Precursors of Functional Literacy

Precursors of Functional Literacy
Author: Ludo Th Verhoeven
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027218063

The purpose of this volume is to present recent research in the field of the acquisition of functional literacy and its precursors. The volume aims to capture the state of the art in this rapidly expanding field. An attempt is made to clarify the vague and often inconsistent definitions of functional literacy from the perspective of development. Cognitive, linguistic, educational, and social factors of literacy development are all taken into account. The volume consists of three subsequent parts. The first part goes into phonological precursors of literacy development. In this part the focus is on the development of early language precursors of of reading and writing. The cultural foundations of these precursors are explored, and their links with reading development are dealt with in detail. Different psycholinguistic approaches are also proposed to explain the occurrence of literacy problems. In the second part, the scope is on the constraints of reading and writing efficiency at the word level and beyond. The acquisition of reading and writing is seen as a result from the interaction between phonological, orthographic, and semantic processes. A crosslinguistic perspective is taken on the role of writing system factors in the acquisition of literacy skills. The final part deals with the role of social and educational factors in literacy acquisition. Starting from a crosscultural perspective, the central issue is how the attainment of functional literacy is dependent on sociocultural variation. The predictors of more advanced levels of literacy development are considered, including foreign language literacy and adult literacy.

Handbook of Reading Interventions

Handbook of Reading Interventions
Author: Rollanda E. O'Connor
Publisher: Guilford Press
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2013-01-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1462509479

Comprehensive, authoritative, and designed for practical utility, this handbook presents evidence-based approaches for helping struggling readers and those at risk for literacy difficulties or delays. Leading experts explain how current research on all aspects of literacy translates into innovative classroom practices. Chapters include clear descriptions of effective interventions for word recognition, spelling, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing, complete with concrete examples and teaching scripts. Coverage also encompasses preschool literacy instruction and interventions for older readers, English language learners, and students with learning disabilities, as well as peer-mediated and tutoring approaches.

Assessing Academic English for Higher Education Admissions

Assessing Academic English for Higher Education Admissions
Author: Xiaoming Xi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2021-05-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351142380

Assessing Academic English for Higher Education Admissions is a state-of-the-art overview of advances in theories and practices relevant to the assessment of academic English skills for higher education admissions purposes. The volume includes a brief introduction followed by four main chapters focusing on critical developments in theories and practices for assessing reading, listening, writing, and speaking, of which the latter two also address the assessment of integrated skills such as reading-writing, listening-speaking, and reading-listening-speaking. Each chapter reviews new task types, scoring approaches, and scoring technologies and their implications in light of the increasing use of technology in academic communication and the growing use of English as a lingua franca worldwide. The volume concludes with recommendations about critical areas of research and development that will help move the field forward. Assessing Academic English for Higher Education Admissions is an ideal resource for researchers and graduate students in language testing and assessment worldwide.

Writing Systems, Reading Processes, and Cross-Linguistic Influences

Writing Systems, Reading Processes, and Cross-Linguistic Influences
Author: Hye K. Pae
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2018-07-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027264058

This book provides readers with a unique array of scholarly reflections on the writing systems of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in relation to reading processes and data-driven interpretations of cross-language transfer. Distinctively broad in scope, topics addressed in this volume include word reading with respect to orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic processing as well as cross-linguistic influences on reading in English as a second language or a foreign language. Given that the three focal scripts have unique orthographic features not found in other languages – Chinese as logography, Japanese with multi-scripts, and Korean as non-Roman alphasyllabary – chapters expound script-universal and script-specific reading processes. As a means of scaling up the body of knowledge traditionally focused on Anglocentric reading research, the scientific accounts articulated in this volume importantly expand the field’s current theoretical frameworks of word processing to theory building with regard to these three languages.

Theories of Reading Development

Theories of Reading Development
Author: Kate Cain
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2017-08-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902726564X

The use of printed words to capture language is one of the most remarkable inventions of humankind, and learning to read them is one of the most remarkable achievements of individuals. In recent decades, how we learn to read and understand printed text has been studied intensely in genetics, education, psychology, and cognitive science, and both the volume of research papers and breadth of the topics they examine have increased exponentially. Theories of Reading Development collects within a single volume state-of-the-art descriptions of important theories of reading development and disabilities. The included chapters focus on multiple aspects of reading development and are written by leading experts in the field. Each chapter is an independent theoretical review of the topic to which the authors have made a significant contribution and can be enjoyed on its own, or in relation to others in the book. The volume is written for professionals, graduate students, and researchers in education, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. It can be used either as a core or as a supplementary text in senior undergraduate and graduate education and psychology courses focusing on reading development.

