Reforming Energy Subsidy in Kuwait: Maximizing Net Benefits and Equity Complying

The net benefits and public acceptance for a proposed reform to the current subsidization of energy in the State of Kuwait was investigated in this study. The proposed subsidization suggests that the government pays the consumers the subsidization cost in advance and in exchange for raising the subsidized tariffs to full price. The consumption will likely be reduced by a rate equals the over consumption due to the current subsidized tariffs in relative to the income. The net benefits is expected to be maximized and shifted to a pseudo-equilibrium point where both the governments and the consumers will be better off financially. The public acceptance toward the proposed strategy was examined using 274 voluntarily one-to-one interviews for gasoline and 121 for electricity and water. Also, a utilities meters reading program was conducted on 90 houses out of the 121 interviews for utilities. The interviews for gasoline and utilities indicated 57% and 66% of the respondents see no equity in the current subsidization, 55% and 80% admitted to overuse, and 11% and 21% averages of the over consumptions, and 67% and 66% of the respondents were willing to adopt the new strategy. The consumer is expected to save 912 USD/year from gasoline, and 8,198 USD/year from utilities. The estimated net benefits is 5,841 million USD annually with 62% attributed to utilities benefits and 38% to gasoline benefits.

Unleashing the Potential of Abstraction From Cloud of Computational Thinking: A Systematic Review of Literature

Although abstraction is widely understood to be one of the primary components of computational thinking, the roots of abstraction may be traced back to different fields. Hence, the meaning of abstraction in the context of computational thinking is often confounded, as researchers interpret abstraction through diverse lenses. To disentangle these conceptual threads and gain insight into the operationalisation of abstraction, a systematic review of 96 empirical studies was undertaken. Analysis revealed that identifying features of entities, extracting relevant features, discovering patterns, creating rules and assembling the parts together were the core actions of abstraction. With the primary aim of simplifying practical procedures, abstraction was operationalised as the sophistication of a program, the matching of patterns, the creation of alternative representations, the transfer of solutions, the measurement of a learner’s activity and reading program codes. There is an obvious need for researchers to align the conceptual meanings they have established of abstraction with the practical facts of operationalisation. The need to empirically validate emerging models and the implications for future research are discussed.

Exploring Educative Components to Conceptualize an Effective Implementation of Reading Discipline Curricula in Pre-service Teacher-Education Program

The curriculum implementation literature has recently focused more on identifying and measuring the key components of the innovative curriculum needed to achieve desired outcomes. However, most of this work centers on curriculum implementation external to the field of teacher education. In this article, we report on our identification of the educative components that form one component of the framework for conceptualizing the implementation of newly developed reading curricula for a Bachelor of Education Elementary program. The results suggest that prerequisite knowledge about reading instruction and knowledge of the entire reading program are necessary for an effective implementation of curriculum change in the discipline of reading.

Reducing Trauma from Behind Bars: Enhancing Parent-Child Attachment Through a Digitally Distributed Reading Program

Incarceration impacts families by disrupting routine attachment, creating negative consequences for both the parent and child. This article examines the use of an intervention videoing incarcerated parents reading to their children and then delivering those videos to improve child outcomes. Using a mixed-methods approach, a total of 587 surveys were completed by program participants and analyzed for parental perceptions of the program effectiveness. The intervention appeared to increase the frequency of correspondence between the parent and child, improved the sense of parent-child relationship, and increased a sense of involvement, attachment, and connectedness.

What Lies Beneath the Stated Meanings: a Transactional View of Language Learners Making Meaning with Texts

<p>This thesis reports on a year long case study conducted into the processes and products of English Second Language (ESL) learners reading fiction texts for pleasure in a high school extensive reading program. Although 'extensive reading' is usually associated with interactive language learning perspectives such as 'Second Language Acquisition' (for one view within this perspective see Krashen [1982]), a different theoretical perspective was applied in the present study. Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reader response is used to analyse and discuss data made about teenagers reading for pleasure in an extensive reading program. At the heart of Rosenblatt's transactional theory is the assumption that every reading event is unique to the person, text and context of that reading experience. To understand what it means to make meaning with a text, each of those things must be considered. Thus in order to better understand ESL learners' processes and products of reading for pleasure, this thesis provides a fine grained, deep description of how one reader made meaning with texts. This description is contextualised and enriched through the inclusion of case study data from other ESL and native English speaker participants. By focusing on one reader, the complexity of the interrelationships of reader, text and context are amply demonstrated. This, it will be argued, provides a valuable lens through which teachers and researchers may view other readers, other texts and other contexts. Conclusions drawn from this study will claim that Rosenblatt's transactional theory not only readily facilitates language learning goals (for example, extensive use of the target language) but importantly provides another perspective, apart from the predominant interactive language learning perspectives, on what it might mean for readers to make meaning with texts read for pleasure. Understanding the processes and products of reading for pleasure from a transactional view has pedagogical import for the utilization of extensive reading programs, and perhaps most importantly, for the intellectual development of second language learners.</p>

