theory. Results indicated that for children with reading comprehension difficulties, as naming speed falls below a critical level, the association between core reading processes (word recognition and decoding) becomes chaotic and unpredictable. However, after the significant common variance attributed to motivation, emotional, and internalizing symptoms measures from RAN scores was partialed out, its role as a bifurcation variable was no longer evident. Taken together, these findings suggest that RAN represents a salient cognitive measure that may be associated with psychoemotional processes that are, at least in part, responsible for unpredictable and chaotic word reading behavior among children with reading comprehension deficits.

  11. An experimental strategy validated to design cost-effective culture media based on response surface methodology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navarrete-Bolaños, J L; Téllez-Martínez, M G; Miranda-López, R; Jiménez-Islas, H

    2017-07-03

    For any fermentation process, the production cost depends on several factors, such as the genetics of the microorganism, the process condition, and the culture medium composition. In this work, a guideline for the design of cost-efficient culture media using a sequential approach based on response surface methodology is described. The procedure was applied to analyze and optimize a culture medium of registered trademark and a base culture medium obtained as a result of the screening analysis from different culture media used to grow the same strain according to the literature. During the experiments, the procedure quantitatively identified an appropriate array of micronutrients to obtain a significant yield and find a minimum number of culture medium ingredients without limiting the process efficiency. The resultant culture medium showed an efficiency that compares favorably with the registered trademark medium at a 95% lower cost as well as reduced the number of ingredients in the base culture medium by 60% without limiting the process efficiency. These results demonstrated that, aside from satisfying the qualitative requirements, an optimum quantity of each constituent is needed to obtain a cost-effective culture medium. Study process variables for optimized culture medium and scaling-up production for the optimal values are desirable.

  12. Plato the Pederast: Rhetoric and Cultural Procreation in the Dialogues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ervin, Elizabeth

    1993-01-01

    Examines Plato's Dialogues by reading them through two cultural lenses: the role of eros in classical Greece and its analogous relationship to language and rhetoric; and the educational function of eros within the ancient institution of pederasty. Shows how the cultural values of ancient Greece manifested themselves in Plato's erotic educational…

  13. Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian Wallot

    Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

  14. The role of speech prosody and text reading prosody in children's reading comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veenendaal, Nathalie J; Groen, Margriet A; Verhoeven, Ludo

    2014-12-01

    Text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension. However, text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure that relies heavily on decoding skills. Investigation of the contribution of speech prosody - which is independent from reading skills - in addition to text reading prosody, to reading comprehension could provide more insight into the general role of prosody in reading comprehension. The current study investigates how much variance in reading comprehension scores is explained by speech prosody and text reading prosody, after controlling for decoding, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness. A battery of reading and language assessments was performed by 106 Dutch fourth-grade primary school children. Speech prosody was assessed using a storytelling task and text reading prosody by oral text reading performance. Decoding skills, vocabulary, syntactic awareness, and reading comprehension were assessed using standardized tests. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that text reading prosody explained 6% of variance and that speech prosody explained 8% of variance in reading comprehension scores, after controlling for decoding, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness. Phrasing was the significant factor in both speech and text reading. When added in consecutive order, phrasing in speech added 5% variance to phrasing in reading. In contrast, phrasing in reading added only 3% variance to phrasing in speech. The variance that speech prosody explained in reading comprehension scores should not be neglected. Speech prosody seems to facilitate the construction of meaning in written language. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

  15. Developing cultural competence and social responsibility in preclinical dental students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rubin, Richard W

    2004-04-01

    Dental student development of cultural competence and social responsibility is recognized by educators as an important element in the overall shaping of minds and attitudes of modem dental practitioners. Yet training modalities to achieve these competencies are not clearly defined, and outcome measurements are elusive. This article shows an effective method to meet these desired outcomes. Sixty-one freshmen (class of 2005) participated in forty hours of nondental community service, and reflective journals were completed by the end of second year. Competency outcomes were measured by selecting key words and phrases found in the individual journals. Key phrases were related to compassion, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. Also, phrases had to be accompanied by written indications of direct program causation. The combination of active-learning (based upon service learning models) in public health settings outside of the dental realm, accompanied by reflective journaling, enhanced cultural understanding and community spirit in the majority of students.

