scholarly journals Start with a Seedling: Uncovering the Kindergarten Language and Literacy Curriculum One Leaf at a Time

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Lyndsay Moffatt

While recent research has documented a myriad of benefits to school gardening and food programs, many educators and administrators voice concerns that such programs detract from the provincially mandated curriculum and few researchers have investigated how school gardening and food programs may support language and literacy curriculum expectations. Using a content analysis of transcripts of audio data from a school gardening and food program that matched 24 kindergarten children with 17 adult and young adult volunteers, this study illustrates how such a program may help support mandated language and literacy curriculum. Analysis suggests the children involved in the program practiced important oral language skills, such as asking questions and expressing experiences with their garden buddies at a high frequency. 

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEBORAH L. SPEECE ◽  
FROMA P. ROTH ◽  
DAVID H. COOPER ◽  
SUSAN DE LA PAZ

This study examined relationships between oral language and literacy in a two-year, multivariate design. Through empirical cluster analysis of a sample of 88 kindergarten children, four oral language subtypes were identified based on measures of semantics, syntax, metalinguistics, and oral narration. Validation efforts included (a) concurrent and predictive analyses of subtype differences on reading, spelling, and listening comprehension measures based on a priori hypotheses and (b) a comparison of the teacher classification of the children with the empirical classification. The subtypes represented high average, low average, high narrative, and low overall patterns of oral language skill. The high average subtype received the most consistent evidence for validation. The pattern of validation results indicates that the relationship between oral language and literacy is not uniform and suggests a modification of the assumption that oral language skills have a direct role in reading acquisition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1304
Author(s):  
Redab Al Janaideh ◽  
Alexandra Gottardo ◽  
Sana Tibi ◽  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Xi Chen

AbstractCanada has resettled more than 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015 (Government of Canada, 2017). However, little is known about refugee children’s language and literacy development. The present study evaluated Syrian refugee children’s performance on language and literacy measures in English and Arabic, and examined whether the simple view of reading model is applicable in both of their languages. Participants consisted of 115 Syrian refugee children 6–13 years of age. They received a battery of language and literacy measures including word reading, vocabulary, oral narratives, and reading comprehension in both English and Arabic. Compared to the normative samples, refugee children performed poorly on English standardized measures. They also demonstrated difficulties in Arabic, as more than half of the children were not able to read in the language. Despite the relatively low performance, there was evidence to support the simple view of reading model in both languages. In addition, oral language skills played a larger role in English reading comprehension in the older group than the younger group. This age-group comparison was not carried out in Arabic due to reduced sample size. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendalyn L Webb ◽  
Cori J Williams

Australian Aboriginal children, in general, lag behind their mainstream peers in measures of literacy. This article discusses some of the complex and interconnected factors that impact Aboriginal children’s early language and literacy development. Poor health and historically negative socio-political factors are known influences on Aboriginal children’s participation and achievement in education. Cultural and dialectal differences are also considered in this article for the effect these variables may have on children’s learning, in terms of both the child’s ability to code-shift between dialects and the development of the educator–child relationship. The importance of this relationship is discussed, partly because of the valuable communicative interactions that are involved. These educator–child interactions allow children an opportunity to extend their oral language skills, which are essential precursors to literacy development. This discussion concludes with some suggestions for further research.


Author(s):  
Raffaele Dicataldo ◽  
Elena Florit ◽  
Maja Roch

Socioeconomic disparities increase the probability that children will enter school behind their more advantaged peers. Early intervention on language skills may enhance language and literacy outcomes, reduce the gap and, eventually, promote school readiness of low-SES (Socioeconomic Status) children. This study aimed to analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of a brief narrative-based intervention (treatment vs. control group) aimed to foster broad oral language skills in preschoolers (N = 69; Mean age = 5.5, SD = 4 months) coming from low-SES families. Moreover, it was analyzed whether children’s initial vocabulary mediates the intervention’s responsiveness. Results have shown that children in treatment group obtained greater gains than children in control group in almost all intervention-based measures. There is also some evidence for the generalizability of the intervention to other skills not directly trained during the intervention. Moreover, it was found that children’s initial vocabulary mediates the intervention’s responsiveness showing that children with high vocabulary made greater gains in higher-level components of language comprehension, whereas children with low vocabulary made higher gains in vocabulary. Taken together, our findings suggest that a relatively brief, but quite intensive narrative-based intervention, may produce improvements on broad oral language skills in preschoolers from low-SES backgrounds.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogayah A. Razak ◽  
Loke Xing Lin ◽  
Mohd Azmarul A. Aziz

Dyslexia can involve among others, difficulties in spoken language. However, there is limited local data on oral language (narrative skills) and literacy skills in children with dyslexia. The relationship between language and literacy is well documented although they involve complicated and non-straightforward processes. There is also evidence suggesting a link between language difficulties with subsequent literacy difficulties. Thus, this study aims to identify and describe the language and literacy skills of Malay children with dyslexia, and to discuss the possible relationships between them. Subjects were six children with dyslexia in the Klang Valley, Malaysia aged 8:0 to 9:11 (mean age, 8:10) who were compared to an age-matched control group (n = 10). The battery of tests administrated was phonological awareness test, language task, narrative, and literacy tasks. Our findings showed that children with dyslexia had generally weaker language and literacy skills than the control group. There were significant differences (p < .05) in grammar understanding, sentence repetition, and reading and spelling at both word and paragraph levels. Pearson correlation between language and literacy was shown to be positive and strong, r = .887, p < .05. The qualitative discussion of the data is presented. Findings from this study would provide useful information to teachers and speech-language therapists in their teaching or planning of appropriate clinical evaluation and management of children with dyslexia.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry W. Larson

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1375-1391 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN HIPFNER-BOUCHER ◽  
KATIE LAM ◽  
XI CHEN

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relationship between L2 oral narrative morphosyntactic quality and L2 reading comprehension in a sample of 81 students enrolled in a Canadian French immersion program in Grade 1. Measures of French narrative generation and reading comprehension were administered concurrently. The proportion of utterances in the narratives that were judged to be grammatically acceptable was found to explain unique variance in reading comprehension, controlling for nonverbal intelligence, maternal education, phonological awareness, vocabulary and word reading. The results suggest that even in the earliest stages of L2 literacy acquisition, L2 oral language skills contribute to reading comprehension outcomes. The results of our study suggest that there may be value in providing L2 children with classroom-based story-related experiences that expose them to literate language.


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