"She says that I'm good at reading": A Case Study of Engaged Māori Beginning Readers

<p>The impetus and reason for this study has been a desire to discover and capture the 'spark' that causes Māori children specifically, to have a love of reading, to be enthusiastic about reading and, in turn to be confident and competent beginning readers. Research in Maori education often focuses on problems of student underachievement. This study by contrast has aimed to highlight aspects of positive practice by recording the learning behaviours of a group of Maori children across two low decile primary schools, who are not only engaged in the beginning approach to reading but who are clearly motivated by and enjoying the process. This study explores the reasons why Māori children are engaged and motivated beginning readers and aims to see if it is possible to capture any of these attributes in order to support other Māori learners in becoming successful readers. The value of this research is in its potential to contribute to frameworks or initiatives that support Māori children achieving well, in this case, in the area of literacy. This study is a qualitative research under the tradition of a case study inquiry and is embedded within a Kaupapa Māori paradigm. A total of 17 participants (two literacy advisers, two teachers, six children and seven parents) were interviewed using flexibly structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analysed through themes that came from the data itself. Common themes from each participant group allowed for analysis in relation to the key research questions: What is the spark that causes Māori children to have a 'love of reading? What does this spark look like? What sparks Māori children into enjoying reading? And what are the factors and influences that contribute to reading engagement and motivation for Māori children? Classroom observations and video filming were also methods of data gathering in order to gain full and deep contexts of descriptive data of the children and teachers in their natural everyday classroom environment. The six children observed in this study were strongly engaged in classroom reading contexts and motivated to read. Both teachers and parents had a firm but relaxed approach to the reading experience. Strong and supportive home-school relationships with open communication were evident. Māori tikanga (practice) was incorporated naturally into planning. Teacher planning and practice was in line with best evidence for effective literacy practice. The practice of the two Pakeha teachers was in many ways consonant with Maori pedagogical approaches and this gave support to the children as Māori learners. The observations and interviews showed beginning readers who were comfortable and relaxed in their learning. They were making clear progress in reading, and approaching national norms in achievement. The 'spark' that leads children to be highly motivated readers, concentrating on reading tasks and clearly loving the process of learning to read is an intangible quality, hard to jmeasure in practice. But high levels of concentration, enjoyment of reading, and a desire to learn can be observed and recorded. All these things were seen in this study. It is possible to nurture and grow the enthusiasm, engagement and motivation that these children have if teachers demonstrate open hearts and minds in wanting to know their learners. The 'spark' or motivation in this study was also nurtured through the interconnected relationships the children had with their teachers and families and the effective teaching and learning practices displayed by the teachers. Using te reo (language) and tikanga Māori as a 'normal' part of daily practice contributed to the holistic wellbeing of the Māori children in this study, alongside strong home-school relationships. The combination of good teaching practice, good relationships and a firm but relaxed approach provides a model in action for success in supporting Maori children's beginning reading.</p>

"She says that I'm good at reading": A Case Study of Engaged Māori Beginning Readers