  16. Cultural Differences and Similarities in Responses to the Silver Drawing Test in the USA, Brazil, Russia, Estonia, Thailand, and Australia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silver, Rawley

    2003-01-01

    Summarizes cross-cultural studies of cognitive skills, emotions, and self-images found in responses to drawing tasks by children, adolescents, and adults. Its aim is to find out whether cultural differences in scores on the Silver Drawing Test can illuminate cultural preferences and contribute to cultural practices. (Contains 21 references.) (GCP)

  17. "It Makes Me Really Want To Read": Struggling Readers Discover Literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Primeaux, Joan

    2001-01-01

    Presents a project where the teacher, rather than teaching the students how to read using a remedial, isolated skills approach, concerned herself with getting them to read by "falling into the literature" and getting involved in the characters' lives. Describes a reader response approach that was designed to motivate the students to engage with…

  18. 75 FR 76997 - Public Consultation on Personnel Reliability and Culture of Responsibility Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-12-10

    ... recommendations in this regard and to develop specific guidance that reflects broad input from the scientific... institutional leadership for promoting biosecurity, personnel reliability, and a culture of responsibility; (2... on the meeting agenda, which can be accessed at http://www.biosecurityboard.gov . The meeting is open...

  19. Making sense of climate change risks and responses at the community level: A cultural-political lens

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ainka A. Granderson

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available How to better assess, communicate and respond to risks from climate change at the community level have emerged as key questions within climate risk management. Recent research to address these questions centres largely on psychological factors, exploring how cognition and emotion lead to biases in risk assessment. Yet, making sense of climate change and its responses at the community level demands attention to the cultural and political processes that shape how risk is conceived, prioritized and managed. I review the emergent literature on risk perceptions and responses to climate change using a cultural-political lens. This lens highlights how knowledge, meaning and power are produced and negotiated across multiple stakeholders at the community level. It draws attention to the different ways of constructing climate change risks and suggests an array of responses at the community level. It further illustrates how different constructions of risk intersect with agency and power to shape the capacity for response and collective action. What matters are whose constructions of risk, and whose responses, count in decision-making. I argue for greater engagement with the interpretive social sciences in research, practice and policy. The interpretive social sciences offer theories and tools for capturing and problematising the ways of knowing, sense-making and mobilising around risks from climate change. I also highlight the importance of participatory approaches in incorporating the multiplicity of interests at the community level into climate risk management in fair, transparent and culturally appropriate ways.

  20. The Assessment of Reading Comprehension Difficulties for Reading Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woolley, Gary

    2008-01-01

    There are many environmental and personal factors that contribute to reading success. Reading comprehension is a complex interaction of language, sensory perception, memory, and motivational aspects. However, most existing assessment tools have not adequately reflected the complex nature of reading comprehension. Good assessment requires a…

  1. Dehistoricized Cultural Identity and Cultural Othering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weiguo, Qu

    2013-01-01

    The assumption that each culture has its own distinctive identity has been generally accepted in the discussion of cultural identities. Quite often identity formation is not perceived as a dynamic and interactive ongoing process that engages other cultures and involves change in its responses to different challenges at different times. I will…

  2. The Role of Speech Prosody and Text Reading Prosody in Children's Reading Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veenendaal, Nathalie J.; Groen, Margriet A.; Verhoeven, Ludo

    2014-01-01

    Background: Text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension. However, text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure that relies heavily on decoding skills. Investigation of the contribution of speech prosody--which is independent from reading skills--in addition to text reading prosody, to reading comprehension could…

  3. To read or not to read

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mol, Suzanne Elizabeth

    2010-01-01

    There is a widely held belief that reading (story)books makes us smarter and helps promote success in life. Does scientific evidence support this notion? The three meta-analyses in this thesis comprise 146 studies between 1988 and 2010 (N=10,308 participants) that addressed the role of book reading

  4. Teachers’ beliefs about reading and use of reading strategies

    OpenAIRE

    VASILIKA RRAKU

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this article is to place the focus on teachers’ beliefs about reading and reading strategies to the purpose of emphasizing the im portance of reading strategies in the reading process. The method of study is analytic analysis of teachers’ beliefs obtained through ques tionnaires delivered to 18 English language teachers of elementary, secondary and high level education in the region of Saranda in lbania. The results of the study pointed to a great concordance between teach ers’ bel...