Artificial Intelligence in Education

Artificial Intelligence in Education
Author: Gautam Biswas
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 664
Release: 2011-06-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3642218695

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, AIED 2011, held in Auckland, New Zealand in June/July 2011. The 49 revised full papers presented together with three invited talks and extended abstracts of poster presentations, young researchers contributions and interactive systems reports and workshop reports were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 193 submissions. The papers report on technical advances in and cross-fertilization of approaches and ideas from the many topical areas that make up this highly interdisciplinary field of research and development including artificial intelligence, agent technology, computer science, cognitive and learning sciences, education, educational technology, game design, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and linguistics.

Becoming a Reading Teacher

Becoming a Reading Teacher
Author: Jane Spiro
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2023-04-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000812707

This book encourages readers to think about reading not only as an encounter with written language, but as a lifelong habit of engagement with ideas. We look at reading in four different ways: as linguistic process, personal experience, collective experience, and as classroom practice. We think about how reading influences a life, how it changes over time, how we might return at different stages of life to the same reading, how we might respond differently to ideas read in an L1 and L2. There are 44 teaching activities, all founded on research that explores the nature, value and impact of reading as an authentic activity rather than for language or study purposes alone. We consider what this means for schools and classrooms, and for different kinds of learners. The final part of the book provides practical stepping stones for the teacher to become a researcher of their own classes and learners. The four parts of the book offer a virtuous join between reading, teaching and researching. It will be useful for any teacher or reader who wishes to refresh their view of how reading fits in to the development of language and the development of a reading life.

Written and Spoken Language Development across the Lifespan

Written and Spoken Language Development across the Lifespan
Author: Joan Perera
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2015-11-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3319211366

This multidisciplinary volume offers insights on oral and written language development and how it takes place in literate societies. The volume covers topics from early to late language development, its interaction with literacy practices, including several languages, monolingual and multilingual contexts, different scripts, as well as typical and atypical development. Inspired by the work of Liliana Tolchinsky, a leading expert in language and literacy development, a group of internationally renowned scholars offers a state-of-the-art overview of current thinking in language development in literate societies in its broadest sense. Contributors offer a personal tribute to Liliana Tolchinsky in the opening section.

Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading

Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading
Author: Peter Afflerbach
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1135120935

The central unifying theme of this state-of-the-art contribution to research on literacy is its rethinking and reconceptualization of individual differences in reading. Previous research, focused on cognitive components of reading, signaled the need for ongoing work to identify relevant individual differences in reading, to determine the relationship(s) of individual differences to reading development, and to account for interactions among individual differences. Addressing developments in each of these areas, this volume also describes affective individual differences, and the environments in which individual differences in reading may emerge, operate, interact, and change. The scant comprehensive accounting of individual differences in reading is reflected in the nature of reading instruction programs today, the outcomes that are expected from successful teaching and learning, and the manner in which reading development is assessed. An important contribution of this volume is to provide prima facie evidence of the benefits of broad conceptualization of the ways in which readers differ. The Handbook of Individual Differences in Reading moves the field forward by encompassing cognitive, non-cognitive, contextual, and methodological concerns. Its breadth of coverage serves as both a useful summary of the current state of knowledge and a guide for future work in this area.

Inferences during Reading

Inferences during Reading
Author: Edward J. O'Brien
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2015-04-16
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 131629904X

Inferencing is defined as 'the act of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true', and it is one of the most important processes necessary for successful comprehension during reading. This volume features contributions by distinguished researchers in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and neuroscience on topics central to our understanding of the inferential process during reading. The chapters cover aspects of inferencing that range from the fundamental bottom-up processes that form the basis for an inference to occur, to the more strategic processes that transpire when a reader is engaged in literary understanding of a text. Basic activation mechanisms, word-level inferencing, methodological considerations, inference validation, causal inferencing, emotion, development of inferences processes as a skill, embodiment, contributions from neuroscience, and applications to naturalistic text are all covered as well as expository text, online learning materials, and literary immersion.