What Lies Beneath the Stated Meanings: a Transactional View of Language Learners Making Meaning with Texts

<p>This thesis reports on a year long case study conducted into the processes and products of English Second Language (ESL) learners reading fiction texts for pleasure in a high school extensive reading program. Although 'extensive reading' is usually associated with interactive language learning perspectives such as 'Second Language Acquisition' (for one view within this perspective see Krashen [1982]), a different theoretical perspective was applied in the present study. Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reader response is used to analyse and discuss data made about teenagers reading for pleasure in an extensive reading program. At the heart of Rosenblatt's transactional theory is the assumption that every reading event is unique to the person, text and context of that reading experience. To understand what it means to make meaning with a text, each of those things must be considered. Thus in order to better understand ESL learners' processes and products of reading for pleasure, this thesis provides a fine grained, deep description of how one reader made meaning with texts. This description is contextualised and enriched through the inclusion of case study data from other ESL and native English speaker participants. By focusing on one reader, the complexity of the interrelationships of reader, text and context are amply demonstrated. This, it will be argued, provides a valuable lens through which teachers and researchers may view other readers, other texts and other contexts. Conclusions drawn from this study will claim that Rosenblatt's transactional theory not only readily facilitates language learning goals (for example, extensive use of the target language) but importantly provides another perspective, apart from the predominant interactive language learning perspectives, on what it might mean for readers to make meaning with texts read for pleasure. Understanding the processes and products of reading for pleasure from a transactional view has pedagogical import for the utilization of extensive reading programs, and perhaps most importantly, for the intellectual development of second language learners.</p>

The Effects of Leveled Reading on Second Language Learners

This study examines the significance of using leveled texts in the improvement of second language learners’ word recognition skills, accuracy and fluency. For this purpose, the research explores students’ readings levels, word identification and decoding skills, reading accuracy and reading fluency before and after the leveled reading program. In addition, the study investigates the English teachers’ perspectives about leveled reading and their outlook on parental. Lastly, the article explores parents’ views towards the impact of parental involvement towards child’s development. The research followed a mixed method research design, combining quantitative and qualitative data. The study was conducted in four elementary private schools in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The findings showed steady growth in word recognition abilities and improved automaticity. Results from running records exhibited a substantial increase in accuracy. Fluency assessments displayed a rise in fluency rate and fluency scores. Implications from this study indicate the positive effects of readings at the frustration level. Therefore, it is encouraged to explore further the impact of providing challenging reading materials.

Implementing basal reading program in EFL upper secondary school settings

Basal readers have been selected by the school to cope with students’ lack of vocabulary size. With some positively perceived learning outcomes, the readers continued to be used from year to year and were decided as a school program, in addition to ELT national curriculum. The research is aimed at exploring the following aspects: (1) the teacher’s use of basal readers in the classrooms, (2) the classroom procedures developed by the teacher understudy, and (3) the students’ response to the implementation of the basal reading program. A descriptive case study with classroom observation as a main data collection technique was employed to explore the phenomena. The research brings several points to consider. First, basal readers have been extensively used by the school for different purposes: 1) for vocabulary enrichment, (2) for intensive reading materials, (3) as resource making classroom tests, and (4) a basis for writing phonetic symbols, and (5) for promoting speaking skills. Second, the school has developed its own strategies to use the readers with specific procedures. Third, the use of basal readers was positively responded to by the students with some suggestions for better implementation. HIGHLIGHTS: Basal reading program was implemented with a specific procedure developed by the local school English teachers. Basal readers selected for the reading program were utilized to develop reading skills in which vocabulary memorization and pronunciation drills were used to support the skills. The program was positively responded by the students with some suggestions for a better implementation.