  5. Culturally Speaking: Booktalking Authentic Multicultural Literature

    Science.gov (United States)

    York, Sheryl

    2008-01-01

    Booktalking authentic multicultural literature can encourage students to read, promote respect for all cultures, and help make all students feel welcome in libraries and media centers. It also provides opportunities to collaborate with teachers to increase diversity throughout the schools. This article presents selected booktalks of contemporary…

  6. The profile of a professional reader: Ivo Vojnović’s reading practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nada Topić

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the reading profile of Ivo Vojnović using the literature overview and the analysis of his personal correspondence, in order to answer the research questions suggested in Robert Darnton’s methodological texts. The paper aims to reconstruct not only what Vojnović was reading, but also when, where, how and why he was reading, starting with the question who he was as a reader. The study sets off from bibliographic data (who on Vojnović, and proceeds to look at the content of his correspondence in three time periods: 1878-1906, 1907-1918, 1919-1929 (when. His place of residence is also stated for each period. The study singled out all references to reading related to both the author and the title (what and particular segments (how and why. Research results give an insight into Ivo Vojnović’s reading world, providing not only the list of authors and titles of books he read, but also his attitude towards what he read, and the context and reasons behind his reading interest. This partly reconstructs the reading profile of Ivo Vojnović as an expert in Croatian and European classical and contemporary literature, a passionate reader bridging European and Croatian culture and literature, in which he for the first time introduced the elements of modernity and symbolism. A study of other available sources that contain the information on Vojnović’s reading (diary entries, literary, theoretical and historical studies of his work, etc. would give a more holistic insight into possible interpretations of his reading profile.

  7. Addressing False Positives in Early Reading Assessment Using Intervention Response Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    McAlenney, Athena Lentini; Coyne, Michael D.

    2015-01-01

    The current study examined a solution to high false positive reading risk classification rates in early kindergarten by investigating a method of identifying students with possible false positive risk classifications and returning them to general classroom instruction. Researchers assessed kindergarten students (N = 105) identified as at risk who…

  8. The Use of Cooperative Learning Through Tai (Team Assisted Individualization In Reading Comprehension

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ermawati Zulikhatin Nuroh

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Cooperative Learning is a teaching arrangement that refers to small, heterogeneous groups of students working together to achieve a common goal (Kagan, 1994. This research is done to know the response of students used cooperative learning in reading comprehension. The data of this study analyzed qualitatively without applying statistical calculations. The subject of the study were the students of the first semester in Midwifery faculty of Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo . There researcher used one class which consist 29 students. The students gave the positive responses and dominantly agreed to the implementation of cooperative learning type Team Assisted Individualization (TAI in reading comprehension. From the questionnaire, the researcher concludes that are 40% students are agreed, 50% students strongly agree, and 10% less agree  with cooperative learning type Team Assisted Individualization (TAI in reading comprehension. The conclusion is students respond well to cooperative learning model type Team Assisted Individualization (TAI to improve students' reading comprehension. This cooperative learning type Team Assisted Individualization (TAI can be the one of the model to teach reading comprehension.

  9. Multicultural Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veltze, Linda

    2004-01-01

    Multicultural reading advocates believe in the power of literature to transform and to change people's lives. They take seriously the arguments that racism and prejudice can be lessened through multicultural reading, and also that children from undervalued societal groups who read books that depict people like themselves in a positive light will…

  10. Jogos pedagógicos e responsividade: ludicidade, compreensão leitora e aprendizagem / Educational games and responsiveness: playfulness, reading comprehension and learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nukácia Meyre Silva Araújo

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Este artigo, embasado em pressupostos teóricos da teoria bakhtiniana, tem o objetivo de analisar as características das atitudes responsivas de alunos de duas turmas de 1ª ano do Ensino Médio de uma escola pública em Fortaleza, durante a interação com textos em um jogo educativo voltado para o ensino de leitura em Língua Portuguesa. A análise é feita a partir de dados colhidos em um experimento-piloto que tinha como objetivo analisar a influência do uso de um Objeto de Aprendizagem (OA no desenvolvimento de estratégias de leitura.Durante a tarefa de ler, verificou-se que o OA, devido à forma como propõe a tarefa e ao uso de tecnologia interativa para a aprendizagem, desenvolveu, nos alunos-usuários do jogo, atitudes responsivas ativas durante a complementação de significados do texto.This article, based on theoretical assumptions of the Bakhtinian theory aims to analyze the characteristics of responsive attitudes of students from two high school classes at a public school in Fortaleza. The research took place during interaction with texts in an educational game for teaching reading in Portuguese. The analysis is based on data collected in a pilot experiment that aimed to analyze the influence of using a Learning Object (LO in the development of reading strategies. During the task of reading, it was verified that the LO, due to the way the task is proposed and the use of interactive technology for learning, developed, in the student-users of the game, active responsive attitudes during the complementation of meanings of the text.

