Well Played! Promoting Phonemic Awareness Training Using EdTech-GraphoGame Brazil-During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Early literacy skills such as alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness are made up the foundation for learning to read. These skills are more effectively taught with explicit instruction starting inpreschool and then continuing during early elementary school years. The COVID19 pandemic school closures severely impacted early literacy development worldwide. Brazil had one of the longest school closure periods, which resulted in several children having no access to any educational activities. Education Technology (EdTech) tools can leverage access to pedagogical materials and remediate the consequences of school closure. We investigated the impact of using an early literacy EdTech, GraphoGame Brazil, to foster learning of early literacy skills during the height of COVID19 school closures, in Brazil. We carried out a quasi-experimental, pretest and posttest study with elementary school students who were taking online classes. Participants were pseudo randomly assigned to (1) an experimental group, who played GraphoGame Brazil, and to (2) an active control group, who played an EdTech that focuses on early numeracy skills. The results show a significant positive training effect on word reading accuracy associated with the use of GraphoGame for the children in the experimental group, relative to the control group. We also found statistically significant negative effect in lowercase naming for the control group. We address the consequences of COVID19 school closures, the promise of EdTech and its limitations, and discuss the issue of fostering successful early literacy instruction in countries that have struggled with teaching children to read even before the pandemic.

Gotta Name'em All: an Experimental Study on the Sound Symbolism of Pokémon Names in Brazilian Portuguese.

Sound-symbolic patterns which relate to the perception of size were found to motivate the behavior of English and Japanese speakers in the naming of pre- and post-evolution Pokémon. The current study builds from this finding and investigates which sound-symbolic association speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) employ to name Pokémon characters. Results from 3 experiments show that vowel quality, phonological length and voiced obstruents, usually used to signal differences in size, are used to signal differences in evolution; however, the effects of voiced obstruents are not identical to what was previously observed in the behavior of Japanese speakers. We argue that although there is a universal sound symbolism associated with these sounds and the perception of largeness, its manifestation differs cross-linguistically. To the best of our knowledge, this is one the first experimental research to investigate sound symbolism and the perception of size in BP.

Protective Effect of Whole and Fat-Free Fluoridated Milk, Applied before or after Acid Challenge, against Dental Erosion.

This study analysed in vitro the effect of milk against dental erosion, considering three factors: the type of milk (bovine whole/fat-free), the presence of different fluoride concentrations and the time of application (before/after erosive challenge). Bovine enamel (n = 15/group) and root dentine (n = 12/group) specimens were submitted to the following treatments: after the first erosive challenge - 0.9% NaCl solution (negative control), whole milk with 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 ppm F, fat-free milk with 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 ppm F, and 0.05% NaF solution (positive control); before the first erosive challenge - whole milk with 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 ppm F, fat-free milk with 0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 ppm F, and 0.05% NaF solution (positive control). Specimens were submitted to demineralisation-remineralisation regimes 4 times/day for 5 days. The response variables were enamel and dentine loss (in micrometres). Data were analysed using Kruskal-Wallis/Dunn's test (p < 0.05). For enamel, whole milk containing 10 ppm F, applied before the erosive challenge, was the most protective treatment, but with no significant difference compared with the same treatment carried out after the erosive challenge. For dentine, whole fluoridated milk (all concentrations, after), fat-free 10 ppm F milk (after, before) and whole milk with or without F (except 2.5 ppm F, all before) significantly reduced dentine erosion. It seems that the presence of fluoride, especially at 10 ppm, is the most important factor in reducing dental erosion.