<p>The impetus and reason for this study has been a desire to discover and capture the 'spark' that causes Māori children specifically, to have a love of reading, to be enthusiastic about reading and, in turn to be confident and competent beginning readers. Research in Maori education often focuses on problems of student underachievement. This study by contrast has aimed to highlight aspects of positive practice by recording the learning behaviours of a group of Maori children across two low decile primary schools, who are not only engaged in the beginning approach to reading but who are clearly motivated by and enjoying the process. This study explores the reasons why Māori children are engaged and motivated beginning readers and aims to see if it is possible to capture any of these attributes in order to support other Māori learners in becoming successful readers. The value of this research is in its potential to contribute to frameworks or initiatives that support Māori children achieving well, in this case, in the area of literacy. This study is a qualitative research under the tradition of a case study inquiry and is embedded within a Kaupapa Māori paradigm. A total of 17 participants (two literacy advisers, two teachers, six children and seven parents) were interviewed using flexibly structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analysed through themes that came from the data itself. Common themes from each participant group allowed for analysis in relation to the key research questions: What is the spark that causes Māori children to have a 'love of reading? What does this spark look like? What sparks Māori children into enjoying reading? And what are the factors and influences that contribute to reading engagement and motivation for Māori children? Classroom observations and video filming were also methods of data gathering in order to gain full and deep contexts of descriptive data of the children and teachers in their natural everyday classroom environment. The six children observed in this study were strongly engaged in classroom reading contexts and motivated to read. Both teachers and parents had a firm but relaxed approach to the reading experience. Strong and supportive home-school relationships with open communication were evident. Māori tikanga (practice) was incorporated naturally into planning. Teacher planning and practice was in line with best evidence for effective literacy practice. The practice of the two Pakeha teachers was in many ways consonant with Maori pedagogical approaches and this gave support to the children as Māori learners. The observations and interviews showed beginning readers who were comfortable and relaxed in their learning. They were making clear progress in reading, and approaching national norms in achievement. The 'spark' that leads children to be highly motivated readers, concentrating on reading tasks and clearly loving the process of learning to read is an intangible quality, hard to jmeasure in practice. But high levels of concentration, enjoyment of reading, and a desire to learn can be observed and recorded. All these things were seen in this study. It is possible to nurture and grow the enthusiasm, engagement and motivation that these children have if teachers demonstrate open hearts and minds in wanting to know their learners. The 'spark' or motivation in this study was also nurtured through the interconnected relationships the children had with their teachers and families and the effective teaching and learning practices displayed by the teachers. Using te reo (language) and tikanga Māori as a 'normal' part of daily practice contributed to the holistic wellbeing of the Māori children in this study, alongside strong home-school relationships. The combination of good teaching practice, good relationships and a firm but relaxed approach provides a model in action for success in supporting Maori children's beginning reading.</p>

Processing voice morphology and argument structure by Greek Beginning Readers and children with Reading Difficulties

Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence comprehension, which are often attributed to phonological processing, working memory, syntactic awareness limitations, or a maturation delay. Using an online self-paced reading task, we investigated the effect of voice morphology and argument structure on sentence processing in 3 groups of participants; 30 children RDs, 28 Age-Matched (AM) controls without RDs, and 28 young Beginning Readers (BRs). Our results suggest that although the RDs and BR groups present similar reading times, their reading patterns differ qualitatively. Beginning Readers experienced greater processing delays when processing NACT structures, suggesting that they have not yet fully grasped the properties of the various NACT verbs. However, the RDs group presents effects not found in the BR group; children with RDs were sensitive to the properties of the different types of NACT verbs showing (a) evidence that the language processor successfully engages in predictions based on the morphosyntactic and lexical characteristics of verbs and (b) preference for default/prototypical readings. These results point toward processing limitations that are greatly affected by syntactic complexity.

Evolution of reading and face circuits during the first three years of reading acquisition

Although words and faces activate neighboring regions in the fusiform gyrus, we lack an understanding of how this category selectivity emerges during development. To investigate the organization of reading and face circuits at the earliest stage of reading acquisition, we measured the fMRI responses to words, faces, houses, and checkerboards in three groups of 60 children: 6-year-old pre-readers, 6-year-old beginning readers and 9-year-old advanced readers. The results showed that specific responses to written words were absent prior to reading, but emerged in beginning readers, irrespective of age. Likewise, specific responses to faces were weak or absent in pre-readers, but they emerged more slowly and continued to evolve in the 9-year-olds, primarily driven by age rather than by schooling. Crucially, the sectors of ventral visual cortex that become specialized words and faces harbored their own functional connectivity prior to reading acquisition: the VWFA with left-hemispheric spoken language areas, and the FFA with the contralateral region and the amygdalae. The results support the view that reading acquisition occurs through the recycling of a pre-existing but plastic circuit which, in pre-readers, already connects the VWFA site to other distant language areas. Furthermore, reading acquisition does not compete with the face system directly, through a pruning of preexisting face responses, but indirectly, by partially reorienting the slow growth of face responses to the right hemisphere.