  11. SchemaOnRead: A Package for Schema-on-Read in R

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    North, Michael J.

    2016-08-01

    Schema-on-read is an agile approach to data storage and retrieval that defers investments in data organization until production queries need to be run by working with data directly in native form. Schema-on-read functions have been implemented in a wide range of analytical systems, most notably Hadoop. SchemaOnRead is a CRAN package that uses R’s flexible data representations to provide transparent and convenient support for the schema-on-read paradigm in R. The schema-on- read tools within the package include a single function call that recursively reads folders with text, comma separated value, raster image, R data, HDF5, NetCDF, spreadsheet, Weka, Epi Info, Pajek network, R network, HTML, SPSS, Systat, and Stata files. The provided tools can be used as-is or easily adapted to implement customized schema-on-read tool chains in R. This paper’s contribution is that it introduces and describes SchemaOnRead, the first R package specifically focused on providing explicit schema-on-read support in R.

  12. Examining Associations between Reading Motivation and Inference Generation beyond Reading Comprehension Skill

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clinton, Virginia

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between reading motivation and inference generation while reading. Undergraduate participants (N = 69) read two science articles while thinking aloud, completed a standardized reading comprehension assessment, and self reported their habitual reading motivation. Findings indicate that…

  13. Reading Amount as a Mediator of the Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation on Reading Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaffner, Ellen; Schiefele, Ulrich; Ulferts, Hannah

    2013-01-01

    This study examined the role of reading amount as a mediator of the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation on higher order reading comprehension (comprised of paragraph-and passage-level comprehension) in a sample of 159 fifth-grade elementary students. A positive association between intrinsic reading motivation and reading amount…

  14. Dimensions in Communication: Reading. Second Edition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, James H., Ed.; Hepler, Hal W., Ed.

    The underlying premise in this collection of readings is that persuasion exists in all communications. When people interact, persuasion is one of the catalysts--the communicator seeks to alter the probabilities of the receiver's responses in ways the communicator can predict and in ways that permit the communicator to reap rewards from his…

  15. The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade students who evidence different oral reading fluency difficulties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wise, Justin C; Sevcik, Rose A; Morris, Robin D; Lovett, Maureen W; Wolf, Maryanne; Kuhn, Melanie; Meisinger, Beth; Schwanenflugel, Paula

    2010-07-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine whether different measures of oral reading fluency relate differentially to reading comprehension performance in two samples of second-grade students: (a) students who evidenced difficulties with nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, and oral reading fluency of connected text (ORFD), and (b) students who evidenced difficulties only with oral reading fluency of connected text (CTD). Participants (ORFD, n = 146 and CTD, n = 949) were second-grade students who were recruited for participation in different reading intervention studies. Data analyzed were from measures of nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, oral reading fluency of connected text, and reading comprehension that were collected at the pre-intervention time point. Correlational and path analyses indicated that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension performance in both samples and across average and poor reading comprehension abilities. Results of this study indicate that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and suggest that real-word oral reading fluency may be an efficient method for identifying potential reading comprehension difficulties.

  16. Culture, gender and health care stigma: Practitioners' response to facial masking experienced by people with Parkinson's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tickle-Degnen, Linda; Zebrowitz, Leslie A; Ma, Hui-ing

