Phonological assessment and analysis of bilingual preschoolers' Spanish and English word productions.

PURPOSE: The major purpose of this study was to examine Spanish and English phonological productions (patterns/deviations) of typically developing bilingual preschool children. Phonological scores were compared in order to determine if significant differences exist between (a) boys and girls, (b) 4- and 5-year-olds, and/or (c) their productions of Spanish and English words. METHOD: Fifty-six bilingual 4- and 5-year-old children (27 boys and 29 girls) who attended Head Start programs named stimulus items for Spanish and English phonological assessment instruments that were similar in procedures and analyses. RESULTS: Multivariate analyses indicated no significant differences for phonological scores between boys and girls or between the 2 languages. Differences between the 4- and 5-year-olds, however, were significant, with the 5-year-olds performing better than the 4-year-olds. Liquid deviations and omissions of consonants in clusters/sequences were the most frequently occurring phonological deviations. CONCLUSIONS: Phonological score differences between typically developing bilingual Spanish-English-speaking preschool boys and girls from similar backgrounds are not likely to be significant. Better phonological scores, however, can be expected for 5-year-olds than for 4-year-olds. Moreover, phonological deviation percentage scores of typically developing bilingual children for comparable Spanish and English assessment instruments are likely to be similar.

Creencias epistemológicas y de aprendizaje en la formación inicial de profesores / Epistemological and learning beliefs of trainee teachers studying Education

Las reformas educacionales han planteado transformaciones respecto a la forma en que se desarrolla el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. El aprendizaje se contextualiza y aprender es cómo aprender. Esto se relaciona directamente con la formación que reciben estudiantes de magisterio. Por ello, surge desde la investigación, la incógnita en torno a las creencias epistemológicas que tienen los estudiantes de magisterio. A 117 estudiantes, muestra de sujetos voluntaria, de la carrera de Magisterio de una universidad en Chile se le aplica el Cuestionario Epistemológico de de Schommer-Aikins (1995) y una entrevista. Se concluye que los sujetos presentan indistintamente, en mayor o menor grado, en cada una de las dimensiones un comportamiento de tipo ingenuo como sofisticado, lo cual viene a corroborar el planteamiento de tipo multidimensional que sostiene la autora del cuestionario con respecto a las creencias epistemológicas (AU)

Educational reforms have brought about transformations about the ways in which teaching and learning are carried out. Learning is contextualized and learning means how we learn. This is directly related to Education student training. This research study focuses on the epistemological beliefs held by Education students. Our sample was made up of 117 Education students from a university in Chile, who voluntarily participated in our study. They were administered Schommer-Aikins Epistemological Questionnaire (1995) and also interviewed. We concluded that participants indistinctly showed a sophisticated and unsophisticated behaviour in each of the dimensions, which confirms the multidimensional approach that the author of the questionnaire claims regarding epistemological beliefs (AU)

Ways of knowing and willingness to argue.

Willingness to argue is associated with higher level thinking. The authors tested the relation between ways of knowing-involving separate knowing (i.e., playing the devil's advocate) and connected knowing (i.e., empathic understanding)--and students' willingness to argue. Participants were 171 male and 231 female college undergraduates who completed assessments in ways of knowing and willingness to argue. Also, the participants defined the word argument in their own words. After the authors controlled for demographic variables, endorsement of separate knowing predicted willingness to argue. Students with high scores in separate knowing (objective, adversarial knowing) and connected knowing (subjective, empathic knowing) indicated more willingness to argue. Furthermore, these same students defined argument as a constructive form of communication. Students with low scores in separate knowing defined argument as an emotional battle with the goal of psychological harm. This negative perspective could be an impediment to engaging students in classroom debate and critical thinking.

An examination of phonological awareness treatment outcomes for seventh-grade poor readers from a bilingual community.

PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to examine posttreatment outcomes following direct, systematic phonological awareness instruction for seventh-grade poor readers, most of whom had English as their second language. METHOD: The treatment group (n = 35) participated in small-group instruction sessions that emphasized phonological awareness at the phoneme level and incorporated explicit linkages to literacy. The treatment, which was administered in the participants' school setting over a 12-week period, involved approximately 45 hr of contact with a trained instructor. Postintervention performance of the treatment group was compared to performance of students from the same school and grade level who were waiting to receive phonological awareness treatment (nontreatment group, n= 33). RESULTS: ANCOVA results for total reading scores and MANCOVA results for Phonological Awarenes, Word Attack, Word Identification, Word Comprehension, and Passage Comprehension subtests indicated that group differences were significant. The posttreatment scores of the treatment group were higher for all measures. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Seventh-grade poor readers, including bilingual students who have English as their second language, can benefit from direct, systematic instruction that emphasizes phonological awareness and is linked to literacy.

Performance on phonological and grammatical awareness metalinguistic tasks by children who stutter and their fluent peers.

UNLABELLED: This study was undertaken to examine the performance of 23 children who stutter (CWS) and 23 children who do not stutter (CWNS) on three metalinguistic tasks. These included two phonological awareness assessment procedures (The Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test (LAC) and a Phoneme Reversal Task) and one modified Grammar Judgments Task where syntactic and semantic appropriateness of sentences was evaluated. Differences between groups were significant for the grammar judgment task, where CWNS outperformed CWS in judging syntactically and semantically anomalous sentences. Group differences were not significant for the phonological awareness tasks. The results underscore the importance of examining metalinguistic abilities of CWS through a variety of tasks. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) recognize the relevance of examining metalinguistic abilities within the context of research on language-stuttering dynamics; and (2) identify measures of metalinguistic abilities that can be used to compare the performances of CWS and CWNS.

Epistemological beliefs and thinking about everyday controversial issues.

The authors investigated the relationship between individuals' beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the nature of learning (epistemological beliefs) and their thinking about everyday controversial issues. Adults (N = 174) ranging in age from 17 to 71 years old with a mean age of 38 completed the Schommer Epistemological Questionnaire (M. Schommer, 1990), which assessed their beliefs in the certainty and organization of knowledge and the speed and control of learning. After they had completed the questionnaire, they responded to a series of questions about two controversial issues that had been discussed in the local newspaper. Regression analyses indicated that the more the participants believed in complex and tentative knowledge, the more likely they were to take on multiple perspectives, be willing to modify their thinking, withhold ultimate decisions until all information was available, and acknowledge the complex, tentative nature of everyday issues. Epistemological beliefs that are heavily influenced by a higher level of education appear to relate to thinking beyond the classroom, and introducing controversial issues into the curriculum may reciprocally foster the development of epistemological beliefs.