    2011-07-01

    Facial masking in Parkinson's disease is the reduction of automatic and controlled expressive movement of facial musculature, creating an appearance of apathy, social disengagement or compromised cognitive status. Research in western cultures demonstrates that practitioners form negatively biased impressions associated with patient masking. Socio-cultural norms about facial expressivity vary according to culture and gender, yet little research has studied the effect of these factors on practitioners' responses toward patients who vary in facial expressivity. This study evaluated the effect of masking, culture and gender on practitioners' impressions of patient psychological attributes. Practitioners (N = 284) in the United States and Taiwan judged 12 Caucasian American and 12 Asian Taiwanese women and men patients in video clips from interviews. Half of each patient group had a moderate degree of facial masking and the other half had near-normal expressivity. Practitioners in both countries judged patients with higher masking to be more depressed and less sociable, less socially supportive, and less cognitively competent than patients with lower masking. Practitioners were more biased by masking when judging the sociability of the American patients, and American practitioners' judgments of patient sociability were more negatively biased in response to masking than were those of Taiwanese practitioners. Practitioners were more biased by masking when judging the cognitive competence and social supportiveness of the Taiwanese patients, and Taiwanese practitioners' judgments of patient cognitive competence were more negatively biased in response to masking than were those of American practitioners. The negative response to higher masking was stronger in practitioner judgments of women than men patients, particularly American patients. The findings suggest local cultural values as well as ethnic and gender stereotypes operate on practitioners' use of facial

  17. Counter-storying the grand narrative of science (teacher) education: towards culturally responsive teaching

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Peter Charles

    2011-12-01

    John Settlage's article— Counterstories from White Mainstream Preservice Teachers: Resisting the Master Narrative of Deficit by Default—outlines his endeavour to enable pre-service teachers to develop culturally responsive science teaching identities for resisting the master narrative of deficit thinking when confronted by the culturally different `other.' Case study results are presented of the role of counterstories in enabling five pre-service teachers to overcome deficit thinking. In this forum, Philip Moore, a cultural anthropologist and university professor, deepens our understanding of the power and significance of counterstories as an educational tool for enabling students to deconstruct oppressive master narratives. Jill Slay, dean of a science faculty, examines her own master narrative about the compatibility of culturally similar academics and graduate students, and finds it lacking. But first, I introduce this scholarship with background notes on the critical paradigm and its adversary, the grand narrative of science education, following which I give an appreciative understanding of John's pedagogical use of counterstories as a transformative strategy for multi-worldview science teacher education.

  18. A responsive evaluation of mental health treatment in Cambodia: Intentionally addressing poverty to increase cultural responsiveness in therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seponski, Desiree M; Lewis, Denise C; Megginson, Maegan C

    2014-01-01

    Mental health issues are significant contributors to the global burden of disease with the highest incidence in resource poor countries; 90% of those in need of mental health treatment reside in low resource countries but receive only 10% of the world's resources. Cambodia, the eighth least developed country in the world, serves as one example of the need to address mental health concerns in low-income, resource poor countries. The current study utilises responsive evaluation methodology to explore how poverty-stricken Cambodian clients, therapists and supervisors experience Western models of therapy as culturally responsive to their unique needs. Quantitative and qualitative data were triangulated across multiple stakeholders using numerous methods including a focus group, interviews, surveys, case illustrations and live supervision observation and analysed using constant comparative analysis. Emerging findings suggest that poverty, material needs, therapy location and financial situations greatly impact the daily lives and mental health conditions of Cambodians and hinder clients' therapeutic progress. The local community needs and context of poverty greatly hinder clients' therapeutic progress in therapy treatment and when therapy does not directly address the culture of poverty, clients did not experience therapy as valuable despite some temporary decreases in mental health symptoms.

  19. Reading motivation, reading amount, and text comprehension in deaf and hearing adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parault, Susan J; Williams, Heather M

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the variables of reading motivation, reading amount, and text comprehension in deaf and hearing adults. Research has shown that less than 50% of deaf students leave high school reading at or above a fourth-grade level (Allen, 1994). Our question is, how does this affect the levels of reading motivation and amount of reading in which deaf adults engage? Assessments of 30 hearing and 24 deaf adults showed that deaf participants reported significantly higher levels of reading motivation despite having been found to read at less than a sixth-grade level. No significant difference in the amount of reading between hearing and deaf adults was found. Amount of reading for personal reasons was found to be the best predictor of text comprehension in the deaf participants, and intrinsic motivation was found to be the best predictor of amount of reading in the deaf participants.

  20. An investigation of Chinese university EFL learner’s foreign language reading anxiety, reading strategy use and reading comprehension performance

    OpenAIRE

    Zhongshe Lu; Meihua Liu

    2015-01-01

    The present study explored the interrelations between foreign language (FL) reading anxiety, FL reading strategy use and their interactive effect on FL reading comprehension performance at the tertiary level in China. Analyses of the survey data collected from 1702 university students yielded the following results: (a) Both Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Foreign Language Reading Strategy Use Scale (FLRSUS) had important subcomponents, (b) more than half of the stu...